Lather, Rinse, Repeat, Restlessness…

It is something that we all fall into and it is something that I really dislike. Things become a routine and you just find yourself doing them over and over again. For instance, I wake up and usually check my e-mail and other various things on the internet. Next, I will get out clothes and take a shower. After that, I will have breakfast (or lunch depending on when I got up). Then, I go to work and do everything that I need to there. To end the day, I will usually come home and relax maybe check my e-mail again or just do something on my computer before going to bed. How much of what I just talked about comes up in everyday canversation? “Hey man, I took a shower this morning, but I check my e-mail first!” When things get to the point of routine, there is not anything that you can talk about. It then becomes:

“Hey! What have you been up to?”

“Not really anything, You?”

“Me neither.”

The topic of conversation tends to be things that are new, things that are different, things that either matter or serve as a distraction as we are avoiding what really matters. When you slip into a day to day routine, there is nothing that really is worth saying.

I am one of two things. I am either a man of few words or a man of many unimportant words that serve as filler. I can be both people within the same day and depending on my mood maybe the same conversation. I tend to fall into routines and I don’t like them. They make life boring and leave one day blending into the next. This is a terrible thing to happen in the summer when there is less social things to do. I just have work and sleep for some days and then I spend time getting ready for the rest of the week. I am just a normal person with a normal routine… It may sound like I am being negative and outright tired of my life right now, but even normal people have things that do not fit into their normal routine, things that make life interesting. Things they look to when they would otherwise be bored to tears. That for me right now is a car in my driveway that I am learning to drive. This will take a bit of time but before I go back to school in the fall I will be licensed. This will give me more freedom, but will be a thing that is worth talking about. Even more, it gets me out of my routine.

What will I do when I am done with that though?

I have a dusty guitar in the corner of my room that is looking for me to make use of it.

What have I learned over the years relating to routines and life?

They are a necessary evil, but should not be the only thing you do with your day.

Did I just end my post with a dialog similar to my last post?

Yeah, I did. So what? Wanna fight about it?

Don’t Push Love Away

There is a risk that comes with love. I will have to admit that, but I also feel that the risk is part of what makes love what it is, a passion. I have heard that love and hate are both a passion, just at different ends of the spectrum. It is this passion that drives you. You become infatuated with the someone that is part of the key to unlocking what love really is… it is not a distraction, but an infatuation. There is not an escape; there is a pull. I realize that I must clearly define what I include as love and what would be lust or a flesh driven fling.

To start, I will go straight to the source for what love is: “4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8Love never fails…” — 1 Cor. 13 4-8. There is another verse that says: “16This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.” 1 John 3:16

It is through these verses that we can fully see that love is not a distraction, not a drug, not a deviant act that we should avoid, but actually is an infatuation, a way of life, and what we should strive for. You cannot “make love,” but love can grow. A physical attraction can start a relationship, but it is not enough to sustain a relationship. You cannot have a withdraw from love, but you have heartache from love unreturned. Love is mutual; every time you show love to someone, you run the risk of it not being returned.

You cannot “make love,” but love can grow…

I heard a conversation between a couple of men before and one asked the other, “Do you love your wife?” to which the other man replied, “I love her as much today as when we got married.” Then the first man said that is not enough: “You should love her more with each and every day.” This growth of love is what is the bonding part of the relationship. As you grow there will be things that hurt and stuff may be said, things that would cause you to leave if there was not a growth in love. Love is what makes you accept a person for who they are and look past their flaws to see their heart. When the “honeymoon” is past and the imperfections start piling up, it is only through this growth of love that you would see past them and show love to the person. It is only logical that if irritation will increase, so must love.

A physical attraction can start a relationship, but it is not enough to sustain a relationship…

This runs parallel to the previous statement with a physical attraction there is a plateau that will be reached and it will seem like you are falling out of love with the person. I would venture to say that you love the person as much as you did originally. The problem is that the love is not growing and by the law of diminishing return, the fruits of you love grow smaller and smaller. You may seek ways to try to increase the return, but in the end your efforts will be fruitless… no pun intended…

You cannot have a withdraw from love, but you have heartache from love unreturned…

In the midst of a person grasping at the threads of a relationship doomed to fall apart, there can be heartache. This stems for the last statement as well. A person can spend so much time trying to make the relationship work that the other is unaware that there is a problem. Then when the last thread of the relationship is severed from one the other is left in utter pain.

Love is mutual; every time you show love to someone, you run the risk of it not being returned.

I hold this to be the closest to the ultimate expression of love: “16This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.” 1 John 3:16 He did this knowing that not everyone would accept him and that there is love that would not be returned. It shows how it is mutual as well. Only through our loving and obedient response to his action do we inherit eternal life. He is the ultimate example of love yet he is rejected every day. He knew what love would cost him and showed it anyway.

Is love a drug? No.

Does it change us? Only for the better.

Can it hurt? Yes, but it’s worth it in the end…

Those Three Words

…actually, just the second word. Critic Takes On Reason Species Perpetuates Itself may have been a better title, but what the hell.

I once wrote in my personal blog a few poetically-structured thoughts on this thing called “love.” Check it:

Is the goal–love, that is–so great that it makes the battles worth it?
Is love a drug that we must have, and we’ll do anything for it?
Does love, in some jacked-up way, actually control us?

I believe I have come to a conclusion. Love IS a drug. Actually, love is the postmodern version of a drug; all love deals with is escapism and distraction. Take Natasha Beddingfield’s latest single, “Pocket Full of Sunshine,” for instance:

I got a pocket, got a pocketful of sunshine.
I got a love, and I know that it’s all mine.
Oh. woah

Do what you want, but you’re never gonna break me.
Sticks and stones are never gonna shake me.
No. woah

Take me away:
A secret place.
A sweet escape:
Take me away.

Take me away
to better days.
Take me away:
A hiding place.

Love does one thing: it gives us a reason to be happy; or, more correctly, love gives us a theoretical place to be happy. People in love do things that people “out of” love wouldn’t dream of doing. Simple fact: love gives us a place to hide from the coldness that is this life. Beddingfield is right: when we have our “pocket full of [love],” we have that “sweet escape.”

But it’s all in the name of love…
Of course! it is all in the “name of love!” That doesn’t make it any more sensible! I mean, people get naked in front of complete strangers and bump uglies with each other because they had one too many drinks. The intercourse may not be “dedicated to…” something, but it is all because of alcohol. Love is the same thing. Divorced from it’s presence, people are able to maintain their sanity.

Maybe sanity is what is abnormal?
What about the side effects of “love”: insomnia, vivid and recurrent dreams, feelings of distraction, shortness of breath, muscle weakness concentrated in the lower joints, increased perspiration concentrated in the palms, and irregular heart beat. Aren’t those symptomatic of an overdose or drug-induced hysteria?

Think of it this way: When things get bad, when life starts sucking, where do those in love want to be? With their lovers. In the arms of those they love. Cuddled up on a couch with the one who says, “I love you, too” at the end of the night. Not convinced? Let me spell it out to you: when life starts acting like, uh, life, those in love need their fix in order to make the pain stop. In the case of Romeo & Juliet, the title characters committed suicide because of their lover was dead and they had no one to help them make the pain stop. Hmm… Withdrawal? I submit that it is.

You must have been hurt by someone you loved. That’s why you discount it’s actual existence.
First off, I’m not discounting it’s existence. I’m asserting my belief that ‘love’ is adversely unnatural. Second, yes, I have been hurt. I’ve dealt with the hurt. I’ve moved on from the hurt. And from that, I believe that those assholes who preach that “it is better to have love than lost than to have never loved at all” have never been “in love.” Heck-to-the-NO! Unless you are sure that the person you are “giving your heart to” is never going to put it in a blender and hit “puree,” then don’t chance it! The withdrawal phase is enough to turn me off for good. (But, like every other human being, I’m a dumbass at times. Therefore, I’m going to probably “give my heart away”… again.)

Bottom line is this: love alters our personality; love messes with our physical bodies, and when we have love and lose it, our lives suck worse than they did before we had it. Love’s a drug. Call it sunshine, call it butterflies, call it whatever the hell else you want to call it. I’m gonna refer to it as “L.” It may be legal, but it is still dangerous.