Too much Love will kill you?

Mikhail and Dave are watching Romeo and Juliet. They exit the audio-visual room and say in union, “riveting! Simply brilliant” As they move past the cafeteria with their ice creams, Dave says, “You know Mikhail. Love is all good and nice and worth fighting for. But too much of anything is bad. So also, we shouldn’t love anything too much. Too much of love is also bad for any attachment to anything in excess is bad.

And Mikhail simply believes in enjoying his ice-cream, Dave wonders why Mikhail in his signature style is not pouncing on him with arguments and building a case. He throws the candy stick in the dustbin as if throwing a ball in the hoop and says,

“Love frees men. It does not enslave but liberate. When man is attached to something, he is not attached to it because he loves but because the object of his attachment, say football, Television, women, cars, money even books, enslaves him through his passions [emotions].

Joe watches a movie when he is supposed to do his homework and excuses himself saying the movie is a classic and that he only loves cinema and is homework is left undone. Anna is late for the Girls Scout meeting as she cannot make up her mind what dress to wear and says she was only trying to dress appropriately. All these remain our attachments and yet we confuse them with Love.

Love frees us from our attachments. It opens our eyes to the world outside of us and our attachments to the world inside of us are tempered. Love subsides in reason. But often we say we are only trying to love a game or food or driving and put off work that is not the fault of another who has suffered or our virtue that has been injured for reason has not prevailed. Love does not control. It does not fight for one’s own pleasure over another’s need.

Only if u have more love someone more than you have for yourself would you think: the movie is not so important or alright, so I will miss 30 minutes. It’s alright. The ground has not been pulled from below me.

Thus, love has drawn you away from the slavery of your passions. Thus, too much love frees us where as too much attachment to one thing clouds our reasoning and impedes the love we could otherwise show. Yes, too much attachment to anything is bad if not discerned with counsel. But too much love is required for the discernment and the liberation from the world within to the world without.