Certainly there are those who are so attached to the benefits (and on occassion even the drawbacks) of a particular condition or disease that they will refuse to be cured. Other times so much of perception or identity has become linked with the disorder, it is impossible for the sufferer to really function without it. Those subject to the horror that was At First Sight ( based on a case history by Oliver Sacks) have an idea of the series of difficulties faced by someone who chooses to be "cured" of a lifelong ailment.

Which brings us to love. As Barabara Streisand once said "Sometimes people love you so much, their love is like a goddamn gun to your head." (Special points to heterosexual men who can identify the film.) Much like the nun, often in love we have to make the choice: go back to our healthy, but "dull", existence or embrace ephermeral ecstasy knowing, in the process, that such an embrace will surely result in a "bad end." It's a difficult choice. How do you voluntary give up the elusive smell of jasmine? How do you walk away from the spilling of poetry on the page? The moment of revelation when you look over your lover's shoulder as he kisses your neck to realize "Dear christ the trees on block are in bloom and I didn't notice? How did I miss it? How long have I not seen this beauty?" And more importantly, the question implied but never asked, how will I see this beauty again when he is gone?