Oh, Mirror In The Sky, What Is Love? Can The Child Within My Heart, Rise Above? Can I Sail Through The Changing Ocean Tides?
--"Landslide", Fleetwood Mac
A lot of topics exist of which I don't claim to be an expert. Whether through sheer apathy or merely a sense of complete befuddlement I know there are a lot of topics which I don't feel qualified to expound upon here or anywhere. It just never made sense to me to contribute my thoughts on a subject, aside from regurgitating straight facts, when they would be incomplete. It'd be just like trying to drive a car to Georgia from California when you only have a half of a tank left.
However, one topic I've always felt quite comfortable discussing is that of relationships between two people. It's not because I consider myself an expert on the subject as a whole. I'm quite confident there's still more I have to learn about the human heart. It's merely that I believe I've seen and experienced a heck of whole lot of scenarios for me to weigh in with my own stories and apply them to most, if not all, of the problems that arise when dealing with such an elusive subject. I may not have all the answers, but I think I can provide a somewhat informed opinion to people I know who may be in need of assistance. I may not have an overwhelming pool of acquaintances to sample from, but that sentiment seems to be the general consensus around these parts.
So you can forgive me if I take the time tonight to work through a conundrum about love that I've been seeing creep again and again in recent memory.
Basically, it's begin to itch at me the way people can love each other at all. I mean--I'm not talking about the way families love each other because that's something instinctual and primal. I'm talking about the way people fall in (and out) of love with another on an almost day-to-day basis. I've had a lot of friends who run the gamut of being serial daters, people who have a new boyfriend or girlfriend week to week, to people who have only been with two or three people for their entire lives. And yet it still befuddles me upon occasion the way the process works at all. Why do people fall in love with one another? Why do people jump so fearlessly into a proposition that ninety percent of the time ends in utter catastrophe? Sometimes I just don't see the motivation in putting oneself into a position where one can be utterly devastated time and time again. It's like walking into the ocean and daring the waves to knock you over one more time.
And I'm diehard romantic idealist too! It's just sometimes, when I'm having a bad day or I read something new, I start looking at how really flawed people can be (myself included). I'm all looking for the bright side of love--I love being in love--but eventually there always comes a point where the little annoyances, the little letdowns, the little earthquakes that rock any relationship simply cannot be ignored. The truth of the matter is even the people who love you the most, the people into whom you've placed the most trust, are going to crush your soul every so often. It's inevitable. All those times where you have your unyielding trust placed into them only to have it broken, those times don't ever fully get forgotten. Happy memories linger too, but not in the same fashion that the bad memories linger. It's the same way you hardly remember when your life is completely in order as opposed to when your life has swung completely into the chaos side of the gauge. People just hold onto the stink far longer than the sweet smell of success simply because they're used more to the latter than the former. People are just not used to experiencing the complete bliss that life can bring as opposed to the upheaval it produces. It's why the good times are so often rare and need to be cherished, because it's harder to lift yourselves up to heaven than it is to stay mired in the muck.
Even the best of people with the best of intentions towards you are going to fuck you up sometime. I know. I've been there.
That's the rub. In most situations where one fails so often and succeeds so rarely, one would be prone to forego all the suffering. It's the nature of things, if you're not successful at something over a prolonged period of time it usually foreshadows the realization that you'll never be good at it. It's usually a sign pointing out that you need to surrender any ambition of accomplishing your task as quickly as possible lest you drive yourself mad with the frustration. I mean--of any process, I believe believing in love, keeping love, or even staying positive about the subject is an entirely hopeless cause. You have so little control over the outcome if you really think about and it almost always controls every fiber of your being while you're under it's spell that it doesn't seem a fair bargain at all. You putting yourself at such a high risk for such a small shot at a reward that you can't be sure is even worth it. What's the point of it all?
Yeah, for the most part, I would rather have love in my life than not, but for the most part I don't understand why inevitably we all fall into this pattern of self-defeat. For me I believe I've been more in love with the idea of love than been all that sold on the actual state of being. It's easy to fall for the hearts and flowers, the nights spent talking on the beach about shared hopes, the days spent in bed wrapped up in the covers with one's lover with no intentions of ever getting out, &c... It's harder to see all the weeks spent in agony wondering where you really stand with this other person. It's harder to explain how one person can bring you to the edge of tears only moments after bringing the most delirious of smiles to your face. It's harder to comprehend how you can stand to be in love with someone when it's painfully obvious that they are not in love with you with the constancy and the quality with which you feel you deserve. It's harder to understand how you can feel so lonely sitting next to someone you claim to be so close to.
I don't question the joy love can bring to your life. I question the price that it exacts upon your sanity and well-being. It's like you make this blind bit for something you've been told is priceless and necessary, but nobody can explain what it is you're exactly getting or when you'll be able to see all of it or even what it's going to take to fully pay for its upkeep. And you keep bidding more and more on it even while more and more of it remains hidden. And we all do it, we all play into the process because we don't know how to live with the alternative. We know that we're unhappy on our own, but we have no guarantees that we'll be any better if we strive for this thing called love, if we assert ourselves to find our own version of a soulmate.
If anything, I believe that's the main benefit of holding out for love. It's the idea that love gives us hope for our lives. It gives us some validation that we're doing something right. I mean--after all, if somebody deigns to spend their affections on us then we must be doing something right, right? If somebody can stand to hold, kiss, hug, fuck, wait, come, stay, play, and live with us then we can't be bad people, right? Holding out that belief that there's somebody out there who will come along and see through the shell of a persona we wear down to the core of our character and still smile gives us the incentive to still be looking. If we didn't have this hope all we'd be left with is the understanding that we are flawed and that our flaws prevent us entirely from ever achieving happiness.
Maybe that's all love is, standing in the face of somebody and seeing that they're composed of equal parts sunshine and sadness, and still accepting them in. Everyday we're surrounded with people that constantly point out our inadequacies and everyday we're just as cruel to the majority of people in our lives. Maybe we don't go out and stomp on sleeping children or set fire to hospitals. But I think the difference between what we could be doing to help other people and what we actually end up doing with our days can be considered a form of cruelty. Maybe all love is a respite from the cold world which we live in. And, yes, it's fucked up and imperfect. And, yes, being in love means painting a target on yourself and handing somebody else a dozen knives. And, yes, more often than not all you end up with is a dozen wounds to the head, heart, and spirt. But sometimes what you end up with is the one person (or the couple of people I believe) who use those knives to actually cut you down from the ties that life tends to bind you up with. Sure, the price of love often is the extrication of your soul and, sure, you don't ever come fully to the realization that love might be worth that exact sum.
But, honestly, what other cause is noble enough to spend your time and energy on? Something or somebody that has no chance of making you happy, or something or someone that offers that hope to you? And, yes, people are going to abuse your trust in them and people are going to lie to your face and let you down, but sometimes these same people are going to be the ones who help you back up unto your feet when the world's knocked you down. Sometimes you're going to see the flaws in someone and ask yourself if they're really worth it, but other times you're going to see these same flaws and honestly go, "I can live with that." Because being in love doesn't mean you have to put up with somebody's bullshit time and time again. It just means recognizing that there is going to be bullshit and, like it or not, you're going to have to be the one cleaning it up sometime... just like it mean somebody's going have to clean up after you as well.
We're not perfect and love isn't perfect, but on the whole there's something to be said about having something beautiful and cracked at the same time in your life because you want to and not because it's forced upon you. Love is a choice and you can only fail if you never put yourself in a position to make that choice.
Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers
A lot of topics exist of which I don't claim to be an expert. Whether through sheer apathy or merely a sense of complete befuddlement I know there are a lot of topics which I don't feel qualified to expound upon here or anywhere. It just never made sense to me to contribute my thoughts on a subject, aside from regurgitating straight facts, when they would be incomplete. It'd be just like trying to drive a car to Georgia from California when you only have a half of a tank left.However, one topic I've always felt quite comfortable discussing is that of relationships between two people. It's not because I consider myself an expert on the subject as a whole. I'm quite confident there's still more I have to learn about the human heart. It's merely that I believe I've seen and experienced a heck of whole lot of scenarios for me to weigh in with my own stories and apply them to most, if not all, of the problems that arise when dealing with such an elusive subject. I may not have all the answers, but I think I can provide a somewhat informed opinion to people I know who may be in need of assistance. I may not have an overwhelming pool of acquaintances to sample from, but that sentiment seems to be the general consensus around these parts.
So you can forgive me if I take the time tonight to work through a conundrum about love that I've been seeing creep again and again in recent memory.
Basically, it's begin to itch at me the way people can love each other at all. I mean--I'm not talking about the way families love each other because that's something instinctual and primal. I'm talking about the way people fall in (and out) of love with another on an almost day-to-day basis. I've had a lot of friends who run the gamut of being serial daters, people who have a new boyfriend or girlfriend week to week, to people who have only been with two or three people for their entire lives. And yet it still befuddles me upon occasion the way the process works at all. Why do people fall in love with one another? Why do people jump so fearlessly into a proposition that ninety percent of the time ends in utter catastrophe? Sometimes I just don't see the motivation in putting oneself into a position where one can be utterly devastated time and time again. It's like walking into the ocean and daring the waves to knock you over one more time.
And I'm diehard romantic idealist too! It's just sometimes, when I'm having a bad day or I read something new, I start looking at how really flawed people can be (myself included). I'm all looking for the bright side of love--I love being in love--but eventually there always comes a point where the little annoyances, the little letdowns, the little earthquakes that rock any relationship simply cannot be ignored. The truth of the matter is even the people who love you the most, the people into whom you've placed the most trust, are going to crush your soul every so often. It's inevitable. All those times where you have your unyielding trust placed into them only to have it broken, those times don't ever fully get forgotten. Happy memories linger too, but not in the same fashion that the bad memories linger. It's the same way you hardly remember when your life is completely in order as opposed to when your life has swung completely into the chaos side of the gauge. People just hold onto the stink far longer than the sweet smell of success simply because they're used more to the latter than the former. People are just not used to experiencing the complete bliss that life can bring as opposed to the upheaval it produces. It's why the good times are so often rare and need to be cherished, because it's harder to lift yourselves up to heaven than it is to stay mired in the muck.
Even the best of people with the best of intentions towards you are going to fuck you up sometime. I know. I've been there.
That's the rub. In most situations where one fails so often and succeeds so rarely, one would be prone to forego all the suffering. It's the nature of things, if you're not successful at something over a prolonged period of time it usually foreshadows the realization that you'll never be good at it. It's usually a sign pointing out that you need to surrender any ambition of accomplishing your task as quickly as possible lest you drive yourself mad with the frustration. I mean--of any process, I believe believing in love, keeping love, or even staying positive about the subject is an entirely hopeless cause. You have so little control over the outcome if you really think about and it almost always controls every fiber of your being while you're under it's spell that it doesn't seem a fair bargain at all. You putting yourself at such a high risk for such a small shot at a reward that you can't be sure is even worth it. What's the point of it all?
Yeah, for the most part, I would rather have love in my life than not, but for the most part I don't understand why inevitably we all fall into this pattern of self-defeat. For me I believe I've been more in love with the idea of love than been all that sold on the actual state of being. It's easy to fall for the hearts and flowers, the nights spent talking on the beach about shared hopes, the days spent in bed wrapped up in the covers with one's lover with no intentions of ever getting out, &c... It's harder to see all the weeks spent in agony wondering where you really stand with this other person. It's harder to explain how one person can bring you to the edge of tears only moments after bringing the most delirious of smiles to your face. It's harder to comprehend how you can stand to be in love with someone when it's painfully obvious that they are not in love with you with the constancy and the quality with which you feel you deserve. It's harder to understand how you can feel so lonely sitting next to someone you claim to be so close to.
I don't question the joy love can bring to your life. I question the price that it exacts upon your sanity and well-being. It's like you make this blind bit for something you've been told is priceless and necessary, but nobody can explain what it is you're exactly getting or when you'll be able to see all of it or even what it's going to take to fully pay for its upkeep. And you keep bidding more and more on it even while more and more of it remains hidden. And we all do it, we all play into the process because we don't know how to live with the alternative. We know that we're unhappy on our own, but we have no guarantees that we'll be any better if we strive for this thing called love, if we assert ourselves to find our own version of a soulmate.
If anything, I believe that's the main benefit of holding out for love. It's the idea that love gives us hope for our lives. It gives us some validation that we're doing something right. I mean--after all, if somebody deigns to spend their affections on us then we must be doing something right, right? If somebody can stand to hold, kiss, hug, fuck, wait, come, stay, play, and live with us then we can't be bad people, right? Holding out that belief that there's somebody out there who will come along and see through the shell of a persona we wear down to the core of our character and still smile gives us the incentive to still be looking. If we didn't have this hope all we'd be left with is the understanding that we are flawed and that our flaws prevent us entirely from ever achieving happiness.
Maybe that's all love is, standing in the face of somebody and seeing that they're composed of equal parts sunshine and sadness, and still accepting them in. Everyday we're surrounded with people that constantly point out our inadequacies and everyday we're just as cruel to the majority of people in our lives. Maybe we don't go out and stomp on sleeping children or set fire to hospitals. But I think the difference between what we could be doing to help other people and what we actually end up doing with our days can be considered a form of cruelty. Maybe all love is a respite from the cold world which we live in. And, yes, it's fucked up and imperfect. And, yes, being in love means painting a target on yourself and handing somebody else a dozen knives. And, yes, more often than not all you end up with is a dozen wounds to the head, heart, and spirt. But sometimes what you end up with is the one person (or the couple of people I believe) who use those knives to actually cut you down from the ties that life tends to bind you up with. Sure, the price of love often is the extrication of your soul and, sure, you don't ever come fully to the realization that love might be worth that exact sum.
But, honestly, what other cause is noble enough to spend your time and energy on? Something or somebody that has no chance of making you happy, or something or someone that offers that hope to you? And, yes, people are going to abuse your trust in them and people are going to lie to your face and let you down, but sometimes these same people are going to be the ones who help you back up unto your feet when the world's knocked you down. Sometimes you're going to see the flaws in someone and ask yourself if they're really worth it, but other times you're going to see these same flaws and honestly go, "I can live with that." Because being in love doesn't mean you have to put up with somebody's bullshit time and time again. It just means recognizing that there is going to be bullshit and, like it or not, you're going to have to be the one cleaning it up sometime... just like it mean somebody's going have to clean up after you as well.
We're not perfect and love isn't perfect, but on the whole there's something to be said about having something beautiful and cracked at the same time in your life because you want to and not because it's forced upon you. Love is a choice and you can only fail if you never put yourself in a position to make that choice.
Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers
Labels: Changes, Constancy, Fleetwood Mac, love, Loyalty
posted by mojo shivers @ 1:10 AM
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