On the Current Unpleasantness, Pt.2
(continued, from last entry)
I’ll tell you why. I was expecting that people would understand my disposition, and that everyone would feel the same as me. I naively believed that the world was filled with starry-eyed dreamers, and that deep down, everyone wanted what I wanted. Of course, as you know, that simply isn’t the case, but you would have never convinced me of that at 15. I have a hard enough time convincing myself of it now. Anyways.
I got burned. I got burned badly a couple of times. I did some burning myself. And after four disasterous years of hurting others and being hurt myself in turn, I was forced to reevaluate what I was thinking and talking about. I did some serious soul searching, and I came to the conclusion that you’ve already read if you read my four part series on love: that I, like most people, didn’t have an idea of what love looked like. I didn’t have the slightest inclination. I thought love was Romeo and Juliet, an emotion so deep that death was the only thing worth having if you didn’t have it. I bought that romantic love was the only feeling that was worth anything, and I hitched my wagon to that tired old horse and rode it into the ground. And when that horse died, I watched myself beat it more (Sorry, Raskolnikov) trying to suck just one more mile out of it. (I’m really sorry, that’s a shameless Russian lit reference.)
At the end of that process, I had an epiphany which I’ve also alluded to here before, namely that love was something very different from what I had always imagined. That it was much broader and much deeper than the narrow thing I’d made it. It took me sometimes to elucidate that entire thing out. But what I was left with was what you’ve read-that love is an enormous concept, covering a huge gamut of emotions, actions and feelings, and that any time someone says that they “love [fill in the blank]” there is a certain amount of translation that we have to do. But you can read about that in my other entries. It’s near V-Day, and I’d like to suggest to you what I think romantic love is all about. Here are my listings, in no particular order.
1. I think romantic love is all about choice. I’ve heard the hype that people fall in and out of love like it was getting a cold and I don’t believe it. I think real love is a choice you make when the emotional aspects are either non-existent or negative. Anyone can want to be around someone when you’re in-tune emotionally, and you both feel the want to be together. But when that temporary emotion fades (and make no mistake, it is temporary) love is the choice you make to continue treating that person with respect, and sharing all the aspects of your life.
2. I think romantic love is about selflessness. I know selflessness is a dirty word in our love culture, but it’s dirt we could all stand to get under our fingernails. What you feel is not love unless you’d trade your own happiness, desires, dreams, wishes, for someone else’s benefit. And I mean that in all seriousness. The beautiful thing about relationships that work is the amount of sacrifice both people make for each other. I’m sure you’ve all heard the O. Henry story about the man who sells his watch to get a comb for his wife’s hair, and the wife that cuts her hair to get money to buy a watch fob for her husband. The beauty of that story is that it really does demonstrate what real love is all about.
NOTE: I’m sure you’re all thinking to yourselves that your love is selfless. Let me give you one simple test to see if you are where you think you are. Imagine that your love would die or suffer if they were with you, and that they don’t know it, but you do. Would you be willing to give them up for their benefit? If you wouldn’t, what you feel for that person is not love. I repeat, if you’re not willing to live without someone as a show of your affection, than what you feel is not love. (Now, you may not have to give them up, but you must be willing to make that sacrifice in order for it to be love.) In addition, if you think you’re loving someone selflessly, you’ve probably missed the boat-you’ve lost sight of the other person long enough to congratulate yourself.
(continued, next entry)