Evolving Thoughts on Love & Adoration

Love: A feeling of strong personal attachment ...
induced by a sympathetic understanding or by ties of kinship

Adore: To feel or express reverent admiration for;
to regard with fervent devotion and affection; to idolize

This whole 'Thing' ... the challenge (for me) ... is about adoration … NOT love. I love readily. My preset response to living, Life, and all that I engage with as I live my life ... is to love. When I ask myself, “Do I love you?” it is entirely possible that I (as the individual [with all of the accoutrements that are part and parcel to my temperament and personality]) could even say, “Of course, I love you. But do I adore you? Possibly not. It may even be true that I really do not enjoy too large a dose of … you.” Could any of us actually vocalize that awareness to One with whom we share what is defined as “love?” (In whatever context defining a particular relationship.) Of course not! That would be, at least, unkind and insensitive … if not cruel. But do we not see just such an unspoken declaration all about us … being lived out in uninspired relationships that exist within those boundaries known as “Love?” Is it possible that I can love you … yet not be inspired, energized, motivated by that love? Yes … often! That awareness, of loving, may compel me to behavior, only because of a sense of obligation, responsibility, or some other uninspired dictate of conscience. But for a Romantic (the ‘affliction’ that I am ‘blessed’ with), love does not satisfy the demands that are ever-present in my Being.

What cranks my motor… charges my batteries… launches my rocket is adoration. Give me only that and I will be with you more than you could ever have dreamed. For, you see, I am one of those disgustingly incurable Romantics. I maintain that that is what was asked in “Fiddler on the Roof” when the question was posed; “Do you love me?” What he really wanted to know was “Do you adore me?” Perhaps even “Do you yearn for me … desire me?” He already had a certainty that he and his wife were safely nested in that “feeling of strong personal attachment induced by a sympathetic understanding or by ties of kinship.” What he wanted … needed … to know, was “Am I the person who you hunger for and are giddy with delight at having as Yours?” He was expressing a momentary sensitivity to romanticism.

Hence, it is my deduced conclusion, drawn from very personal experience, that to various women … who, in my past, have been enchanted with me, then decided that what they had (in whatever was their alternative circumstance), was more complimentary to their long-term ambitions, than me … I was but a Whimsy of intense, but momentary, enchantment. While I was perched on a whatever precarious pedestal (of prominence, popularity, power, or influence) that prevailed in the moment of our familiarity … I was what was desired (the object of a fleeting fascination ([if you will.]) But, when brought down to the level ground of rational intimacy, with all of my foibles exposed, the option of ‘Me’ didn’t look as appealing as it had before.

Just as the Performer on film, or stage looks so desirable … then, when offstage, is seen as a person … not an icon. At this juncture cold logic and personal agendas are applied and the scales of preference are influenced much more heavily on the pragmatic side, rather than on the side of that intangible known to us all as, “Romanticism.” I no longer inspired what I call “The WOW factor“… adoration from the other. And adoration is a constantly living dynamic in a thriving romance. Hence … I live alone. How’s that for an humbling personal insight?

(thoughts germinated, 12 October 1999 and pruned 18 Jan 2009)