The cause is experiencing itself. The answer to the question as to what the cause is is that what loves itself. Self-love is the mechanism that allows the experience to be so that it can build upon itself. Without love of self; the experience could not be. Self love is not selfish for it is 'that', the collective, what we have come to define as existence; it is indeed one without a second.
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The answer to the question as to what self love is is a need for warmth and togetherness.
Self love, in its most pure form, is the need to experience love; it drives its own existency. What it means is that the innate desire to love and to be loved in return underwrites its very own existential experience, which we have come to define as reality. We could thus state that the effect is this very need experiencing its own manifestation, or, that life is, in reality, love experiencing itself.
~ Wald Wassermann