~ SELFISH LOVE

~ Love me, love me not...

Genuine love
Is selfishness:
Love doesn't mean
To sacrifice yourself
For others.
It is the exact opposite.
It is truly the most selfish
Experience possible:
It benefits your life in a way
That involves no sacrifice
Of others to yourself or
Of yourself to others.

To love a person is selfish
Because it means that
You value that particular person,
That he or she makes your life better,
That he or she is an intense source of joy
- to you.

A disinterested love
Is a contradiction in terms.
One cannot be neutral
To that which one values.
The time, effort and money
You spend
On behalf of someone you love
Are not sacrifices,
But actions taken
Because his or her happiness
Is crucially important to your own.

Those who argue
That love demands self-denial
Must hold the bizarre belief
That it makes no personal difference
Whether your loved one is healthy or sick,
Feels pleasure or pain,
Is alive or dead.

It is regularly asserted
That love should be unconditional
And that you should
Love everyone as a brother,
- hate the sin, but love the sinner!
Which would have you condemn death camps
But send Hitler a box of swiss chocolates.
Most would agree that
Having sex with a person
One despises is debased.
Yet somehow,
When the same underlying idea
Is applied to love,
Most consider it noble.

Love is far too precious
To be offered
Indiscriminately.
It is above all
In the area of love
That egalitarianism
Ought to be repudiated.
Love represents
An exalted exchange,
- a spiritual exchange -
Between two people
For the purpose of mutual benefit.

You love someone
Because he or she is a value
- a selfish value to you,
As determined by your standards
- just as you are a value to him or her.

It is the view
That you should be given love
Unconditionally -
The view that
You do not deserve it
Any more than some random bum,
The view that it is not a response
To anything particular in you,
The view that it is causeless
- which exemplifies
The most ignoble conception
Of this sublime experience.

The nature of love
Places certain demands
On those who wish to enjoy it.
You must regard yourself
As worthy of being loved.
Those who expect to be loved,
Not because they offer some positive value,
But because they don't
- are parasites.

A person who says:
Love me just because I need it,
Seeks an unearned spiritual value
- in the same way that
A thief seeks unearned wealth.