Current mood:
artistic Category: Life
"Constant use had not worn ragged the fabric of their friendship."
— DorothyParker
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I have started this several times, but can’t get the ideas out the way I want them to come. There are so many things I want to cover, and no way how to weave them together coherently, but the weaving part is by far the most important.
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They are inter connected. It’s a tale of love and not-love, belief and ignorance, truth and denial.
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I know a girl, a lovely girl, a dear friend who means the world to me. This girl is caught up, in a tangled web of all these things, and people that are all/some/none of these things.
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Firstly,notice, I don’t say love and hate. It’s not about hate, that is reserved for others outside of this whirlwind of confusion. I think the core is to determine the difference between love and not-love. I’m relatively sure that is easier said than done. Love is easy right? Well at least knowing when you can call itlove is simple right? Maybe, maybe not. But it’s the not-love that’s the hard part. Or maybe the easy, because you know when it’s not-love, but then you reach the issue of what is it.
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Lust, infatuation, fascination,abhorrence, respect, logic, admiration, reverie? Thousands of other nouns describing feelings?
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It may be any or all of those things in one proportion or another, as long as they all fall into the category of not-love. The only constant is that those things are not-love. Or so you think.
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What if it is the combination of the aspects of not-love that make love?
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Oris love just love? Without explanation or accounting for any of those things? It just is, and we accept that? Seems to be the historic explanation. The explanation for no empirical evidence or satisfactory tangible proof of the existence of love or god.
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No concrete proof of god or love. Hmm. Just something you believe in or don’t. Isn’t that suspicious. That beings us around to belief vs.ignorance. Is it easier to love or not-love someone because of what they believe? Is it harder to love ignorance or conviction? What does any of that say about you? Do you want to be the person to condemn someone because of a shortsighted world view? Or do you want to step up and expand that view? Will they even let you? Is it worth your time? How do you know the difference?
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Belief vs. ignorance. Does that imply that you’re ignoring belief? Or is your belief based on ignorance?
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Isit more important that you know the truth or that you can live in denial? It seems that the common consensus is to keep hurtful truths to yourself, because the only person benefiting from that truth is the speaker, not the listener. Are you _________ enough to speak the truth at the cost of pain (the cost of pleasure) from the person you’re speaking to? Or are you a die-hard honesty is the best policy type? Maybe somewhere in the middle?
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Is it easier to love someone when you know their beliefs and all the truth? Or does that immediately make it not-love,something maybe lesser than love, or maybe something more? Do you love someone more when you see all the holes or do you shut down at a flaw? I hear the chorus now of “I love the imperfections in so-and-so, that why we’ll always be together. . . blah blah blah.” I’m not buying it. Ice chewing or a conspiracy theorist, where’s your personal breaking point, you have one, we all do.
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Would you rather be denied the truth and live under your own illusions? How is it that none of these questions are easy?
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Can you make a set of rules for the contacts in your life? Either all truth all the time or blissful ignorance? A combination of the two? Can you apply the exact same set of rules to everyone you know, friends, family, lovers? Do you have to have more than one set of rules? Is that dishonest, or just convenient? Are different people held to a different standard? Is it happening unconsciously?
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There are more questions than answers. There always seem to be more questions, and every question is followed by five more.
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I’m happy to answer my own questions. I’m not afraid of the answers, or ashamed of them.
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I believe in love. I also believe just as strongly in not-love. I think that love is as intangible as belief in anything else we can’t touch or see or smell or hear, but I think there in a tangibility in the not-love. It feels more real, and may be just that. It may be infinitely more important in the long run, you may find that you love your best friend, flaws and all, unconditionally, just because you do. You may also find that you have more not-love (maybe a combination of respect, admiration and contempt) for your husband, wife, girlfriend,boyfriend, significant other, and that is enough to keep you happy and together for whatever period of time you choose. Love isn’t necessarily sexual or romantic, or even familial. It just is what it is.
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I also believe in believing. I tell people all the time that I truly don’t care what they believe in, just that they believe in something. That’s how I feel,and that’s one of the things that enables me to maintain friendships with so many people that believe so many things. It’s important to me to know what you believe, that kind of information is as vital to me as remembering your birthday or what food you like. It goes for everyone in my life. I think that is an integral part of who you are, I don’t want to change it, or inflict my beliefs on you, I just want to know what makes you tick. I’m a well known agnostic, sometime atheist, childhood Catholic with Pagan leanings. That says a lot about me as a person. I’m also a scientist at heart and not particularly concerned with the human race. It seems to be in self destruct mode and there’s not a lot we can do about it. But I’d sell my soul to save the polar bears. Sounds like a big contradiction, but it’s not. People make their own choices. Choosing to explode yourself is your problem, just don’t inflict it on the innocents, like the plants and the animals and the children.
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I discussed faith with my sister-in-law one late-night early-morning, and explained to her that faith is something I have an abundance of. My faith is most likely just not your faith. I have faith in the ones I love, and faith that in the end they’ll do what’s best. I have that I’ll always be safe in the end, and I am. I don’t need to pray to Jesus or Allah or the Goddess, that doesn’t help me sleep at night. But simple faith that everything will be all right. And somehow it is. I don’t ask questions or motives, I also don’t know who or what to thank. So I do my good deeds and assist where I can, and try to not make too much of a mess of myself.
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I am guilty of being an honesty person, for the most part. The only exception is if I think you are not strong enough to handle the whole truth. That doesn’t happen often, but it has happened. And only omissions, never fabrications. I accept that it is sometimes a fact of life. Sometimes you have to lie to save someone you care about. It’s not pretty,but thinking about it, none of this essay is.
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It just is what it is. Apparently like everything.
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Oh, and the quote at the top. It means something to me. You all know that.
 | Currently reading: The Portable Dorothy Parker (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) By Dorothy Parker |
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