February 1, 2009
-
Love’s Evolution
First of all, when I was very small, “love” meant sugar to me. I was weaned from my mother’s breast at six weeks of age, onto something my mother and her people called a “sugar tit.” It was a scrap of rag, wrapped around a spoonful of sugar and tied with a string, as pictured by Albrecht Dürer in 1506.Rubber pacifiers existed for at least a hundred years before I was born, but my mother “didn’t believe in” them. She even thought I should have given my own babies a sugar tit instead of my breast, but that’s another story, isn’t it? She murmured love to me as she stuck the sugar-filled rag in my mouth to stop my crying.
Sugar tasted like love every time I begged a piece of candy or bottle of pop, or stole a spoonful from the sugar bowl when Mama was out of the kitchen. Of course, sugar had an addictive opioid kick to it all on its own, so “love” acquired some intoxicating connotations, too. That was reinforced by popular culture, fairy tales and soap opera. Love was sweet, intoxicating and sublimely desirable. All anyone had to do was tell me he loved me and I’d follow him anywhere and bend to his will.
The sexual kind of love had its own intoxicating chemistry, too. All that oxytocin and dopamine, not to mention the adrenaline stimulated by the forbidden nature of most of my liaisons, got me quickly addicted to love, and particularly to forbidden or dangerous love. The association of adrenaline with intoxicating love turned me into an adrenaline addict, a chronic risk taker, an anxiety-ridden overachiever, and finally, an amphetamine addict.
That’s when things started to turn around for me. The illicit amphetamines led to jail, then prison. An environment without men, and with very little stimulation of any kind, gave my body a chance to detoxify and allowed me to turn my mind to contemplation. The change in my way of viewing love didn’t happen overnight, and I didn’t do it by myself.
I had a number of good teachers and mentors, and with their help I learned about a love that feels absolutely wonderful without all the dangerous side-effects. I learned to love unconditionally. I learned to love myself. I learned to love shamelessly and unreservedly. I’m learning to love universally. I have gotten to where I often experience an elevated sense of oneness with everything, a kind of abstract love of everyone.
It is only in the feet-on-the-ground face-to-face confrontations with a few individuals where I’m having to work at my loving. I’m still working on perfecting the technique, but I have learned a thing or three about love.
In anticipation of Saint Valentine’s Day (or perhaps Extraterrestrial Culture Day) February’s Featured Grownups topic is, “What The World Needs Now.” [sic]
LOVE.
You can write about first love, last love, unrequited love, brotherly/sisterly love, Love’s Labors Lost, love stinks. You pick it. Just blog about love.
You, too, can participate by writing about love and leaving a link to your post on the FG site.
Comments (21)
Great post! I enjoy your insights….
Great ideas and information. I’ve been practicing love for a long time. I love to love.
Its nice to be loved in return occasionally but not necessary at all.
I do enjoy the way you view things. Especially since you seem to echo my own thoughts on things, of which I can never find the right words for!
Nice post!
LOVEly post. I have never heard of sugar tit before, but I can definitely see how one would begin to associate love with sugar and then candy with love. That would be dangerous for me. Great addition!
Great Post. Very honest and real.
I’m so shocked and appalled by the first two paragraphs of this that my brain flatly refuses to digest the rest.
I’ve never heard of this! People actually gave itty bitty babies straight sugar?!? Seriously?!?
*runs off to wiki*
Susu, this is the ocean both at the shore and deep in the middle of it..wow. I had a long love affair with pharmaceutically pure methamphetamine as I had a friend in the field because my medicine was never mixed in the basement…well, I can vibe with this because I had reached this and with a long lack of private contemplation, the outside does affect the focus when you are not the caretaker of it and you end up where I am. Resonates with me.
i realize i grew up in a very sheltered lifestyle but sugar tit? seriously? i’m stunned. i’ll have to ask my mom if she knows anything about this.
Nicely done.
I was going to comment yesterday but life happens. That Sugar tit rag thing..WOW I never heard of it. I wonder how much effects children when they think in terms of food equals love.
My Sisters and brothers were all breast fed but eventually weened to a bottle that contained anything like sugar water, soda pop, and or Koolaid. My brothers still have Major addiction problems.
I was hurt at a very tender age so I hated men until My husband. I can’t understand why these small nuances make us different people but i believe they do.
Great post.
@Ikwa - Neuroscience is beginning to understand some of that, the ways in which experience causes changes in the brain. That kind of learning has undoubtedly contributed to our survival, but sometimes it goes the wrong way.
Wow! Thanks for sharing, very well written!
Good post! Unconditional love is sometimes difficult to learn but once you do learn, it’s pretty amazing.
You always add such a unique perspective to the topics! I am so glad you share with us!
(And, I am still wondering about sugar tit. I will have to ask my mom about this the next time I talk to her.)
@Krissy_Cole - Thanks, Krissy. I’m happy to participate and appreciate having topics, prompts, challenges and ideas to write about.
I found that picture of the sugar tit in the Wikipedia article on pacifiers, while I was trying to find out how long pacifiers had been in existence.
It’s easy to get addicted to the idea of love, the chemicals of love. It’s so much harder to realize that love is all of that, but more than that at the same time. *hugs* I’m glad you’ve come to some good realizations for yourself.
The responses indicate that some are appalled at the idea of sugar tits. But the kids of that time grew up pretty well adjusted, it seems, compared to later generations.
I enjoyed your interesting post.
@dsullivan - As one of the “kids” of the generation to which you refer as “well adjusted,” and also as a psychologist still paying attention to matters of mental health, I strongly disagree with your observation. My mother’s ignorance had grave costs, and I have not “adjusted” at all well.
Another afterthought: it’s not generally wise to overgeneralize.
@SuSu - It wasn’t my intention to offend you. Sorry.
@dsullivan - I was not offended. I simply disagree with you.
@SuSu - And I with you, so we’re even.