Connections Theory of Love

On the tail-end of the last note, this is the theory I deduced. I would love any feedback positive or negative as its only the first draft...

In nature, take the rainforest for example, everything is connected. It is a system of chaos that exists in perfect harmony. A tree lives for aeons with multitudes of plants, vines, animals, birds and insects which inter-weave their lives and homes within and on its surface. Times that by a billion, and you have the rainforest. It is chaos, yet is perfectly ordered, and has been created by man’s creator; Nature. 
Universal/Unconditional love can be viewed as the metaphysical fabric of the universe, a driving force that drives connections. In Nature, as everything is connected, universal love flows through everything. Humans ‘evolved’ from the original chaos system and created a system based on their interpretation of order. This order is based on possession, isolation and exploitation. We live in separate rooms of separate houses. During the day we’re at separate desks of different offices of different buildings; and we communicate with each other via devices instead of face to face. Everything is mine, or yours; not ours.

Love cannot be possessed, it cannot be owned. It is an energy that exists between two or more entities when they chose to wrap this universal fabric around each other. This energy generates feelings within us. You can own your feelings, but that is all. Also, a relationship, friendship or marriage is a contract between two entities. As love cannot be possessed, love is not a relationship and one is mutually exclusive of the other (though they can exist in parallel).

Now, think of the times that humans are happiest; when they revert back to the chaos system. Imagine a festival dancefloor, a playground, a social gathering…resemble the jungle much? These are the times at which we are happiest. These are times we look forward to most. Why? Because positive chaos breeds love. During these times our connections are unconditional and selfless, rather than possessive and selfish. A festival dancefloor is a selfless system devoted to creating a multitude of connections which in turn fuels unconditional love, an electrifying aura, and felt energy.

So what about self-love?

If love is about connections, then love cannot exist without connections. You cannot therefore love yourself without loving others. You do not have to be ‘in-love’ and the feelings don’t have to mutual. You can wrap the fabric around another person, animal, plant or object just like in the natural world, and then you’re in the system. Connected.

The goal is therefore not to close connections, or at least to maintain enough positive connections on a constant basis to generate a strong enough feeling of love within one self. 

Self-love is therefore about being selfless, not selfish; because you’re giving energy to receive it. Everything has vibrational energy and some connections are naturally stronger than others. Furthermore, positive processes or actions act to fuel more love into a connection (love maintenance).

Unconditional/Universal love is the purest form of love. The ability to attain and maintain unconditional love is described later.

Paternal love and romantic love is the next strongest level. This is the primary love and positive processes include intimacy, passion (romantic love only) and commitment. They also include the processes in the secondary and tertiary levels of love. The secondary level of love is platonic love such as that between friends or between a person and their pet. Processes include affection, commitment, dependency, kindness, respect. Finally, tertiary love is based on un-reciprocated connections such as those between a fan and his idol or between a person and their favourite tree, food or object. These connections are fuelled by appreciation, respect and pride.

The vibrational energy of an entity depends on which level of love that it is placed (primary, secondary or tertiary) and in turn, the amount of self-love that can be generated is a result of the amount of positive processes given to each. No matter how much appreciation you feed to a tree, the amount of self-love generated will be less than via the connection with your pet and in turn less than with your partner or children.

As there are positive connections and processes, there are also negative ones. A negative connection is one where one entity (from the primary or secondary levels), consistently draws more love from the connection than fuelling it, thus reducing the level of self-love experienced by the other entity(s). These negative connections occur via negative processes which include: anger, spite, jealousy, and selfishness.

Any activities that act to increase isolation such as social media (unless involved in direct communication), television, homework, etc. are also viewed as negative processes and need to be counterbalanced with connection fuelling actions.

Nothing on earth can exist without a connection to something else. Even species that self-pollinate or are asexual, still need food, shelter, sunlight, water. These are all connections that generate their own levels of love.

A child needs to learn how to make connections from their mother (or primary caregiver). If the mother is an inadequate provider of love, then the child can grow up unable to make strong positive connections. This applies to the animal kingdom as well.

According to this theory, each person requires a baseline level of connections in order to have self-love which is strongest at the optimal connection 

level. Similarly, there is the threshold level of connections at which point a person has too many active negative connections which results in a decrease in the quality of their self-love. 

Unconditional love can only be achieved when a person is at their optimal level of self-love. As a person moves towards either the baseline or threshold levels of connection, their ability to maintain connections becomes conditional and their love possessive or exploited.

If a person is operating near their baseline level of self-love and a primary or secondary connection(s) is closed, more love needs to be fuelled into other connections, particularly primary and secondary, in order to counterbalance the loss of love. If this is not done, the person may slip below their baseline and enter love catatonia. This is often characterised by a loss of libido, the inability to feel empathy, compassion, gratitude, as well as the inability to offer genuine praise. An individual in love catatonia may be perceived as rude, selfish and is often detached from their feelings. They will often demonstrate a flat affect and low mood. The only way to move back into the self-love phase is to develop new connections and to fuel old ones with positive processes.

Similarly, love catatonia occurs if a person slips beyond the threshold level of self-love. The only way to move back into the self-love phase is to break negative connections and/or to decrease the amount of maintenance that is being fuelled into these connections.

This theory therefore advocates that there must be a balance between the quality of connections with the quantity of connections and that this balance is a primary indicator pertaining to the ability to experience self-love and in turn, unconditional love.