Hanging out with some friends last night got me thinking about love and everything to do with it and especially why it is such a complicated subject. But most of all WHY DO WE FEAR IT SO MUCH?

 Now, unlike the title suggests, I'm not going to even try and describe the definition of Love, many better writers and philosophers then me have tried and failed.

Love, obviously is something that brings us together, yet so many of us are hurt by love, hurt by the people we love, hurt by the people that love us, and have very painful memories of everything in between. Why does love end up so often being so painful? Why do so many suffer for love? And does it truly have to be this way?

I am not speaking primarily of romantic love, but then what other kinds of love are there? There is friendship love, there is closeness love, there is tough love and soft love. For some reason when we all think of love we think of the pink fluffy love. Whenever people start talking about "sharing the love" and "make love not war" and other such Hippie ideas we get this pink bunnies and pink ruffles picture in out mind.

Obviously love is not just about oochy-coochie lovable fury animals and such mushy things that repulses the majority of us (aside from the first three dates) and is a great insult to us manly men. Indeed the idea of any kind of affection seems to scare the majority of us off! Why is this? Why do the words "I love you" make too many of us queez inside and make us hit the deck?

No, I do not have an answer. Maybe it makes us feel strange? Maybe we're afraid of change? Or perhaps it is a fear of it not being how we imagines it, or maybe it will be EXACTLY as we imagined it!

The ghosts and demons that haunt all of us are beyond my vision. I do know that we all have our reasons to fear love and many of these reasons are very good ones at that! But they will still keep us away from love, and at the end of it all we all want to feel loved and wanted by someone. And no, none of us can deny it.

Now something interesting to point out is that the different expressions of love are numerous beyond imagine. We might be afraid of it, but we cannot help but feel it (as we are all human) and we will also feel a need to expresses it, no matter what. How is this? The punch on the arm, the playful tackle, throwing snow or leaves (depending on the season). Remember pulling that girl's pigtails in fifth grade? So much that we do to other people is simple a show of affection in disguise. How often do you see real close bros tackle one another for no real reason? Just an excuse to touch each other, admit it.

We've been socially conditioned to hide love, out of fear and hate, to the point where it is almost horrific to tell another person that we love them. Admitting to trying to bring more love to New York is a strange and alien idea. But there is no love to bring, it is already there! We just need to learn not to fear it, allow ourselves to let it out and not get scared we will turn into fuzzy-wuzzy cuddle bunnies (no, love will note do that to you).

Spreading love is not just about knowing how to give it, but also knowing how to receive it! Because everyone expresses love differently, and we have to be ready to receive it just as much as we are ready to give it, and keep in mind that not everyone (not many, for that matter) know how to give OR receive love.

One small note on the subject of anger and hate, these are not opposite emotions to love, as many sources will pose. They are not on any kind of spectrum, indeed it is quite possible to feel all these emotions at the same time. Love, hate and anger are all different emotions and conflict with each other none at all.

Now to finish this article I'd like to share with you this video that comes to us from Another Gulliver Production. ENJOY!

Thou Art God

Posted by: Goddess of Java

That pantheistic, mystical “Thou art God!” chorus that runs through the book is not offered as a creed, but as an existentialist assumption of personal responsibility, devoid of all godding. It says, “Don’t appeal for mercy to God the Father up in the sky, little man, because he’s not at home and never was at home, and couldn’t care less. What you do with yourself, whether you are happy or unhappy–live or die–is strictly your business and the universe doesn’t care. In fact, you may be be the universe and the only cause for your troubles. But, at best, the most you can hope for is comradeship with comrades no more divine (or just as divine) as you are. So quit sniveling and face up to it — “Thou art God!”

– October 21, 1960 Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

Grumbles from the Grave, Virginia G. Heinlein, ed.

 

It’s all your creation.

No, really, it is. Your entire life is what you made it.

No, don’t tell me how rotten your parents were to you, or tell me horror stories about bad partners. Not saying that what got done to you might not have sucked. It probably did. I’ve heard some horror stories in my time and I am genuinely sorry for anyone who has had a rough time. I ain’t trying to blow off the fact that things happen that really are terrible.

Thing is, no matter what got done to you, what you did with it is actually what makes your life.

And what makes your life is utterly, totally and completely up to you.

You’re free. Right now. In this very second, you are completely free to choose what you want to do with your life.  You might feel like this is not so, but I promise you that who you are, where you are and what you are is due to the choices you made.   If you do not like any of these things, you are free to make different choices to change them.

“Free to choose” does not mean that your choice will be easy, or the execution of a particular desire will be automatic. That’s where a lot of people trip up. They think if it ain’t easy, or if it’s got a heavy price, then they aren’t really free.  Many times, choices can have a heavy price, indeed.  But don’t think you can escape the price of your choices.

Friends, life doesn’t work that way.

“‘Thou art God.’ It’s not a message of cheer and hope, Jubal. It’s a defiance–and an unafraid unabashed assumption of personal responsibility… But I rarely put it over… The notion that the effort has to be their own… and that all the trouble they are in is of their own doing.. is one they can’t or won’t entertain.”

Thing is, even if you do accept this personal responsibility, there’s one more great nasty pitfall waiting for you.

Guilt.

God, what a horrid, poisonous little barb that can be. You can choose to be paralyzed by it. You have one more escape clause if you want to avoid taking responsibility for yourself. You can choose to hate yourself, and not act because you’re so rotten — because you made such bad and foolish and unloving and unworkable choices.  You can hate yourself down into your bones for how terrible you are, and then you can be paralyzed from acting and wave your bleeding wounds like a flag.

If you think I’m saying that self hatred is a form of procrastination and laziness, you’re very right. It is. Hating yourself is a block to change, or trying to weasel out of accepting what is. Think about it, if I want to be able to bench press 40 lbs, and I can only bench 12, hating myself is not going to help. Lifting that 12 lbs until it’s easy and then lifting something that’s heavier is what’s going to do the real good. The only thing self-hatred and guilt is going to do is give you a socially acceptable excuse not to try.  People pity those in pain, as they should, but sometimes it’s weaseling. It also lets you avoid confronting the idea that maybe you don’t particularly want to work on whatever it is you feel guilty about. Me? I say step up to the plate and admit you don’t want to work on whatever it is and let it go. You’re already dealing with the consequences of your choices, so what the hell?

It’s a very freeing feeling to realize that everything you do, you choose to do. It’s also a great way to get rid of the guilt monster.

Not too long ago, one of my kids was ill and up a lot in the night. I got very little sleep attending to the child. Now, I normally get up around 0500 so that I can be at the gym to work out when it opens¹. I chose not to go and swim that morning. Not “I was up with a sick child and could not go”. I chose not to go. Conscious. Decided. Understanding the consequences. <grin> I also chose to lose sleep to attend to the child². Because I knew these were conscious choices, I did spend my time frustrated at what was going on, but simply dealt with what was in front of me free from any anger or resentment at loss of sleep.

Tonight, I am choosing to have my favorite Appletini.  As a beginning bodybuilder, I know that alcohol adds excess calories that do nothing to help build muscles — indeed is catabolic to them, and suppresses the testosterone I need to build muscle, while preventing fat metabolism.  I accept this choice.  I will never look like a fitness model choosing this.  And I am choosing to enjoy my drink.  Because I am choosing it with open eyes, I have the opportunity to look at it free of guilt and self hatred and any of that foolishness.

Facing up to the fact that everything you do is something you’re choosing can be difficult. Sometimes you learn some not so flattering things about yourself³. Sometimes you take a good, hard look and realize you’ve been making some choices that are very pleasing to you, indeed.

But in all ways it is freeing. It frees you from resentment, because you accept that everything you do is a choice. How can you resent someone else if you’re the one choosing? It frees you to act with wisdom because you’re conscious that every minute you’re choosing your behavior, and constructing your future.

¹I’m not really all that fond of working out, but I want to get stronger. So I choose to go early and get it out of the way so I don’t wind up wasting time making excuses.

²Of course it was a choice. People do choose not to look after their children, after all. It’s not a choice I admire, but it’s a choice.

³And learning to face up to that without using the escape of self-hatred is quite the challenge!