Love. The one thing in life that holds so much power. It can raise you to the heavens today, and personally bring you into the depths of hell tomorrow. The one motivation that can allow you to experience a million things, all at once. Not to be confused as an emotion, Love is in a category all its own.
Since the beginning of time, love has been the most sought-after thing on the planet. We are willing to give up everything for it. Lie, beg, cheat and steal for it. We start wars over it and have even died for it. It's always been a very rare commodity. In ways, it still is. Perhaps at one time, it was worth pursuing but in today's climate, it doesn't really feel worthy of the chase.
If we are honest with ourselves, we must admit that love is fleeting - now more than ever. We don't honor it or respect its ways at all. Perhaps we never have. Looks and feels to me like the 21st century is where love dies.
Think about it. We used to love until death do us part, but now we love until that love between you dies. Love used to mean monogamy, and there was never any question of loyalty. Today, all we can do is "try" to be faithful - but no promises. Love is no longer a sacred feeling, it's just a convenience.
If we never had to feel loneliness, would we opt out of relationships altogether? If there was truly a way to give yourself everything, would you still move mountains to search for love? I think the answer is NO! You would just go about life, accepting offers of sexual gratification with the opposite sex whenever the need arose, and go about your day. The aim - loving yourself selfishly. Yet, not selfishly at all, because everyone would be doing the same thing. At least this way, we are all aware of the rules and are on the same page. No lies, empty promises, or deceitfulness to steer clear of or nurse a broken heart from. Just pure selfishness.
Some cynical kind of thinking around something so beautiful, right? Yet, what I've outlined above is exactly what's happening in today's world anyway. Only, we keep going round in circles, trying our best to "play the game" in hopes that maybe, just maybe - we might win at love someday. Compromising ourselves daily, in unspeaking, unthinkable fashions, just so we can be with someone for the rest of our days. We will stop at nothing to possess it, as long as it suits our needs and doesn't hinder our freedom.
If I'm honest, I think most of us have no business being in relationships, because we are nowhere near ready to be responsible for sharing a life with another person. We are not ready to give up our comfortabilities for love, so we stay with what's safe. We are either still trying to get over our last love, not really looking for monogamy anyway, too jaded and afraid to let anyone else into our bubble (let alone try to love them), only in love with the idea of love - not actually loving someone, or just simply content with the sex partner buffet out there.
Sadly, the idea of love that you find in films and novels is just that - made-up ideas. Stories that we tell ourselves (that we were told as kids) about this magical thing that we will someday feel; that will change our lives forever. Words surrounding us, locking in the idea that we are incomplete without another human, sharing our time and space. Obsessed with all the beautiful quotes and cliches given to us by the lucky assholes who managed to find the love they searched for. Verses that now govern our lives and hold us prisoner to find that feeling by any means necessary. It's anything but fair. With everyone playing this game by their own rules and standards, we never stood a chance.
I look around at our "Love World" today and it is anything but. I admit that I too was holding out for the sappy love story ending but, it just seems very unpractical now. I keep hoping to wake up one day and stand corrected, but I can't waste my life continually and aimlessly searching for fairytales.
I have to know and learn to be ok, all by myself. To be in love with just me every day - and have it be enough.
Love, this is the era of your demise.
