Love & Obsession

Good afternoon ladies and gentleman

So, as per usual, i have wandered off, meandering through the ideas and thoughts that modern life can throw at us. The problems of the “reality bomb,” the routine we often go to dramatic lengths to avoid come storming back, a debilitating feeling of, almost meaningless. In the repeated familiarity of “going through the motions”, after feeling and seeing so much in that moment that made you feel just so fucking amazing.

Through considering this almost obsessive need to avoid the routine we are all to comfortable to fall back into- i found myself having a conversation with one of my best friends, as we argued about the idea of sharing a “bond” with someone so powerful, to the end you would be able to deal with the all the negative, power absorbing, mentally draining behavior that could come with a dysfunctional relationship, for the eighty percent of the time you may feel miserable, scared of being alone and away from this person, so just deal with it the best you can for all the good that other twenty percent brings.

It could be argued its almost like a pay off, dealing with all the negativity of a poisonous relationship, for the twenty percent of the time when things are good, your not at each others throats over something that in the grand scheme of life itself seems utterly irrelevant. I suppose the best way to describe this is for that twenty percent of the time, you are happy.

She seems very particular about this ideology. Holding onto this feeling that the twenty percent will come more and more given time, patience and the love they obviously share for each other. However, the way she feels about her relationship, isn’t for this argument, particularly interesting. What i found particularly enticing was the use of the particular phrase that “love is an obsession.”

I have been throwing this phrase around in my head for a few days now, grappling with the idea of what love is, both in the unique sense to how people feel love as individuals and the more universal concepts and thoughts behind it. Through this, I feel like we might be able to make headway on this connection between “love” and “obsession.” The problem with this is that throughout modern society, in an age where mental health has started to become more relevant as a genuine problem for many people, from anxiety to schizophrenia to OCD, all of which are causing sufferers a great deal of distress and having a profoundly negative affect on their lives. This negativity, to me, is where we run into issues when associating “love” and “obsession.”

For many years previous and for many years coming as understanding of mental health develops, this idea of “obsession” has been forever seen as something of a harmful aspect of someone’s mental configuration, something wrong with you not to be helped, but to be ignored. “Just pretend your normal” and “nobody needs to see that” for we live in this fear we could be judged for the way we think. Yet at the same time, i have found this notoriously negative word associated with something that throughout society is related to utter joy, something supposed to be the height of happiness. We are forever being told that love is so powerful it has the capability to make us feel so wonderful, a unique sensation that will filter through to the tips of your fingers all the way to the tips of your toes.

So. To slam something notoriously negative and something as infamously positive as love, what is to come of it? Should these ideas be related at all? If so- how should they play a role, if any, in our fast and furious modern lives? I can’t help wandering that they are not associated, purely because, in a way, it is society and therefore us, looking at the same mental concept in a very different way, with a combined set of behaviors and thoughts associated with it.

Metaphorically speaking, there is a line in the sand, away from all the standards and expectations of society based on the way we are “supposed to think.” One side of this line, we find love. That feeling, that joy of experience that we are all convinced, in our own uniquely, mentally daunting way, is what “love” is or supposed to be. Although i wander more these days, do we ever love someone? Is it love we share with someone, or is it love we share for the lifestyle we have, when they are a part of it? Are we supposed to love people at all? We fall in love with some ideology, a dream we have for the life we expect of the future, a way of living that makes us feel something more than we ever thought we could. Yet its impossible to know who will be a part of that life, for as far as you know you could meet someone who winds up the most important person in your life tomorrow.

The other side of this same line, we find obsession. This is the stalkers, the obsessive compulsive behavior, the need to carry out rituals amid fears that if you don’t it will be your spectacular undoing. Again and again and again, the routine you hate but you can’t not do, as to relieve the debilitating anxiety that lives just beneath you. The idea of stalkers is where this comes from to me, this belief that either you won’t be good enough to go and talk to this person and form a genuine connection with them, or struggle with the line between reality and imagination, not expecting the real thing to be as good as you imagine. This obsessive behavior makes people dangerous because if the real thing doesn’t fit this dream, if they do not illicit the feelings of love that perfect ideology could muster, it can make someone quite emotionally unpredictable and without the control taken away by obsession, dangerous.

This line, while it splits two sets of completely different ideologies, thoughts and feelings is mentally speaking, steeped in very similar results. They both are steeped in emotion, yet the power of them can produce drastically different issues, be they positive or negative. This “crazy, stupid love” that can make us feel so outstanding, in modern society has developed a much darker side, yet the idea remains that at its core, they are the same animal.

As per the conversation with my best friend- is love an obsession? To me, no. Love is not an obsession. Love IS obsession.

What do you think of love? What is it? Does it relate to obsession- are they the same thing to you? Should love be an obsession? Do we love people. or simply the lifestyle that comes with being with them?

Yours, with love as always,

DR

Random motivation picture.

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