ABSTRACT
It is scarcely possible to conceive love in our own time as anything but conditional and 'object-directed'. Love is both our salvation and our greatest danger: he or she who loves reciprocally and without defences takes the most terrifying risk of annihilation. In a society in which we have all become objects, it is the best and most fulfilling mode in which to conduct our relations with each other. Love and happiness go hand-in-hand. Love protects us from the sheer brutal savagery otherwise so apparent in our social intercourse. Love is our emotional currency. Psychological distress and anxiety are not indications of illness or abnormality, but the inevitable experiences of anyone who begins to become aware, however dimly, of the disparity between myth and reality. Reality lies in what we do, not in what we tell ourselves, and what we do arises, often, out of our passionate commitment to the lessons of our experience.
