Worthiness

I went through a rough experience many years ago, romantic in nature, that left me wondering if I was worthy of love.

I went into therapy (because of that and other reasons) and got the usual adult child of alcoholics affirmations and reassurances, which included the reassurance that I was indeed worthy of love.

I accepted that and carried it with me.

Until about a week ago.

It was inevitable, I suppose, that I would re-examine this belief in light of my Buddhist/Taoist leanings.

Why does there have to be an issue of 'worthy/not worthy'? Why does 'worthiness' even enter into it?

We're always looking for ways to get a grip on things that are so ethereal and vaporous that they can't be grasped, and here we are trying to get a grip on 'love,' something which may exist, or which may actually just be a catchall term - like 'cancer' and 'nervous breakdown' - for a variety of symptoms and/or phenomena which may be related in some way but are not necessarily the same thing.

So if I ask myself, "Am I worthy of love?" is the proper response, "Yes, I am worthy of love"?

Or is the proper response, "Why am I even asking the question? Why don't I ask myself, 'Am I worthy of being a chocolate doughnut?' or, for that matter, 'Is a chocolate doughnut worthy of love?'"

I'm not sure I'm making myself clear here. I guess what I'm saying is that we pose questions to ourselves that have no valid foundation, then struggle to come up with answers to them. We argue, we debate -- in this case we buy a bunch of those Venus/Mars books -- and at the end of the day we don't know a damn thing more than we did to start with because we began with a flawed question.

Am I worthy of love?

I saw two squirrels chasing each other up and down a tree.

That's as good an answer as 'yes' or 'no.'