So?

I started knocking away the questions I had posed with lengthy proofs built on the results of hundreds of thought exercises and experiments. As the years went by I tried conditioning myself with unpleasant thoughts or physical discomfort whenever I thought of her, I altered my physiological reactions by not eating or sleeping for long stretches (10 days maximum) to see if I could 'reboot' my system, I tried holding my breath around her in accordance with some of the early pheromone research available at the beginning of the century, later trying long clothing to cease any skin absorption and then after this keeping more than 8 feet between us or long stretches away from her over periods of months during summer vacations, finally downloading leaked CIA and Psych-Ops manuals on brainwashing and adopting techniques of non-permanent damage (later I read that after five days serious and irreversible issues can arise from sleep deprivation, so don't do that).

I exercised till I was numb. I ate forty-two pixie sticks in one sitting on an empty stomach around other girls. I tried seeing her as a secret hermaphrodite. I tried totally ignoring her. I found out she had dated a number of my friends in the past! No effect. She was so tapped into my brain my pleasure centers would associate any nice feeling with her. A light breeze across my face and I can close my eyes and feel her there with me. Any mention of any associated term, no matter how convoluted and a burning warmth spreads through my chest like drinking hot soup from a canteen outside on a cold day. Drug addicts experience much the same with their fixations on chemicals. Research actually shows that those in rehab report significant ease in letting go of drugs when they fall deeply in love, and I was similarly hit by a lessening of all cravings or pain I felt thanks to the powerful neurostimulus... I was able to give up caffeine, game consoles, and cookies with little trouble where others often fail because nothing made me feel like she did.

As is often the case she co-opted the religiosity centers of my brain as well, which was fine. Christianity demands of followers that they love The Messiah more than anything else, and I would gladly burn for eternity rather than choose that over keeping a single memory I have of her. This was not apotheosis however, she clearly had her faults as a human being and where at first I entertained the notion of us existing in perfect agreement all of the time on all issues I realized a much more challenging and obvious truth in my thought. Human relationships inevitably contain conflict, the way this conflict is interpreted as constructive or destructive really makes the difference, and can (while not in my parents' case) strengthen relationships for the better. Everyone makes mistakes and does things that they are not proud of, and likewise my love likes to wear shoes that will make her feet look like this:

buys products not good for the Earth (as we all do), experiences the full range of negative emotions, and was something of an incorrigible flirt actually. I began worrying that she derived her sense of self worth from the power that she was able to hold over men, was she emotionally ready for a serious long-term relationship or was she only capable of the standard high school girl "two month romance and then move on" pattern? Would she psychologically be able to withstand aging or was it going to be "Sunset Boulevard"? I was confident that she would be beautiful even unto the extremes of octogenarianhood, not as an eternal teen queen but in the sense of the poised and elegant woman with an inner light and vitality shining through as that ineffable feature of persistent magnetism, not obsessing over wrinkles and smile lines or opting for horrific plastic surgeries or heavy cosmetics - but then these were the same things I would feel of her were she to become a massively obese person or experience a horrific car accident and have her skin all burned away, the beauty emanating from within was the true essence of her attractiveness, if she was a rotten-toothed peasant girl from the middle ages smelling only of horses and old sweat her grace and confidence would soon overtake her limp, scraggly hair or scabs and calluses. And even if she were struck down by self-hatred or a superficial angst to dissolve such airs was she not still possessed of her wit, sense of humor, compassion, or spirit? What was it that I loved exactly? If she awoke one morning with her body switched with that of a beefy construction worker would I still gladly share all the days of my life with her? Yes. If she went irreparably brain dead and became a mindless vegetable would I still love her? No. At the point where I would come to accept that she was beyond the reach of all research (and many shouldn't actually because brain science is finding a lot of hidden neural activity in some dormant sleepers) the body remaining would survive only as a symbol of what was once her, and from this thought experiment developed my ideas of the nature of the individual. My ethical theories arose from the attempt to see everyone as potentially so-loved individuals