Feels like I’ve severed a part of me, and my voice is lost deep within me – Submerged in the shadows of silent betrayals and broken promises and mockeries made out of yesterdays. And I’ve been fine – How can I not be fine? This departure is not going to subtract my intelligence, appearance, experiences, accumulated wisdoms one bit. But right now, I’m feeling like I’ve exhausted my stockpile of courage and pretence. Or maybe it’s really my physical weakness inducing the drain.
I could turn back the pages, but once the meaning’s lost, every memory, every past moment, every lost incident – Is disjointed save for a single thread underpinning it all… A failure. A certain moral/ ethical failure. And who’s to blame?
I’m letting the knife slide under my skin, so this is how it feels to be given up upon. The pain slowly spreads, like venom poisoning every inch of the space surrounding me, so this is how it feels to be given up upon.
It’s like I’ve been too strong for too long. You made me believe, that I’ve made progress. And now I regress. Feels like I’ve lost my anchor, I’m uprooted, I know what I want steel – But I’m not sure about what’s the best way to get there anymore.
And there is no exact word that I can use to describe how I’m feeling. But I believe it’s close to 万念俱灰.
And I’m only left with this one lesson that I unlearned because I fell for my irrationality, and that I’m relearning all over again with renewed rigour: TRUST NO ONE.
Only with patience and tenderness might a person surrender his barbed armor for a softer shield.
It’s extremely rare moments like this when I can really put a word to pin down what I’m feeling.
I feel crushed.
Perhaps I am not as strong as I imagined, or maybe you’re still the only person who can make my heart bleed like this. Strip away all my armour and pretense – And you’re the only one that can make or break ALL OF ME. It feels like everything is coming to a standstill, and there I am – in the eye of the storm – defenseless, lost for words to say. And I used to feel like I’ve came home. When I found you. And I used to feel like everything can only get better. When I had you.
And now, when I’m at my weakest, I annoy the hell out of you. All you want to do is to run away, when all I want is for you to stay. And I used to think, and I still think, that I love you because no one else knows me like you do. Perhaps time has come full circle, for the realisation to hit – That we’re both stupendously deluded in placing too much hope in so irrational an emotion. Maybe the rest of the world got it right this time. I’m swallowing my pride, bending my back over and backwards, trying to accommodate this brand new reality. Trying to strategise, what I’d do, what I should do, what I ought to do, to get over you.
Maybe my silence is really my trying to come to terms with my sadness.
And the saddest thing of all is crying over spilled milk.
And I wonder why this is killing me so.
And I still wonder, was it me or was it you?
And I think about how you came into my life, and suddenly everything seemed SO alright.
And I come home every night to the person who gave me life but who’d rather not go through that 9 months if she knew that I was going to turn out like this. And I come home every night to the person who keeps wanting me to listen to her, but what about accepting me for who I am FIRST?
Am I supposed to think that, the whole world’s happiness, is contingent upon me – changing who I am?
I can’t believe you had me fooled. Or maybe I’m just not as intelligent as I thought. That sucks, seriously.
Feels like I had a fist pierce through my chest, a shot through the heart, and pain slowly spreads, indulging every memory in fragments of broken rememberances. And it’s nauseating to me, I’m feeling sick to the core. Like these tears will wash away everything in my world, and I’ll be the only thing remaining.
Of course, I know it’s not so bad. But my rationalising and self-justifications about these is contributing to me feeling sick to the core as well, my head is spinning, thoughts dizzy like twisted laundry in a washing machine. What if I could just let it all go? Surrender to my emotions? Damn that’s a scary thought to ponder.
Shucks I’m tired. And I feel like I’m falling sick like sick sick, OH FUCK!!!
Need to party. Like you never existed. Like I was never that stupid to let you into my world.
Is it good or is it bad – To have someone at least 10 years your senior comment that not a lot of youth think like yourself (me in this context, subject in question being relationships) these days. The irony is that, on the other hand, you could be seen a player amongst your peers. With the only greater irony being that you’re completely harmless to the “victims” you could theoretically prey on.
Love, as an academic subject of inquiry, has long intrigued me for the simple fact that I’ve always felt like I came manufactured into this world installed with too little emotional faculties to ever love anyone. Huge ego. Utterly selfish by default. Limited sense of empathy. Tending to conditionally disregard others… The list goes on.
Yet against all odds I am so totally proud to say this: I have loved and been loved. I know that it’s love because whenever my eyes fall upon X, damn I just feel it in my every cell. I know that it’s the kind of love that people sing about in songs, write about obsessively in literature; I know that it’s the kind of love that people make Hollywood movies about, like it’s destiny, meant to be. So what is one to make of it – When it’s not forever. So how is one supposed to feel legitimately?
Love can be a verb or a noun. As a noun, it is something extraordinary that you find or that finds you. As a verb, it lies in the acts, the distances you go to for that other person. The hours of travel time you would endure just to catch 15 minutes of that person’s time, to say “hi” before the start of a day simply because you feel like it, to say “bye” to the other person at the end of the day, to talk, to chat, and to share; the little sacrifices that you make, the convenient arrangements you go to lengths to enable.
We live in an age where casual is sexy, caring is creepy. A random hook-up can just be an IM away – It’s not just efficient and effortless, it’s FREE. Why pay for the cow when you can get the milk for free? What’s the difference between dating someone versus hooking up with someone versus seeing someone? Options overlap and blur. Modern love is a curious juxtaposition of our deepest desires and shallowest temptations fueled by what appears to be a common cynicism and an overwhelming flood of choices.
We are adrenaline junkies. We are addicted to quick fixes. We shop for “love” the way we shop for labels. We choose from OBJECTS of potential love interest – Instead of treating people as ends deserving of our time and affection in and of themselves. Yet those experiences and the things we buy often take us away from ourselves – they don’t make us bigger, they dissipate us.
Because of our fears, we shrink ourselves.
So what made me give myself away? – Where before I’m as stingy with my emotional attachments as can be? There’s an entire Science developing behind attraction and mating choices, but I’d really like to think that my heart knew before my brain – That we should be together – The moment I saw you smile that made me feel like, life can’t be that bad after all. The moment you convinced me that there’s still Goodness and Beauty in the world, the moment my heart first believed I was clueless balls all I knew was I needed to be in your orbit…
Our eyes are only prepared to see what we believe. And beliefs are shaped by a multitude of processes, and between them involves discarding old beliefs in order to make way for new ones.
What have you changed your mind about over the years?
I still believe in good old-fashioned romance and the inherent goodness of monogamy – It offers support and stability upon which nourishing and loving relationships can be built. And I cannot envision myself commoditising my own body – I’m too proud a soul.
The only thing that I need to irrevocably change my mind about – It seems to be that – If you love someone, you HAVE to be with them. Sometimes, it’s simply not the best of options.
Perhaps, I’m simply not the type of person made for love. As much as I absolutely adored it’s all-consuming and overpowering effects. You were the colours in my life, my crazy sine curve, you made me want to be good and loyal and true and to be a person of value to others and to society at large, you were my compass whenever I felt like comfort is nowhere to be found, you were my harbour whenever my soul felt all confused and mixed-up, I wanted nothing but for you to be happy – And I believed in my bones that I was the person that could give you everything you wanted and more, I believed with utter ferocity and tenacity that this love would be beyond your wildest dreams.
And I would like to think that I was right about all of it, except for the part where I arrognantly assumed that love will overrride these differences somehow, that we will find a way to figure things out as we go along. My behavioural pattern goes like this mostly: Act first, worry about consequences later. Because nothing can be as bad as really being dead, anything worth contemplating is worth doing.
I am the type of person who totally enjoys mincing song lyrics and musing over the language. Language is a most wondrous thing. Those three words are said too much – Quite frankly I can’t even remember when was the last time I said them – But when it was just the two of us and a not-too-bad number of stars twinkling in the sky above us – I felt like all that I ever wanted was for you to be mine. And those moments when that wish was granted and fulfilled, I still wish there are ways for me to plug in and be connected for eternity.
But eternity would instantly diminish the value of things, wouldn’t it.
You have no idea, how insane it is, the amount of sadness I have to stomach – When you said that you don’t want to clip my wings, when you said that you don’t want to restrain me and yet you cannot give me the freedom that I need. For instances like these, it just kills me and make me wish that I would just stop being myself for a minute. Instances like these make me wish that I could be anyone else in the world but me.
You’re the only one that knows me and I have your love as surely as you have my heart’s surrender. And I wonder what are lovers made of – One mind residing in two bodies? So what happens when you part. What happens when we run for the exits – In too much pain to go on with this anymore, hurt too badly and too deep to dare to be any weaker and/or any more vulnerable.
It’s almost inhumane to feel like you’re nothing but a well of an extremely deep and profound sorrow, like all the tears coming out of you amounts to nothing but a displacement of bodily fluids because this pain is irredeemable.
And at the end of the day, all that I want to do is still to treat you right.
Or maybe my brain is just fucked at 0453. Time to sleep.
That’s why you keep on running
in and out of my mind.
As the years they’ll roll by,
Baby, now I know why
I keep coming back to you.
You’re the only one that knows me,
love it when you hold me,
never find a love like this
Let me hear you say
now I’ll never be lonely,
look at what you’ve shown me,
never find a love like this
Well this life tried to keep us apart
you keep calling me back to your heart
Let me hear you say
I’m so glad you found me,
wrap your world around me,
never find a love like this.
Why do people enter into one relationship after another, find comfort and company in one person after another – As we trade our embraces, memories, and life cycles for something that amounts to nothing in the end? My time could be used for better, more productive things.
What do lovers say when they finally part ways? – Thanks for wasting my time?
What do you do when love’s gonna end? – Lust for another? Lay accusations and blame upon the other person?
Somewhere along the way, I must have forgotten how to feel sad. I would love to be able to cry like the whole world owes me my fucking happiness, but my heart feels numbed to pain somehow. I remember periods, those times when I felt like my world was gonna end and I’d really bawl… But they’re distant memories now. I remember feeling like my soul’s found its home and centre, I remember feeling like there’s only the two of us in the world and everything else is secondary, but I feel only different shades of grey now. I still laugh and go out; but in my head I see myself standing all on my own back at the beginning, my heart’s all hollowed out.
We had a rough trip, it was the trip of my life, it was a trip never to forget, it was a trip I could endure forever – Through the drama and the pain. But was it me or was it you, that breached the trust, that betrayed the promises.
I would forget about the world, kill the soul’s solitary winter, silent the heart’s yearning whispers; it’s some crazy shit isn’t it. I feel like hell, but this feeling doesn’t register as sadness or sense of loss. I just feel like, thanks for taking my one and only religion that’s central to my being away too. If I stop believing in love, maybe I will not find the behaviour (sleeping around) described above puzzling at all, maybe I’d start seeing the appeal and ultimate sense of liberalisation in it, like all other. If I stop believing in love, maybe I can still save my heart for better endings.
Indeed, I thought you weren’t just anyone else – So I let you into my world – But you were just like everybody else.
I wonder why I let you in in the first place. I never let anyone in. Why you? Then now, why this, why us?
Moments like this makes me wanna go down on my knees and pray.
Moments like this makes me wish I didn’t have a heart to begin with.
I can’t tell what is it exactly that I feel about all these. Sometimes they just seem like too much a cartload of emotions for me to ever grasp fully. I’d probably think forever, probe ever, and still not have an answer. I’m not as sensitive and as acute as you. I’m simply that much more numbed and inconsistent. It should be a good thing to be so hardly emotionally perturbed. But if it is a good thing, why am I getting shit for this?
And as one of my oft-uttered phrases of late, don’t ever claim to love someone when you can’t even accept them for who they are. Everything that I do hurts you. And as for me, I feel hurt the most when you’re hypocritical like this. Every moment, every minute. The whole world apparently claims to hate hypocrisy – As if we are not each of us, hypocrites to varying degrees. I may be that much more inconsistent than you – But at least I’m honest and candid and forthcoming enough about being quite the opaque person.
It’s for the same reason that I love/ hate my mom – She claims to love me, but how much does she understand of me? She does not know much because I do not communicate – But damn, why would I want to communicate, why should I – when I know for sure that listening as-is with an open-minded acceptance is out of the question, all that can be reasonably expected is an expectation for me to change.
Change what? Change which part of me?
And isn’t it an established fact already. I’m more more open to changes than you are. In fact, I embrace it, I effing love it. But you want stability. Security. But the world ain’t a fucking blanket that safely surrounds you and puts you to sweet dreams at peace at request. And then you’d start thinking why indeed, should we live at all. Wells, common sense dictates that if you’re alive – this very moment – that’s good enough reason in itself to keep living on. Life is its own reason for existence. END OF STORY.
Is it really my gigantic pride and ego. But how selfless it must be of you, to think that I’m as happy as a tweety bird all day, everyday. To assume that I’m so strong I’m unbreakable. Actually I do think that I’m unbreakable, I just don’t know why I give you license after license to break me, everytime. And I should prolly be effing grateful about my speedy and miraculous revivals time and again. Time and again I find myself wondering – What will it really take for me to give up completely, utterly. Why do I have to be so effing optimistic, time and again, almost delusional!
It pisses me off when people throw words and terms around loosely – It’s probably the bad habits of being quite a Master of linguistics myself. Sorry I just got proud. Love – Just don’t ever use that word on me, with me when your actions are devaluing its true meaning to me. I’m sure you use it with good intentions. But the road to hell is paved with good intentions – Ever heard of?
I wonder if I see different shades now.
And I think I see only grey now. I’m confused. I don’t know what I want. I’m stumbling my way around. I’m trying my best. I don’t want to hurt anyone. I’m having an inner tug-of-war. I’m happy with the way things are… But you’re giving me THE ultimatum. Now that’s what I call a disruption. A disruption beyond my conscious control, damn.
But you know what – Come tomorrow and I’ll be kicking the fucking world’s ass. Ain’t no one’s gonna get me down. I’d much rather die alone than partake in a suffocating relationship that takes part(s) of me away. I’ve always thought, and still think that relationships should be 1+1= >2.
In my darkest nights of the soul I wished I never knew you, never knew a sorrow like this, never knew how literally a heart can bleed, I’m running out of indignation to fuel my outburst. But then on a net balance – It was good while it lasted.
We sometimes develop thick shells around the feelings we have for others to protect ourselves. Probably, this is what makes loving from a distance possible – Like gravity. You don’t have to say it to know that it’s there, you don’t have to see it because you can already feel its effects on you. It’s scientific because of its explanatory plausibility. I hope I’m talking in plain English here.
What’s most interesting – almost to the point of being mundane – lies in how we are all so similar and so different at the same time. Maybe our family backgrounds and experiences in life have endowed us with different scriptural directives to live by. Here I am still trying to figure it all out – What makes you tick, how do we stand in relation to one another, the socio-psychological spaces we navigate around each other.
The heart has its own ways of knowing what it wants. But can we trust our hearts to want things with our long-term happiness in mind? Evolution has given us lust, therein arises confusion. We have these animal instincts good for evolutionary fitness – But utterly in contrary to the much more delicate and tricky science of making optimal decisions for a life well-lived. Technology has made us spoilt with choice for mating partners, and at the same time it has confounded our confusions in making choices; and as we shop around for love the way we shop for clothes and labels, we commoditize it, we objectify it – But is it wrong to commoditize and objectify love in the first place? I don’t know sia, which is why I hold onto the position that this is all so confusing.
If we can exercise conscious acts of choice, can we still consider that as love in the Hollywood ideal form? What about that involuntary sense of surrender, where you’d to have another person or die. Maybe it’s nature’s way of fooling us into being fruitful and multiply our genes, but I really see love as this overpowering emotion which is all about what’s possible. It is all about what’s possible in the name of love. You’d be surprised.
Love is a bit like Politics. And politics is the art of the possible.
Covenant marriage style romances scare the hell out of me because I’m really much more for creating my own economies – Can we sort, shuffle, remix and personalize our romantic relationships the way we do music in iTunes? Why not? Is it immoral of me to disaggregate, slice up, and repackage my emotional and physical needs in order to please myself? – But don’t we all do these already, all the time? Does the virtue of my being smarter and more intelligent about it adds this extra dimension of immorality to a previously mundane act?
I (almost) sound like a jerk. But I’d like to think that I’m still a good human being at heart, after all. (Well, we all are, even if we cannot all get along.) With normal and healthy lifestyle habits. I confess to my arrogance. But then, you won’t be able to help it if you were me. Following a similar vein of logic and rationale as that of pleas of insanity, do not fault me for my arrogance. I can actually be nice. Civilised in first encounter, and I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine.
Something always brings me back to you.
It never takes too long.
No matter what I say or do I’ll still feel you here ’til the moment I’m gone.
You hold me without touch.
You keep me without chains.
I never wanted anything so much than to drown in your love and not feel your reign.
[CHORUS:]
Set me free, leave me be. I don’t want to fall another moment into your gravity.
Here I am and I stand so tall, just the way I’m supposed to be.
But you’re on to me and all over me.
You loved me ’cause I’m fragile.
When I thought that I was strong.
But you touch me for a little while and all my fragile strength is gone.
[CHORUS]
I live here on my knees as I try to make you see that you’re everything I think I need here on
The ground.
But you’re neither friend nor foe though I can’t seem to let you go.
The one thing that I still know is that you’re keeping me down
This entire week has been CRAZY, but I wouldn’t mind living like this week after week – Work and events, teaching and clubbing, meeting new people and doing regular things. A sense of renewal is important – As I look upon life with my heart awashed in reason, and my head swarmed with dreams and idealism. DAMN HOW CAN YOU BE HUMAN AND NOT WANT TO CHANGE THE WORLD. I want to change the world, do work that matters (that doesn’t even feel like work because they ENERGIZE you) and make a difference.
“It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life – daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.”
I’m ok, you’re ok – Shit happens from time to time, but with our human intelligence, sometimes random strokes of luck and a loyal optimism – We take the harder way out, crash and burn, fall and learn, get back up, walk out of the valleys of our yesterdays and march on, with beatitude, into the future. Tomorrow will be a better day.
The meetup on Emotional Intelligence was phenomenal. In essence, Hugh Mason had already done – more or less – What I’m still trying to map out and figure out for myself. Life. Happiness. Freedom. Choices. How is one to conduct oneself – In the world that we live in? I have my issues, that I’m still trying to deal with – It’s going to take effort to induce the necessary paradigm shifts in a bid to untangle all those myths that we have come to internalised, to be free from the unconscious scripts that we have come to live by, to refuse to bend to the games that we have come to involuntarily play…
This is me and my life and love it or hate it – This is it. This is all that we have. The present. This very moment.
I have always found it harder to connect with my feelings and emotions; it’s kinda like it’s wayyy easier to just deny them and bury your head in the sand like an ostrich. Probably one of those mal-adaptations I picked up from the environment, my parents, or it’s simply inertia plus a fear of responsibility. Whatever. I would like to think that my life can only get better. Because why? I’m me and I was meant, I was borne to live life large.
The master of my own destiny, the captain of my own ship, the devil may care, the God that was never there, the PERFECT – In my own skin, with my flaws and all.
Rather than lamenting…
These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion; tall men, and short character; steep profits, and shallow relationships. These are the times of world peace, but domestic warfare; more leisure, but less fun; more kinds of food, but less nutrition.
These are days of two incomes, but more divorce; of fancier houses, but broken homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throw away morality, one-night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer to quiet to kill.
It is a time when there is much in the show window and nothing in the stockroom; a time when technology has brought this letter to you, and a time when you can choose either to make a difference, or to just hit “Skip Ahead”…
Let’s GO BACK TO BASICS. (Kindly dissociate this from conservative ideology.)
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way–in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
Wherever we will go, whichever state we will find ourselves in, for better or for worse, our choices will determine our destines – So everyone has a stake, everyone has a say. It’s not just about you and your life, BUT WHAT HAVE YOU GIVEN BACK UNTO LIFE?
The Atheist quotes her favourite passage from the Bible once again:
If I speak in the tongue of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
So at the end of the day, even as we feel all the sadness of the world, these broken promises and our yesterdays weighing down our shoulders – Happiness can be found in a troubled world, love is not a person – It’s an emotion, that we’ll do well to keep drawing on. For life. For ourselves. For the things that we choose to do. For our friends. For our families. For all the children in the world who deserves every chance to be all that they can be. For that one person that you’re gonna love – That deserves all the best that this world this life’s got to offer. For all the hearts that we’ve broken, that’s fallen into the river, and all the shame and guilt that you feel – For all the cognitive dissonances – For all the fear of vulnerability – For all the people that we fence out when we draw boundaries around ourselves – For all the joy of discovery we miss out on when we label people and things – For all the times when we’re lost for words – For everytime I feel confused – For times like these, when I don’t even know what I’m ranting on about…
I’m friggin’ tired already, both physically and mentally. So I’m just gonna waste time for what remains of today and reply to emails, write up proposals, journalise the workshop, etc. tomorrow and for as long as it takes to clear all these. Gee. Happy busy busy happy!
Catharsis! Is when you listen to sad songs on rainy days, it’s just so fucking fabulous.
But of course, I’m listening to Bad Romance instead. Want you in my rear window??? Am I right to wonder what I’m wondering. Hahahahaaa…!
And the skyline is shattered with the tears of broken glass,
while sorrow feasts upon this soul like growing grass – How far can you see – How deep can I reach – All of our yesterdays freefalling in memory lane unto violent deaths. I think I very much know what pain, misery, hurt, sadness and anguish is. But I’ll choose to laugh about it – Even if it takes all of me.
Make a mockery out of promises and the choices life forces us under.
As the past slip through our fingers, nonchalance is desperation’s sweet surrender. And though I used to hold you close, and felt you near… Proximity aggravates irritability – Distance creates beauty – Many many minutes later, I’m (still) struggling to finish this epic piece.
In remembrance of hearts broken into a million pieces (forgive the cliche expression), passions torn asunder, as hell bends itself over and backwards. For us, who are US no longer. I’ll shed a tear, for ritualistic purposes.
DAMN I SO SHOULD HAVE TAKEN LITERATURE IN JC. Lol.
Is a quote that really stuck with me because of the high levels of cynicism and truthfulness, all at once. Despite the inherent limitations of language, it’s pretty amazing huh – This ingenious way of making sense of the world as we try to interpret it with words.
What’s so phenomenal about all the latest new technologies coming our way is that, we are essentially empowered to become prosumers. From traditional music albums to iPods, from Britannica encyclopedia to Wikipedia, from TV stations to YouTube – Now we get to create, pick and choose, and create – In the words of Tyler Cowen – Our own economies.
So why am I putting these 2 disparate ideas together?
I’m just wondering – it just occurred to me – if it’s possible to create our own marriages. Create our own marriages in terms of, forgo the everything-all-bundled-into-one-package-that-is-then-shoved-down-our-throats… We need a new model, where we can break marriage down into different units, and pick and choose for optimality.
Just as the pharmaceutical industry is in need of a major paradigm shit (escalating R&D costs, diminishing returns), perhaps sometime soon, we will reach the 11th hour for the traditional marriage market prevalent in developed countries as well. Recent divorce rates is a good place to start contemplating about the failure of the traditional marriage institution. But we should be encouraged looking back into History; time and again, marriage has proved itself to be a product capable of malleability, in response to the changing roles of women in society, the changing division of labour in the economy, and etc.
So now, as an unprecedented number of people are moving from rural villages into urban cities, as we increasingly lose the scrutiny of social pressure from friends and family because modern life is crazily mobile, as we become increasingly individualistic and at the same time, global-minded as a species – Why not?
Why not? Because the traditional glues of a marriage is simply not enough to hold it together, not anymore. If two people come from a similar socioeconomic background, received the same levels of education, had similar interests, had common friends, etc. Each of these different similarities will contribute an additional adhesive to the marriage; not to forget the most adhesive adhesive of ALL – Children. Brain chemicals and such will keep you in love long enough to rear the child together till he or she is 4/5/6 years old, I think… In essence, till when the child is more or less capable of a certain degree of self-sufficiency. Omg I’m so long-winded.
Why not? Post sexual revolution and the emancipation of women, people in developed countries are no longer so queasy when it comes to pre-marital sex and etc. But mention infidelity and all the moral polices come alarming, sirens a buzzing – As if we are meant to be monogamous by nature. Not to mention the practical difficulty of lifetime monogamy in a globalising world where the costs of marrying your potential match has gone down drastically – Even for LGBTs, in comparison to the times when you could be burnt at the stake for loving another person of the same sex, there is reason for comfort (and continuing reason to push for more opening and widening of social spaces and public policies).
I’m not speaking in favour of infidelity, I’m just finding it intriguing how much of our personal happiness we are willing to stake out – In holding onto certain Hollywood ideals, romantic delusions, and so it goes. The marriage-industrial complex in America scares me. It’s terrifying. If one partner strays, it’s instantly a mortal sin that has to be repented for day by day, minute by minute – Post incident, your life before become nothing but lies and deception; Post incident, your married life together is a daily, endless obsessing over something done and said, that cannot be changed, that is immutable in the past.
It’s intriguing to me, how and why we’re holding marriages up to impossible standards and fairytale plots and happily-ever-after endings. Why are apparently smart and liberal people diving into marriages with their eyes covered? Perhaps it is as they say, the eyes are only prepared to see what the heart believes. And in our loneliest hours, in our deepest solitudes, we believe against rational belief that there is a Special Someone out there for us – Who’ll give us Perfect Love – Who’ll love us, flaws and all – Who’ll never fault us – Who’ll be faithful to the core – Who’ll know when to forgive us, no questions asked…
My suggestion: Go fall in love with God then.
Just as the best kind of sex is mind-fuck, as they say (not me) – The best kind of love is up in the head – Sustained by faith, against reason. Who better to love than God in this respect?
But for the people who can’t take the leap of faith for a being that I believe is really non-existent, that is nothing but a product of our kludged-up minds and that with our prefrontal cortexts we can do better than settle for the same easy solution as our ancestors of Ancient…
I’d still choose, on rational grounds, to love a human.
And risk the heartbreaks, whatever, come what may. A broken heart will not suddenly cut off the oxygen supply in the atmosphere – So we’ll survive. When relationships are over, we’re more like experiencing the withdrawal symptoms typical of drug addicts. For love IS an addiction high on dopamine and adrenaline and oxytocin and what-nots. To be courageous is to know that some things are more important than fear, right? And to love is to be vulnerable. To allow yourself a chance to experience the greatest moral truth to which it is humanly possible to aspire to. To transcend the boundaries of your self, to dissolve the ego, to attempt to communicate with another soul – However suspicious you may be regarding the possibility of genuine communication between two people. To love is to fill your heart with hope, your eyes with wonder, your ears with the singing of angels and your hands with the good work of God (I’m an Atheist who enjoys using religious motifs religiously… For the irony of it. :p) To love is to take that dive, with eyes closed and your heart wide open.
I’d much rather love a person!
Once again, I’ll tidy the post up when I feel like doing so and if I have the time, haha! Otherwise, THIS IS IT!
