VARRENTINES!

Thats how Japanese people would say it because they can’t pronounce their L’s. But aside from that……

So, we find ourselves at the threshold once again at another materialistic, consumeristic, and Social Convention-istic time in the year…..Thats right, VARRENTINES.

I read through a friends blog (Whitney) and read her post. It was about the article she wrote for the Union newspaper back in our 06-07 year. And I have to say that I really completely agree. Statistics from across the United States state that Valentines Day has perhaps the highest rate of concentrated suicides throughout the year. And that got me thinking, all sensitivity aside:

What the fuck are you idiots thinking?

Come the fuck on and wake the fuck up. You are really going to waste 17-18 years of your life because you feel lonely on one miserable, godforsaken day? You ought to be ashamed of yourself. From me, you are not going to get a pat on the shoulder and comforting words such as “I’m sorry you’re feeling terrible.” or “Its okay, I’m really lonely too!” No, none of that. You’re going to get a “What the FUCK were/are you thinking?”

I do apologize for that because it was truly insensitive, but I like to think that I am speaking the hard truth with the above rant. Grow up. Realize that you’re life is not worth one day of materialistic suicide. Ask yourself, are you really going to die for one day you feel absolutely despairingly lonely? No, it makes absolutely no sense at all.

Ladies and gentlemen, what you all must know is that Valentines is not a day focused upon bringing about misery to us single folks. Valentines is the celebration of the ideal of human connection through the means of love. That means the love between your fellow human beings, your brothers and sisters of all shades of colors. Valentines day is not a day of lust, chocolate, or despair of being single. Valentines day is a day to express humanity and the ultimate, human unique idea that is love. No animal in the world shares this common ideal except us humans. We are the only one’s who understand this concept of love, so we take this day, this evolution of a day, to give thanks to creation for allowing us to understand this concept of love. We express our gratitude to our fellow man by celebrating love with each other. It does not mean one has to get into a relationship and elope, but it can be as easy as shaking hands or giving a hug to someone to communicate this idea of human relation and the love that we share amongst each other.

SO!

I entreat everyone: look past this materialistic day. See it for what it really is. A day of love. A day of gratitude. A day of thankfulness to our fellow man. A day of conveying and communing this concept of love to our neighbors. By all means, share chocolates and cards and music and love and all that. But just remember that tomorrow is not about relationships and love, but the concept of love and society and that ever present link they share in our world today. So lets go out there tomorrow, happy and proud of who we are, and show some real love to everyone out there be it woman, man, or beast. Lets just show some love.

“Do you think you too young to really love somebody?”

“Its a difference from loving somebody and being in love with somebody. You can love anybody. but when you in love with somebody, you looking at it like this: you taking that person for what he or she is no matter what he or she look like or no matter what he or she do. You might stop being in love with them but you is not going to stop loving that person.”

- Musing of a young girl on the track “Doo Wop (That Thing)” By Lauryn Hill. (Oh and question asked in the title there was posed by the young girl’s teacher)

So I was listening to this song (excellent! Lauryn Hill is also a genius) and I heard that….it really did get me…I mean is that really, just down to the bare bones, what love is? It does make a lot of sense anyway. Love isn’t suppose to be objective in anyway.

Even with the original concept from the beginning of time, love is considered just that. I think that with love, we are the closest thing to being Gods. Wow, thats a big claim to make right? Well no its not. Look at it this way: The original definition of love is just the bond between two sentient beings that transcends all other feelings. The creation of humanity at the hands of God was a product of that transcendent feelings that God held in such regard. God is THE design of love (or at least in the original religious ideal), therefore, being made in his “image” we are the product design of that same love. No other Earthly creature can share that same feeling of love that we all feel. So its just me, you, and God. That idea of love is what makes us closest to being equal to God.

(Oh and don’t get me wrong I’m not adoring or supporting God here. Personally I think he’s an idiot sometimes, laying out his “plan” for us when we all know there isn’t one….a rant on that is for another time)

You know, i never thought of it that way….I’ve heard that love is a truly powerful force, but I never realized it could really be that powerful. In a sense that feels terrifying…I mean sure we don’t have like extreme superpowers of creationism like God, but being able to share a sentient feeling that only God feels (well beyond us that is)? It feels a little weird thinking of it in that sense.

“Okay, alright. Do you think the t.v. and music and all that have something to do with it? About people being confused about love?”

-Question Posed by the Teacher on track “When it hurt so Bad” By Lauryn Hill

Anyway back to the question….”Do you think you too young to really love somebody?” To tie it together…are we all too young and naive to really understand this concept of love? Love has become so shrouded and mystified in common culture, so influenced by popular ideal that its hard to find what it really means anymore. I know so many people that watch movies like “The Notebook” and “A Walk to Remember” or some other ridiculously cheesy love movie/show (korean drama much?)…and they idealize that form of love rather than actual watch it for the fact that it is a movie. And it makes me feel bad for the rest of society because in a sense, that storybook romance can ne’er (<–haha like that pirate talk?) be achieved! It evokes a particular standardization within our community, about how love should be! We all want that little, lovey-dovey I’m-on-the-boat-with-lover-then-the-boat-flps-over-and-then-we-kiss-in-the-water kind of deal. Sure it makes for great imagery, but is it truly realistic perspective of what we really want? Sure you can say “Well no I’m fine with whatever.” But deep inside, thats not is it? We’re so rooted by society that I think deep inside, more or less, we want to be that kid who stands outside the girls window and plays a romantic proclamation in a ballady style, wailing how much we want her to be our girlfriend. And rightly so there is nothing wrong with that, however my true qualm with it is the question: Is that really what love is? Is love about bending and breaking to get the girl or is love about just the simple and pure connection that we share with someone we have truly deep feelings for that transcends all other feelings, wishful thinking and all?

I don’t know, that on its own is a particularly difficult question to pose because the person who answers must answer without objectivity, without influence from outside sources…and finding such a person in our world who has not been subjected to any sort of shaping and shifting of the idea of love is….well rather difficult if not impossible to find! Each of us, more or less, are effected by idealization of societal views and I think its sad that we cannot escape it. Once it was planted in our heads as to what “love” is, we believed it and I don’t think we will ever forget it.

“Really like love right now is confusion. You can be thinking you love somebody and not really love somebody. Like, I thought I was in love with this girl, but really wasn’t right now. I had to think about it.”

-Musing of a young boy on the track “When it hurt so Bad” By Lauryn Hill