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I agree with your "addiction" theory EZ2. We don't think in terms of addictions when we think of attachments but I do believe they could very well be one and the same. Only a matter of degree.

Ken Keyes, Jr. talks about addiction in his lovely little book from 1979 called "a conscious person's guide to relationships". Although he focuses on relationships with a partner, the principals he speaks of can be applied to all relationships. Here's a snippet ...

To get the most from your relationship, you'll find it helpful to distinguish between involvement with a person and addiction to being with the person. Let's define these two key terms. Involvement means "I share my life with you." Addiction means "I create the experience that I am lost without you. I need you to be happy."

Involvement means spending a lot of time together. Addiction means creating emotion-backed demands in my head that dictate what my partner should say and do -- it means "ownership." Involvement means that I choose to share a large part of my life with my beloved and build a mutual reality together. Addiction means that I feel insecure without someone -- I want him or her to save me.

Back to attachment ... I feel it's natural, and when there is a sudden loss it is also natural to grieve the loss. Animals do so, as well. There is so much attention on avoiding "darker" feelings in our society ... grief, depression, panic ... many emotions are viewed as negative and unacceptable. They are feelings, too, and they take time to process and heal. We are the ones who do ourselves a disservice by masking them with drugs and not allowing ourselves to feel what we feel.

One of the things I have always admired about actors is their willingness to look into and portray the darker side of humanity. To me that is what makes a movie interesting - that delving into a side of the psyche that few willingly dare to go. But, eventually we are all faced with some of these more uncomfortable emotions and then find ourselves at a total loss as to how to deal with them.

Post 'em on Eon's - easy.

Or turn on some heavy rock n roll and crank the volume up to eleven and dance and howl under the full moon and annoy all the neighbors in your pink fuzzy bathrobe and bunny slippers?

Seriously, I enjoy movies that deal with dark emotions for the same reasons. I suppose it's one way of feeling connected when feeling disconnected.

I think that attachment is natural for those who dwell on the past and on the future but it is not natural for those who live in the moment.

I used to work at a hospice with terminally ill patients and they would often say that their lives went by so quickly; what I came to realize was that most had lived there lives in memories of the past and desires for the future, they were rarely here in the moment with their life as it was happening and so their life went by without them. That is why it went by so quickly.

In a mental health crisis people are usually upset about something that just happened or something that they think is going to happen, and the intervention is to get them to focus on the moment in the here and now and take things one breath at a time. Iiving in the moment there are no attachments.

For me quality time happens when I live in the moment and savor what is in front of me when it is in front of me. Elderly people; those up in years who have been age enhanced, usually dwell more on the past, while younger people; those who have lived less years, usually dwell more on the future, but new born baby’s; infants, stay in the moment. The moment is all any of us have; all experience happens in the here and now.