Infatuation. What is it, really?

It’s not the person you see that’s so spectacular. Not truly. And yet, they appear that way. Their skin seems flawless. Their eyes impossibly kind. Their laugh, perfectly divine. Everything about them radiates something magical.
And your body responds. A cascade of chemicals. A rush of heat. Your heart races. Hands shake.

All of it, because of how you see. Because of your perception.

How we see, perception, is a powerful thing. It generates real, measurable changes in our experience of reality.

Now imagine two people.

One sees the world as divine play. Perfectly orchestrated, purposeful.

The other sees only chaos. Doom lurks just around the corner.

Same world. Different gaze. For the first, the world is saved. For the second, it is lost.

The same goes for the idea of salvation. One person sees themselves as flawed, yes, but forgiven. Another sees themselves as irredeemable. Condemned.

Heaven and hell, side by side, drawn not by circumstance but by perception.

It is not what we see that shapes us most, but how we see it. Perception is the seed of all things. The world we experience grows out of it. What we call "reality" is a mirror, reflecting the shape of our inner world.

Infatuation is proof. A flash of beauty, not in the object. But in the seeing.

If infatuation is that.. warped perception.. then what is love except clarity? Pure, uncontaminated conciousness? The seeing that sees you EXACTLY as you are, and does not look away?

That is the kind of perception I try to cultivate within myself. The one that sees you as you are, and does not look away. Never ever. And to do that, I must first look at myself and not look away. If I have things in me I condemn, then I will also condemn it in another.

But then, perhaps it is not infatuation that is the warped perception. Perhaps that is the way it really is, a persons divine essence shining through, and we see it clearly only through infatuation.

Who knows