A pair of powerful spectacles has sometimes sufficed to cure a person in love.

— Friedrich Nietzsche

REFLECTION

WHAT THIS MEANS

Infatuation depends a little on blur. At a distance, and in the right light, a person can be filled in with whatever you happen to need, and the picture holds only as long as you do not look too closely. Seeing someone plainly is not cynicism; it is the point at which liking them becomes possible, or stops being.

With someone you are dazzled by, try describing them to yourself in ordinary words for a minute. No qualities in the abstract, just what they actually do and say. If the feeling survives that, it was probably about them all along.

A QUESTION TO SIT WITH

What did you stop wanting once you looked at it closely?

MORE IN PERCEPTION & ATTENTION

Free, with nothing to buy inside it.