{"id":105,"date":"2003-10-30T21:30:29","date_gmt":"2003-10-30T21:30:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/3500years.com\/zsallia\/?p=105"},"modified":"2003-10-30T21:30:29","modified_gmt":"2003-10-30T21:30:29","slug":"mr-e-asked-a-question","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jaeddy.com\/3500years\/2003\/10\/30\/mr-e-asked-a-question\/","title":{"rendered":"Mr. E Asked A Question"},"content":{"rendered":"

In response to<\/strong> Mr. E’s<\/a> comment<\/a> on a previous post<\/a>:<\/p>\n

If I were insane, how would I know? You and I could sit over coffee and have a nice chat and at the end of it you might be tempted to tell me you were fairly certain I was off my rocker, but would I be able to believe you? In my case I have lots of history to look back on and that gives me some perspective on myself. I can look back and say “Oh, my! I was certainly not thinking too clearly, was I?” It is all relative, after all.<\/p>\n

So what about love? I have offered a few paragraphs here to describe my understanding of the nature of love and its effect on Man and I know I have mentioned that there is a difference between this love to which Man is predisposed and the Romantic Love that is the source of such joy, such excess and such sorrow. I understand that first love- I rely upon it when I try to understand you and everybody else surrounding me. The second love, let me spell it Love for clarity’s sake, is something I try to avoid. It is dangerous to me. It is madness most raw.<\/p>\n

Just so that you do not begin to think I am talking nonsense, please understand that what follows applies strictly to me and not to others.<\/p>\n

Love is an invitation to pain and despair. When I allow myself to fall in Love I am guaranteeing myself a painful ending, one that is not possible<\/em>, but inevitable<\/em>. Tell me, please, what is rational about willingly inviting such horror in to my life? Given that, is it at all surprising that I have only had Love in my life four times?<\/p>\n

Each time, I fooled myself in some way.<\/p>\n

The first time was easy- when I confessed to him that his slave was immortal, he nodded and pronounced me Diana for he had encountered me as a huntress in the wilderness. Somehow my lack of chastity did not deter him in his conviction. When over the next few years our mutual foolishness made itself clear he ordered me bound hand and foot and forced me to watch as he opened his veins and bled to death. He believed he was doing the right thing.<\/p>\n

I was none too eager to repeat that experience, but I did, three more times, the last being my Jeremy, whom I have discussed at some length<\/a>. Each time I told myself that I could grasp those brief years of delirium, that the pain waiting at the end would be bearable, that this time I was far too mature to allow the inevitable to scar me so. Each time I was wrong. Oh, to be certain with the passage of time the pain eased, to be replaced with a certain rueful recognition of my own foolishness, but the memory of those times…<\/p>\n

Only the last time came close to breaking the pattern, but I begin to suspect that there is more to play from that episode in my life. Jeremy is not through with me yet.<\/p>\n

So, Love lures me with the promise of decades of joy and blinds me to a century of pain in payment. Self-delusion indeed. Do not seek to find flaws here, instead recognize that what I say of myself does not apply to all- it cannot for reasons I do believe I have made explicit<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In response to Mr. E’s comment on a previous post: If I were insane, how would I know? You and I could sit over coffee and have a nice chat and at the end of it you might be tempted to tell me you were fairly certain I was off my rocker, but would I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-immortality","category-philosophy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jaeddy.com\/3500years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jaeddy.com\/3500years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jaeddy.com\/3500years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jaeddy.com\/3500years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jaeddy.com\/3500years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jaeddy.com\/3500years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jaeddy.com\/3500years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jaeddy.com\/3500years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jaeddy.com\/3500years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}