STP S3 E6: Love Letter

Love. Love is the most enigmatic of all emotions. There’s endless gradations of love. There’s endless manifestations of love. There’s endless rationalizations of love.

Every writer in the history of mankind has scribbled about love, every singer in the history of music has crooned about love, every teenager in the history of puberty has felt the discovery of love.

Of all human emotions, love is the most universal and the least understood. I’ve been in love. I’m currently in love. Do I understand it? I didn’t then, I don’t now, and I probably never will. But that’s part of the fun, isn’t it? If you could wake up tomorrow knowing precisely what love is and have it distilled into a formula that you could quantify, would you? Or would that destroy the beauty of it all? The mystery of love is the appeal. The unknowable nature of love is what makes it love. Listen to me, I sound like a stoned teenager…

Animals, to their credit, have a pretty good grapple on the topic: Love is a means to an end. Are cats just manipulating us to get food? Of course. Are dogs manipulating us to go on a walk? You betcha. But that doesn’t make their love any less sincere. They sincerely want to make you feel things. They sincerely want you to engage with them. They sincerely want to make you happy.

Animals know you’re simple and will react the way they want. Does that make this an artificial relationship? Does that make this a predatory relationship? Does that make this… an abusive relationship? Or are we content knowing…