What is love : a user’s manual

Dear customers! With the purchase of this fine product finalized, you will now be taught of the emotion called love as is defined in general terms that are applicable to all organisms of three spacial and a single temporal dimension. If you are not a life form of that sort, we can offer supplementary materials for additional dimensions, for a modest additional charge (for addition information , consult our sales catalogue). This product does not include supplies that are necessary for the physical functions of life nor instructions to the physical act of love. Customers who wish to purchase general grade -A supplies or our high-quality products that are designed to assist you in the physical act of love, should also consult our catalogue. For queries, or further instructions, feel free to contact our customer service office.

Step 1) Begin existing.

After approximately 3.7 seconds of being, you will notice that you exist in a harsh, hostile and dangerous universe. You have needs and desires that are particular to you, while others that you may have in common with other organisms. Much about this Universe and how it operates is unknown to you. the need to know and anticipate threats is something that you will want to resolve just as other needs.

Step 2) the initial period of traumatic confusion and anxiety is ending and existing is beginning to seem less of a perpetual threat and more of a puzzle. You learn to extract what you need from the environment to fulfill some of your needs and begin to see the potential of benefit in some activities and objects. Overall long-term continuous satisfaction escapes you as it shall for the rest of your life. With every demand met, new needs and desires arise.

Step 3) You become aware that your focus on certain things runs in parallel with that of other organisms. This phenomenon is contrasted by another more conflictual interaction that you are becoming aware of as well. You may now form alliances with other organisms, who seem to cooperate or aid in the fulfillment of your needs.

Step 4) Ally organisms of a certain kind, are more concerned with the quality of mutual interaction than others. You find that the nature of interaction changes from mere co-operation in certain aspect of existence to a wider field of interaction. With these closer circle of allies , you find new interests and focus. New desires and needs that you were unaware of come into being.

Step 5) After a time, you see that certain desires that you struggle to fulfill are still beyond your grasp. Moreover, the investments in resources that you make to achieve goals do not necessarily equal the resultant benefit and occasionally fall far from your expectations. As a form of compensation, you discover that it is possible to substitute one desire for another which is more easily attained. This is called displacement. Allies and interacting with them may help lessen the distress you feel from failing to achieve some of your goals. Allies can be objects of displacement in themselves, or provide a mutual method of alleviating some of the tensions related with failure and scarcity. it needs to be stated that the joy that you may derive from these interactions is not a perfect substitution for needs that you have. We urge our customers to not fail in pursuing their needs. particularly physical needs .

Step 6) You become aware that other organisms cease to exist. whether these extinct organisms were allies or not, you grow to learn of the pervasive nature of extinction. Furthermore, You may have already contributed to the extinction of other organisms. You confront the likelihood of your own demise. a similar concern is the extinction of allies. The implication of such an event, would have a grave affect to your well-being; Both a loss of support in obtaining existential needs, and a perception of loss in and of itself. Entire fields of interaction which did not merely overlap but extended to greater exploration of the nature and reason of existence are at risk with such a potential loss. in time, you will not merely fear such a loss, but come experience it.

Step 7) With a greater understanding of life, existence and extinction, relations with extant organisms, both allies and unaffiliated organisms deepen. You begin to cognitively anticipate the emotions of other organisms. This is called empathy. This characteristic of your being gives you better capabilities in obtaining the things that you require. You can entrap, use and manipulate other organisms to your will with this powerful tool.  However, of more importance is the beginning to see that your own emotional state may be changeable littorally with this mere simulating of another organism's feelings. This particular extension of empathy is called sympathy. With sympathy, you calculate your choices not merely as a desire to change the behavior of another organism. Sympathy and the anticipating of another organism's reaction, often causes you to change your own state of mind and alter actions you would take accordingly. it may surprise you to learn, that some customers, have reported actual sympathy towards organisms which had drastically antagonistic relations with them up to then, going as far as feeling pain in themselves as they perceived it in others. Others have reported that they refrain from certain actions , as they anticipate it to cause discomfort in others. At this point, We urge our customers to practice a certain level of precaution and not become emotionally compromised by over-reaction or disregard of the self, particularly when there are personal safety issues involved, or if the acquisition of crucial resources is threatened as they are weighed against the anticipated emotional reaction in others.

Step 8) The need you have in overlapping fields of interest and stimulated interaction is increasing. the skills necessary to form relationships with new allies and deepen those you already have are also being enriched by experience. This  brings you to a level of gratification that is greater than the mere integration of fulfilled needs and desires. Your interaction with certain allies , is so fulfilling, that evaluating the nature of the relationship merely on the basis of fulfillment of needs, seems absurd to you. indeed, over  time, you begin to notice that while you invest and sacrifice of your own resources and abilities, you do not look forward to or require reciprocity. You are so confident and indifferent to the calculation of external needs from entering the relationship, that you are certain that this is entirely matching in the other organism. This is called trust.

Step 9) Over time, you have witnessed your own change, upon introspection. you see it in all organisms around you as well. Change is neither a positive nor a strictly negative aspect to life. But it is a common misapprehension of the facts of either viewing the receding past with nostalgia, or the future with fear. We urge our customers to remain mindful of this reality. Trust and sympathy deepen or recede. But the change, is unavoidable and requires adaptability. here, ally organisms which you have grown to trust offer sympathy , when you are faced with the more distressing aspects of change. Your awareness of their concern for your well-being brings you comfort and helps to bring relief to your anxiety and grief. Your attachment to them, which parallels the more agitating nature of change, is increasing. You develop reliance or even dependency towards some allies.

Step 10) The thought of being dependant on another being's existence may seem alarming, and on a strategic level, it may be dangerous. it implies certain threats and hazards to your being. You may fear a change in the living condition of the ally organism, or their changes in reaction to your needs for further sympathy. Indeed, the relationship you are holding at such great value, is already standing in the shadow of future doom. You mus come to terms that this is an inevitable fact.

Step 11) Imperfection is universal. As your attachment to ally organisms grows , your sensitivity to the difference between you and them increases as well. the overlapping interests, qualities and desires are not equal to the parts where your being and theirs do not match. reconciling this difference with a desired need to increase more of the overlap between you and they, can cause further change. However, some differences seem more striking and irreconcilable than others. As you examine yourself as a whole, it stands to reason that ally organisms either must be equally whole or totally different. We urge our costumers to note that the truth lies in the middle. you are not whole and perfect in their eyes and neither do our allies in ours. rejecting your alliance with them on the basis of these differences is an obvious strategy and many alliances have been broken at times violently, along these lines. although that could be a solution, an organism may suffer loss of some kind as a result of the discontinuation of such an alliance. this realization brings you to a new state of interaction, called acceptance. a developing organism grows to learn that some differences may be irreconcilable and yet not equal in their severity to the loss they may experience with a severance of the alliance.

As you grow to accept imperfection in others, you try to come to grips with the nature of these differences. why is an ally doing things in such an way that is so alien to you?  Why does the ally maintain a relationship with an adversary of yours? why is some opinion the ally holds seems poorly calculated or even absurd to you? all these differences may never be made clear. But spending time examining your ally's motives, as well as your rejection of them, gain you further insight into the way other organisms think and may deepen you ability the empathize with others.

Step12)  Over time, you may come across another organism who is not directly your ally, and yet actions that they take and ideas they express are a great benefit and influence to you. you actively seek out further interaction with this organism, even if only as consumption of what they produced. This is called admiration. The product of this admired organism, causes you to change and grow. You come to realize that your view of others and of yourself may be totally wrong. you investigate more aspects of this admired organism and while you may find peculiarities and imperfections, you easily disregard them, as they are of much less importance than the possible gains.

While admiring organisms is not a danger itself, we urge our customers to recall, that there are things about your being which are important and crucial for your survival. An organism which is admired by you may attempt to contradict these crucial interests and is possibly manipulating you to their benefit.

While many organisms which you may come to admire will be those that you have and pursue frequent contact with, there may be others, who are distant in space and time from you. some may be possibly already extinct. your admiration to these organisms, as with all cases of attachment and alliance, may cause some frustration; unlike loss, or grief, admiration and the failure of receiving a reciprocal admiration from another, for whatever reason.

Step13) Some forms of attachment, alliance and sympathy may form between you, and organisms that are not of your species. while the reciprocity and overlap of interests is different, it could be nonetheless meaningful. An individual who has grown attached to another being of a different species may experience the same range of emotions. As with his own kind. As with all things, be careful and be aware that some parasites tend to affect emotional entanglement.

Step 14) Reproduction is a vital part of the perpetuation of a species. Some organisms require no assistance in this effort, while other organisms depend on a collaboration with others. The hoped-for issue of such an activity is a new organism. This organism may or may not be fully independent as it comes into the world, but it is without a doubt, unequal to an adult of the species in size, capabilities and knowledge. Should you choose to reproduce, the vulnerability of the offspring may require your tending to it with varying degrees of care. The relationship between a parental organism and an offspring may be fraught with difficulties. Great sacrifices are usually required and the outcome is unclear. Despite all these difficulties and the difference in interests, the range of emotions related to rearing of offspring may be quite intense. the fears and anxiety should something go wrong, the excitement as the offspring makes incremental steps and improvement, the desire to influence the offspring and increase the field of overlapping interests, the frustration when that occasionally fails, and the satisfaction when it does is great. sympathy for the offspring may be exaggerate, and many parental organisms at times do not re-calibrate their treatment of the offspring as it actually requires. this is a hazard that is frequently reported. we urge our customers to retain some level of rational thinking and self-awareness when dealing with rearing and reproduction. remember that the optimal outcome of reproduction should be an offspring who is well adjusted to the environment, skilled in resolving its needs and in possession of full mental abilities to survive on its own. on a far lesser goal , should be the continued close alliance between an offspring and its parental, in certain species this is not required or even advisable, we urge our customers to anticipate particular difficulties involved in reproduction and rearing, .

Step 15) A different form of emotion, far less widespread than other forms of alliance, is romantic love. it may or may not involve procreation and it may or may not be related with formal designation of possession or responsibility between organisms. an organism experiencing romantic love may exhibit a total lack of rational thought, as they are fiercely, possibly violently, attached to another organism emotionally (in rare occasions, there can be more than one at the same time.) their desire to fulfill the needs and explore new overlapping fields of interest is far greater than with other organisms. while admiration, sympathy, the fear of loss and the expectation of joy and fulfillment are common with other allies, an organism experiencing romantic love, sees a striking difference within himself. it may cause beneficial enhancement of other alliances, as romantically attached organisms may experience an immense upsurge in emotional well-being, and a possible desire to share in the experience. However, the core cause of the romantic liaison is with the subject of this relationship and no other. Passion and euphoria, which are extreme  states of desire and joy respectively are the product of a reciprocated romantic attachment.

On the other hand, the absence of such reciprocity, despite efforts made in the pursuit of such a relationship, may be very devastating. Unlike most other kinds of alliance, the failure to find a reciprocal, matching reaction in the subject who's romantic alliance is pursued may not frustrate the romantic attachment from being placed, albeit with much less of the beneficial characteristics so described.

Moreover, an organism seeking to establish a simple , 'lesser' form of alliance, will be reluctant to retry establishing alliance with the same individual, once it's been rejected. Not so can be said with romantic attachment, as organisms try tenaciously and at times competitively to reestablish an alliance, despite refusal or even aggressive rejection.

As romantic attachment may not be related to procreation in goal, it is often related to some or all of the physical aspects preceding procreation. With many organisms, only romantic alliance is accepted, as a conditional phase of certain physical acts, though this is not necessarily universal even within the respective species.

To a certain extent, the intense emotional reaction involved in romantic alliance, matches the physical gratification, at least in expectation and certainly in rarity. to put it in other words, physical gratification that is possibly involved in the activities preceding procreation, are to a certain extent reserved only for occasions of romantic alliance and as these are less common than other forms of alliance, so are the physical acts less common.

To some extent, romantic love is something of a developmental thing. Organisms may experience it several times, at different stages of their lives. The methods of pursuing other organisms, the forms of interaction, and  the emotional extremes may all vary greatly according to accumulated experience. Conversely, as the nature of romantic attachment is mostly devoid of rationality, and the possible differences between particular liaisons may be great, the experience gained during a lifetime of romantic experience does not necessarily prepare the organism for its next encounter. in many cases, despite the existence of such experience and the supposed acquired skill-set for handling such an important process, many organisms fail to use what they have already grown to know, thus perpetuating the same problems.

The duration of romantic alliance, may vary greatly, as with any other forms of alliance. However, it is often the case that the extreme emotional state and the inability to apply reason as normally advisable, may cause the positive emotional high to suddenly come apart. Either the setbacks caused by erratic behavior, pressure the organism back into a more sober assessment, or differences between the object of the liaison, which were until now disregarded, emerge. 

Long term romantic alliances have been recorded, in such cases, mutual interests, which mainly relate to procreation and rearing, balance the pressures that would normally bring the relationship to a conclusion. This phenomenon is called mating. 

Step 17) Some organisms that you encounter directly or indirectly have caused you harm. their greed, cruelty, ignorance, ineptitude and disinterest, are disturbing and disruptive to you. having experienced other forms of love and having acquired empathy for others, you may now find yourself anticipating the motives and imperfections of these possibly hostile organisms. While this can be essential to avoid the dangers that these organisms may pose, it is also of great importance to emotionally accept these propensities. Retaining anger and fear, long past the injury that other organisms have caused , is a common exaggeration of the skill of danger avoidance through learning. Accepting and to some extent neutralizing the strong emotional reaction of anger and hate, is of great benefit to you. This is called forgiving.

Casting away of hate while not eliminating caution, allows organisms to more rationally assess situations, of gaining insights and connecting different fields of thought. More importantly, there are occasions, when an organism may be required to interact with other organisms, which it would otherwise hold strong negative feelings against. The empathy and anticipation of those organisms without the emotional burdens, may allow for a possible rapprochement, or even a complete turnround in the nature of the interaction. While forgiveness is useful to overcome interpersonal difficulties and to improve emotional well-being, we caution our customers that other organisms may still retain their own negative behavioral patterns. Forgiveness is not recommended to be accompanied by forgetfulness.

Step 18) After a time of existence, you may form some attachment to un-living things. Objects that hold some aesthetic quality, or perhaps served you well in your pursuits are not easily relinquished, even once they are past their material usefulness. indeed, many organisms have demonstrated fierce resistance to the removal of said objects and sacrificed much to otherwise preserve, re-acquire, exchange or duplicate these items. While a direct benefit is not apparent,

great attachment is placed towards it.

A similar condition, in which the organism holds great attachment to a locality or certain environment, even once they are greatly changed and regardless of the hazards these changes pose. this preoccupation with un-useful objects or locality should not be confused with sessility. Sessile organisms lack the choice to move once they have settled on a certain locality. while emotionally attached organisms refuse to do so, despite having complete physical freedom. the gratification an organism receives from a certain object or place, is rooted not only in function but in familiarity or attraction. Much of past experiences are held in connection with the objects that played a part in these events. Furthermore, in many species, an inability to acquire a desired liaison with an other organism causes great anguish , frustration and anxiety. substitution of readily available objects mitigates the severity of these strong emotions, and reduces the need to risk further pain.

Step 19) After accruing some experience with different manifestations of the emotion love, as a complex phenomenon of distinguishable emotional states, many of which are fraught with suffering and anguish, an organism may come to wonder, what is love actually good for. We shall assure you that many of the greatest thinkers have devoted much deliberation on this matter. A definitive answer as to the actual , overall benefit or meaning of love is not available. However, a simple look at the alternative, of living through a loveless life, contrasts the importance and significance of love. The mere survival of the self, without any attachment, guidance, or alliance is not impossible. Many organisms live their entire lifespans without these supposed benefits. Their existence is fraught with the same difficulties , dangers and frustrations as all other organisms. However , the difference in their existence (or yours, should you choose to adopt such a life-strategy), is that mostly, their life is predicated on this completely dependent modus of survival. they need no interaction of any kind, with other organisms, other then fulfillment of needs. But most of these organisms, at one point at least in their lives would seek to procreate, even if it is an asexual endeavour. the resulting offspring is the biological perpetuation of the species and even the most hostile of organisms will exert some effort in its creation. whether or not it will maintain some long term relation with this offspring or view it as a threat or even a potential meal, it bore this initial effort at the very least. love, it seems, at its most fleeting, is this need that all life forms have, to continue the existence of the species. it is the effort that goes against the immediate benefit of the self or the preservation of its limited resources, at times, going against rational and practical thinking itself. as we return to the question of the benefit of love, we see many downfalls, many sacrifices, much anguish and suffering. the tendency of organisms to abandon reason at times, in favor of emotional drives, often leads to these negative results. and yet they, like life itself, are perpetuated as a result of this exertion. it could be that by deconstructing love to its immediate benefits , the importance it has on life cycles of any given organism, is revealed. asking what is love good for is therefore at some level equitable to what is feeding good for, or what is metabolizing good for. none of these beneficial processes are avoidable existentially and neither is love, at it’s most basic.

Added upon this, we can re-construct the need for love both in receiving and projecting it outwardly. Most sentient organisms at times wonder what is the meaning of life itself? Existence is by no means self- explanatory.

If we take as an assumption that there is a meaning to life, then it stands to reason tha this would be an aggregate of experiences. If that is the case, than surely these experience have no value, since life itself ends, and the experiences are lost. an organism may choose to maintain a life of complete solitude and silence, a life of absolute absorption of events without any release of information , akin perhaps to a black hole. However just like a black hole, information can not be truly sunk indefinitely within. A fundamental need for organisms is an outlet of some sort for these experiences. Information will and must seep out, in a myriad of forms. However these products of the attempt at containing experience, and the eventual inability to do so, are in-themselves meaningless. the only meaning that could be drawn from this form of recycling of information is by some form of sharing. Or the way these products impart new experience on other organisms.

The sharing of information, or the appreciation of such products, requires an interest within other organisms and not only the producer . A lone organism may occupy his time carving images absentmindedly upon a bone and that may be it’s only manner of release of internalized events. However, at some point, to have any meaning, these carvings would need to be observed by another organisms. Without that, the bone-carver is as meaningless as the bone it has carved upon.

But again. A desire to observe such a product depends upon another organism. An interest must be taken, for the observing to take place.

More complex expression are formed and communicated purposefully. However just as with the bone-carver, this communication requires a desire by others to experiences such a communication.

The desire to communicate experiences, and the desire to be communicated to, depends on love. One of the aforementioned aspects of love must be in play for this happening to be of any meaning. If we revisit the bone-carver as our example. Hypothetically, This organism does not occupy its thoughts with existential debate. Experiences that it externalizes in he form of amateur creations are mere distractions . in themselves they are meaningless. If the carved bones are not observed by others, and the bone-carver had made no other substantial long-term effect upon the environment, then all that had transpired and witnessed by it will be lost in the very moment of death. Conversely, if those bones are found, they can be discarded as trash , or devoured perhaps, by a hungry scavenger and the information will yet again be of no importance. Only on the event, when the bones are observed with the desire to understand and gleam some knowledge of the life of the bone-carver, will the bones be of any meaning. The desire to do so will surly depend on some kind of emotional motivation, an aspect of love. Perhaps it will be sympathy for the suffering and loneliness of the bone-carver. Perhaps it will be an awe of the marvelous artistic depictions. Perhaps, it will be part of a need, of the observer to share something of value with other organisms and the facts of the life of the bone-carver would become a mere series of detail , a currency of interest traded between allies.

Love therefore, gives existence a meaning, by facilitating, indirectly or directly such a transfer of experiences. And it could be argued that life in of itself is meaningful only with the benefit of love.