‘Long’… Oxford Dictionary: Length, appearing to be or take more time than is really the case, containing a relatively large number of parts or individual items.
‘Long’… Street Talk: Tiring, too much trouble, boring, not worth the effort.
Of all the things I love to write about but find it hard to talk about, love, ranks the highest. It’s not that I have love hang-ups, I know I’ve had my fair share of love let–downs but I mean, love. It’s hard because, what do I say about love that hasn’t already been said, written, sung, drawn, acted, enacted, danced, tattooed, what-evered! There isn’t really much, is there?
Love, the universal language and the eternal need, the all encompassing complete me, the never-ending quest, the relationship you love to hate and person you hate to remember… Love! Love has journeyed a long way, from the pen’s of ancient poets and psalmists, to modern film makers and fast food song writers…but are we all still loving it?
The problem I seem to find with the popular concept and use of the word love, is that both word and concept, have become so diluted with other additives and preservatives, that it’s potency and flavor have been lost.
We seem to be losing so much and gaining so little in the name of ‘love’; we loose our moral and sexual innocence and gain a hatred of God and Faith in the name of religiously abusive love; we lose international credibility and respect and gain unjustifiable nationalistic pride, in the name axis ideological love; we loose the forever-ness of our ‘I Dos’ and ‘I wills’ and gain divorce and C.S.A hell, in the name of hurried matrimonial love; we loose our ability to trust anyone, and gain a closeted, self preservationist attitude in the name of repeatedly ‘stabbed in the back’, friendship love.
We desperately want to believe in love and its ability to reduce our helplessness and shower us with all the great things love loves. But when we see what people, governments, institutions, artists, families, friends and even what we personally do in love’s fair name, we run and cash in whatever’s left of our love chips and find we still come up short, owing the house. Yeah, Jamie had it right the first time, “Love is Long!”
You know, as hopelessly cynical as I may sound, don’t get it twisted, I still believe in love, all of it! I believe in its ability to make the sun shine and the rain warm; I love the way it gets you all fluttery inside, every time that name shows up on your phone; I love the way you laugh and say ‘you stink’ when your partner farts but you really didn’t mind, because they farted. I love the frightening vulnerability of placing your heart in the care of a safe heart, knowing that they’ll do the same. I love the spiritual knowing of love and the emotional grounding you feel sharing yourself with the sole object of your desire. I love knowing that love has a depth and breath that gives meaning to existence, an existence that is both individually and mutually enriched when shared. That’s why we have to rescue it from the feeling of emptiness and utter abandonment many feel, just hearing the word love. As Stevie Wonder so rightly sang, “love’s in need of love today” because as a result, the old now stare at faded pictures of love, while the young grab at bubbles, trying to find and experience something real.
I was running a series of workshops for a group of young teenagers, and talked about our need to love and be loved and how essential love is to human living. There was a girl in the group who angrily challenged me about what was saying and ended her protest with “%*♯@ Love!” I later found out, that between her loveless parents and a cheating boyfriend, they had killed anything to do with love in her life. So when I talk about this love thing, I’m not being idealistically naive; I’m being seriously serious.
We spend so much time highlighting, even celebrating, all that is dysfunctional and broken in human relationships. We run soap operas in which no marriage survives, and pour scorn on the idea or image of two people being true and making it work; we have done it for so long that people now see functional faithful love as a little old and very 1960’s, so very out of step with our present reality and individualism.
So yeah, and I’m dead serious, where we see love working, we’ve got to let people see it, let them know that there is an alternative to what we’re constantly being fed. I mean, how will people learn to love, really love, unless they can see that there is something to hold on to.
Part 2 to come tomorrow
‘Long’… Street Talk: Tiring, too much trouble, boring, not worth the effort.
Of all the things I love to write about but find it hard to talk about, love, ranks the highest. It’s not that I have love hang-ups, I know I’ve had my fair share of love let–downs but I mean, love. It’s hard because, what do I say about love that hasn’t already been said, written, sung, drawn, acted, enacted, danced, tattooed, what-evered! There isn’t really much, is there?
Love, the universal language and the eternal need, the all encompassing complete me, the never-ending quest, the relationship you love to hate and person you hate to remember… Love! Love has journeyed a long way, from the pen’s of ancient poets and psalmists, to modern film makers and fast food song writers…but are we all still loving it?
The problem I seem to find with the popular concept and use of the word love, is that both word and concept, have become so diluted with other additives and preservatives, that it’s potency and flavor have been lost.
We seem to be losing so much and gaining so little in the name of ‘love’; we loose our moral and sexual innocence and gain a hatred of God and Faith in the name of religiously abusive love; we lose international credibility and respect and gain unjustifiable nationalistic pride, in the name axis ideological love; we loose the forever-ness of our ‘I Dos’ and ‘I wills’ and gain divorce and C.S.A hell, in the name of hurried matrimonial love; we loose our ability to trust anyone, and gain a closeted, self preservationist attitude in the name of repeatedly ‘stabbed in the back’, friendship love.
We desperately want to believe in love and its ability to reduce our helplessness and shower us with all the great things love loves. But when we see what people, governments, institutions, artists, families, friends and even what we personally do in love’s fair name, we run and cash in whatever’s left of our love chips and find we still come up short, owing the house. Yeah, Jamie had it right the first time, “Love is Long!”
You know, as hopelessly cynical as I may sound, don’t get it twisted, I still believe in love, all of it! I believe in its ability to make the sun shine and the rain warm; I love the way it gets you all fluttery inside, every time that name shows up on your phone; I love the way you laugh and say ‘you stink’ when your partner farts but you really didn’t mind, because they farted. I love the frightening vulnerability of placing your heart in the care of a safe heart, knowing that they’ll do the same. I love the spiritual knowing of love and the emotional grounding you feel sharing yourself with the sole object of your desire. I love knowing that love has a depth and breath that gives meaning to existence, an existence that is both individually and mutually enriched when shared. That’s why we have to rescue it from the feeling of emptiness and utter abandonment many feel, just hearing the word love. As Stevie Wonder so rightly sang, “love’s in need of love today” because as a result, the old now stare at faded pictures of love, while the young grab at bubbles, trying to find and experience something real.
I was running a series of workshops for a group of young teenagers, and talked about our need to love and be loved and how essential love is to human living. There was a girl in the group who angrily challenged me about what was saying and ended her protest with “%*♯@ Love!” I later found out, that between her loveless parents and a cheating boyfriend, they had killed anything to do with love in her life. So when I talk about this love thing, I’m not being idealistically naive; I’m being seriously serious.
We spend so much time highlighting, even celebrating, all that is dysfunctional and broken in human relationships. We run soap operas in which no marriage survives, and pour scorn on the idea or image of two people being true and making it work; we have done it for so long that people now see functional faithful love as a little old and very 1960’s, so very out of step with our present reality and individualism.
So yeah, and I’m dead serious, where we see love working, we’ve got to let people see it, let them know that there is an alternative to what we’re constantly being fed. I mean, how will people learn to love, really love, unless they can see that there is something to hold on to.
Part 2 to come tomorrow
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