Too much of a good thing?

One would reason that if a little bit of something is good then a great deal of that same something would be better, right?  For example, one bite of triple fudge dark chocolate ripple cake is incredible which stands to reason that having the whole cake would be cosmically orgasmic, right?  The ancient societies certainly believed it.  They would go to banquets for days and gorge themselves on these elaborate feasts, get drunk, get laid then go out, evacuate their stomachs and go back again for another round.  Sounds great, right? …right?  I… uh… kind of feel sick thinking about it.

Okay, seriously, what happens in reality?  You take one bite of your triple fudge dark chocolate ripple cake and its divine, second bite, great.  Third bite starts to get too rich.  By the fourth bite, it’s too much and you end up sliding your decadent desert over to your friend to finish for you.  

I remember going to Disneyland as a kid and Six Flags Magic Mountain as a teen with my family.  My mother would always tell us to leave something to do the next time we came and that way we would always want to come back; we would always be exploring and discovering new things.  The things that we had seen and done would be fun, familiar and we would be excited to see and experience them again, but there would always be something new and exciting to see the next time. 

Is it possible to have so much of a good thing that you sate the appetite for it completely and never again have a desire to enjoy it?  I have a number of friends who will testify to this fact on Monday mornings when they arrive at work proclaiming their desire to “never drink again.”  Can we actually “kill” the desire for something by having too much of it?

In the masterful words of Shakespeare, Duke Orsino captures this idea in a very well-known passage.  He is talking about a piece of music he heard that reminded him of the object of his heart’s desire: Viola. 

“If music be the food of love, play on!  Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, the appetite may sicken, and so die.”  Then calling to his musicians, “That strain again!”  They begin to play this bit of music for him and again he feels the passion and the power of the music.  Then he sighs and says, “It had a dying fall:  O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound that breathes upon a bank of violets, stealing and giving odor!”  He inhales suddenly as though trying to capture the scent of the music in his nose.  I imagine him not being satisfied with his first breath and trying again, he sniffs the air deeply… Then with a sigh of resignation says, “Enough; no more.  'Tis not so sweet now as it was before.”

Can this happen with people? 

Is it possible that my seemingly unsatisfieable want to be around and near certain people will eventually kill their desire to be near me?  Will it kill my desire to be near them?  Or am I worrying unnecessarily, again?  Am I borrowing trouble again, as it were?  Maybe.

… in fact, probably.

I have not been one known for setting or, once set, abiding by limits.  I tend to be the one who cries, “Give me excess of it!”  I can never have enough of a good thing.  Then again, Orsino was warring with himself because all of his advances toward Viola were being rejected.  Was he, in fact, trying to kill his desire for Viola? 

They say “absence makes the heart grow fonder.”  Does this translate to, “Go away, already!  Give me the chance to miss you!”  Perhaps…  Or, rather, is it that absence makes the heart grow forgetful and, if so, is that a good or a bad thing?  I don’t mean forgetful in the sense of forgetting to remember someone, but rather forgetting the things that made you want the chance to miss them in the first place. 

See, if you think back about people you’re fond of you remember the good things about them, the fun that was had and the times that you enjoyed.  You don’t tend to dwell on the minor annoyances you would feel about them.  Right?  Time, memory and longing can take those fine bits of irritation and coat them in layer upon layer of sweet memories and eventually turn that little grain of irritation into a priceless pearl that you would never trade.  So, the minor irritations in people, their imperfections, can eventually be the things that you come to love the most… given time, absence and longing for their return.  In fact, this can be applied almost universally.  It is true of friends, lovers, family members, places, etc. 

Now, the reader will surely be wondering if this is what I am thinking or if this is what I think others are thinking about me…  The truth is, both, but FAR more the later.  I think I am just getting scared.  Things are wonderful right now and I seem to be waiting for the other shoe to drop.  I have got to stop doing that!  

What do you think?