thank you! I'd love to hear your thoughts and emotions if you'd care to share!
i think love means “to accept oneself and another unconditionally”.
humans like other apes are social animals, which is why we experience fear of loneliness and rejection so strongly. being away from other apes in the wilderness means death to the solitary ape. this is what our limbic system probably still tells us or something. when we have to choose between our attachment (leash) or preserving the self (gnaw), our programmatic response is to choose the leash, even if that means we will wither. its an impossible problem.
to truly love someone is to show them you will always accept them, even if they gnaw, removing the impossible choice, and empowering them to fight for their self. it may not save the other person, but i think it’s the most you can do.
really appreciate you thinking deeply about this. I think loneliness and rejection are extremely strong motivators, and can lead to such strong feelings they overcome self preservation
i think the ties and attachments in the myth at the end to me are not all leashes but are more like the "red thread of fate" sort of thing (as...not a normal example, but a different rotation of this concept, see my wife's hitman.drr.ac ). The leash to me is ownership (a leash is designed to be held and to choke whatever (or whoever) struggles), slavery annihilates will. I think there are many ways people are tied together, not all good or bad.