Garden Party

Well it's alright now
I learned my lesson well
You see, ya can't please everyone
So ya got to please yourself.

When we were wired, the world was like a secret

Where are those inspiring
beautiful
and dangerous secrets
That once touched
My wonder
And commanded
They be fed to
My hungering mind?

From the horizon
to Zenith
and down again
Now they move
To screens
And print
Upon dead trees

And they feel fleeting
Not now so much
Like beginning.

A Small Discourse About Love

I was sorting through some of my old writings, and found this, "A Small Discourse About Love" collecting digital dust in a neglected folder. I originally wrote it in a forum discussion on the topic a couple years ago. I was pleased to find that the thoughts still resounded well within me, so I thought I'd renew them by placing them here as well.


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In this thread, which seems an appropriate place to engage the issue, I'm going to write about love, which is possibly one of the most often done, and most dangerous kinds of writing, second maybe to religion. In this writing, I'm going to draw on some personal experiences (because well, they're the best ones I have) to make my points. In no way do I do this to convey that my experiences and perceptions on love are the right ones. They are simply the best tool I have for strengthing my thoughts on the subject. Please keep in mind the subjective nature of these observations.

A westerm anthropologist once asked a Hopi, "Why are so many of your songs about rain?" The Hopi replied, "Because it is so scarce. Is that why so many of your songs are about love?"

Love: The elusive beast. In our North American society (at least), we have a particular kind of outlook on love. At its most conventional, ideas about love fit into the ideas about life. First, you're born, and you are loved by your parents, siblings, etc. Then you develop friendships as you get your education, and a type of love is formed there. But somehow a more important emphasis is placed on a different type of love - romantic love, and there is this unspoken rule that you must search for a perfect form of this kind of love, then cement it through marriage, and start the cycle over again.

Yet, we run into so much difficulty when trying to do this. It is SO hard to come by. We make movies about how hard this is. We write books. We hold it to be one of the greatest, and most difficult ends that can ever be achieved. Is that because the nature of romantic love makes it scarce? Or is it because somewhere along the line, we got the wrong idea about love, and as a result, we keep looking past it as it stares us in the face?

I love you. I need you. I am nothing without you. You complete me.

All of these are very romantic notions associated with love. It is an extremely flattering idea that people can complete one another. But in effect, these ideas are also extremely, extremely dangerous. For one, when someone is relied on to provide the very substance to someone's existence, that puts a huge amount of pressure on them. From a loving intention, they don't want to let the other person down, so they are inclined to change who they are to accomodate them. Also, their fear of losing the relationship contributes to the thoughts, "What can I change about me to make this last? To make this work? I need this in my life."

But ultimately, these things are just not true. No one likes going through the process, of course, but more often than not, no matter how painful losing someone may be, people go on. They live. Clearly, they are still something on their own.

I think most will agree that there is no greater bond than between mother and child. And yet, ideally, the mother's role in this relationship is ultimately to enable the child to live completely without them. They help provide strength, personal identity, and independence. It is in truly loving children that you can let them go, and let them be who they are. A similar idea can be applied to any relationship.

I once dated this magnificent girl a couple years back. Our relationship, romantically, lasted a grand total of three weeks. Near the tail end of this, we were having a conversation, and she was not enjoying it. I was expressing my feelings, about how I felt about her, and about the tension in our relationship, and it was getting tenser with every sentence that left my mouth. I figured this was all failing horribly, and I was very discouraged. That was until I said I was sorry I was making her feel this way, and she responded, "No. This is good," with an angry expression still upon her face, "This is you, and you shouldn't not be you. Just because I don't like it doesn't mean you shouldn't be that way. If you just show me who you are, I can decide whether I like it or not, and it'll be the truth, and neither of us will be kidding ourselves."

Well, that hit me like a ton of bricks. So painfully simple, yet it hadn't entered my mind. The next few days passed, with me resolving to just be myself, as instructed, and inevitably, the tension grew to a point where we broke up. Silence ensued, and in the following weeks, I let what she said slowly sink into my brain. It was a slow epiphany, and by the time I really wrapped my head around it, she had moved away to Calgary, which turned out to be one of the most harrowing experiences she'd ever had. But I was okay with that, because I now recognized that even if she was miserable, she was finding out who she was, and I had discovered (or simply discovered in a new way) that who I am is someone who really values that. She came back to our hometown some months later, and I shared all these revelations with her, and even though we're still dramatically different people, to this day we have a very close relationship that celebrates the positive aspects of our similarities and differences, instead of trying to adapt ourselves to be compatible in every way with one another. It is our ability to understand aspects of who the other person is, whether we agree with it or not, that endears us to one another, not our ability to stay within a romantically defined relationship.

Yet so many people are not interested in their own independence and identity. Many don't even know that such a thing is possible, as they feel they can only, and have only ever been defined through other people. To not be accepted, is to have no identify. To not be loved, is to not exist. In a way this is true, but only so because generally people forget that the most important person that needs to love and accept them is: themselves.

Alright, here we go: cheesy, sappy, hug yourself crap, right? That's one way of looking at it, sure. It's cliché, but the cliché has developed for a reason, and the reason is this: People who have a strong sense of identity and independence simply have better tools for working on relationships. If someone knows, that no matter what happens, they can always feel good about life, and themselves, that huge amount of pressure surrounding relationships vanishes, and the relationship can develop in an honest atmosphere. When someone isn't afraid of losing a relationship, they are more likely to let relationships that don't really work with them pass on by, and they won't be constantly working on some facade whose only purpose is to delay loneliness as long as possible, because when they are not in a relationship, they are not at all lonely. This absence of fear creates a much healthier environment for relationships to grow. Not needing relationships gives independent people the freedom to be more effective within them.

The catch is, becoming independent can be about as scary as walking into a dark room that you know absolutely nothing about. It's very easy to just see what people want, be that as best you can, and let that be your identity. For some people, maybe that works. I'll acknowledge that that's entirely possible, but I've yet to see it. It's a great thing to make people happy, but if those people really love you, they want to know, and want you to know who the hell you are, and if they are independent people themselves, they place knowing that above their own happiness with the current situation. If in figuring yourself out, you stay in their lives, then great, you know you were on the right track. If in figuring yourself out, they lose you, then okay, now you're both free to find something that's closer to the truth.

In the end, isn't it greater to choose and be chosen, not because one person needs the other, but because while neither of you is needed, you are still wanted by the other?