Fever.

Peggy Lee sings about it.  It's passion.  It's FIRE.  Which means it's dangerous.

The Beatles sing "All you need is love."  Tell that to the estimated 10.4 million single mothers and 2.5 million single fathers in the US.  I might politely suggest that love is far from their most immediate needs.  Of course, conversely, trying to explain THAT to the roughly 3,000 people A DAY that commit suicide may be a difficult argument--for more than one reason; chiefly because trying to explain anything to a dead person is a bit of a moot point, hm?

What argument am I trying to make here?  Love is perilous.  It's hazardous to our health and overall well-being as we put ourselves in such an incredibly vulnerable state that we are susceptible to almost anything.  Why is this?  Love is empyreal.  We have so many chemicals that almost literally put our bodies into auto-pilot that we find ourselves often times feeling like we have no control over our emotions, namely love.  Estrogen, Testosterone, Serotonin, Oxytocin, Dopamine, Norepinephrine....these, and more, are some of the culprits that lead to our "love."  Love is almost literally a drug.  It can't be described adequately with words, sure; but the discourse one might have after an experience is usually great, especially if that person experiences any pain related to it.  Indeed, there are other ineffable experiences like having a child, colours, the soul, etc, but love is the most intoxicating and obsessive, and can leave a person in such a state of disarray that they might be almost unrecognizable by those who "know" them.  

I'm not one to "bag" on love usually.  I'm a firm believer in pleasure, and experiencing love and almost everything that it brings with it can be truly sublime--for however long it might last.  So is it really as the moth explains?  (See below)

the lesson of the moth

By Don Marquis, in "archy and mehitabel," 1927

i was talking to a moth
the other evening
he was trying to break into
an electric light bulb
and fry himself on the wires

why do you fellows
pull this stunt i asked him
because it is the conventional
thing for moths or why
if that had been an uncovered
candle instead of an electric
light bulb you would
now be a small unsightly cinder
have you no sense

plenty of it he answered
but at times we get tired
of using it
we get bored with the routine
and crave beauty
and excitement
fire is beautiful
and we know that if we get
too close it will kill us
but what does that matter
it is better to be happy
for a moment
and be burned up with beauty
than to live a long time
and be bored all the while
so we wad all our life up
into one little roll
and then we shoot the roll
that is what life is for
it is better to be a part of beauty
for one instant and then cease to
exist than to exist forever
and never be a part of beauty
our attitude toward life
is come easy go easy
we are like human beings
used to be before they became
too civilized to enjoy themselves

and before i could argue him
out of his philosophy
he went and immolated himself
on a patent cigar lighter
i do not agree with him
myself i would rather have
half the happiness and twice
the longevity

but at the same time i wish
there was something i wanted
as badly as he wanted to fry himself

archy

 

Maybe it is worth all the pain and agony that could [possibly] accompany it.  As for me and my house, I'm sure we'd break if we endeavored it any time soon.  So, for now I'll enjoy half the happiness but twice the longevity of my mental health.  

Here's to happiness, tranquility and mental health....hopefully I find a treasure map to them soon.

At the speed of LIFE.

Being that light always travels at a constant speed it might be better to measure by the speed of life.

A similarity between light and life, that I happen to enjoy, is that it exists whether we can actually see it or not.  And while some animals can see light in ways that humans can not, so it can be said about life.  Also (I think I'll start every sentence with an A, will I?)...ahem, ALSO, select human beings somehow manage to see the spectrum of life differently than what I might say MOST do.  I particularly NEED these people.  As it stands I am on a whole other wave length than the majority of people that I know.  I know, we ALL feel "so alone" in so many ways and to consider myself unique in that sense is insensitive and altogether unrealistic.  However, I feel like I am in an experiment in which there is a control group and I am the free radical.  

Or maybe I'm a placebo.  I don't know.  I can imagine it all now, "Here, take this and let us know if you see an improvement."  And of course, people think they're improved by me....but really, it's always been in them to be who I showed them they could be.  I was just a boost of confidence is all.  In any case, I'm happy to be utilized in such a way if it is the case.  

Lies travel at the speed of life.  Dysfunctionally, inordinately, and so much more speedily than we ever realized...until it catches up with us.  And, as I've had an idiotic epiphany only moments ago, anything that requires recanting later is a lie of some sort.  Even if we've only lied to ourselves...it's just as debilitating.  I can FEEL myself getting closer to ME.  The more I let go of the childish ideas that were bore into me--the drivel that almost everyone I know subscribes to--the more at peace I start to feel with my core.  The hang up here is that sometimes I have difficulties discerning what exactly is truth for me and what is not.  I've held on pretty steadfastly to some of my "convictions" or "beliefs" that I'm struggling with knowing whether I do actually believe them or not.  

Of course, lies from others only complicate the whole mess--this is really my conundrum.  If I can keep a person at arms length, or at least away from me intimately, trust is almost never an issue.  However, almost instantly when that intimacy barrier is crossed words mean nothing and it is all reduced down to actions.  I'm grappling with this in a somewhat universal sense, as well as a personal one.  Part of the "square peg/round hole" riddle, with me, is that I will test people that I either CAN care about very deeply or already do to the point of pushing them away (intentionally) to simply see if they'll actually find me worthwhile enough to take it.  I have gotten so severe with this practice that I feel I might almost deliberately try to ruin someone's life or make such a complete disaster out of it just to see how far they would go to keep me in their life.  It makes utter and complete sense...in a lunatic sort of way.  

Pain travels at the speed of life.  But a dull...unused....and unloved life.  Which means that it is perceived as traveling much slower than other experiences, and essentially magnifies the agony as it's the only conceivable thing to focus on.  The pangs of lies still resonate with me and are greatly amplified, I suppose, because of this.  To explain, the pain is not from the actual experience...but the sense of worthlessness I acquired from it.  To feel worthy again is my mission.  To value myself, and hopefully one day to be valued by another, is a great ambition for me.  To even remotely think that another person may not think my heart and soul is precious might be too much for me to bear, again.

The struggles we face within ourselves are immeasurable by a conceivable unit of calculation.  And so....my ongoing struggles with myself can only be quantified at the speed of life.  Indeterminable when it might all end...and an anticipatory desire for a, at the very least, contented result.  

Here's to immeasurable experiences, growth, new endeavors, and deep fears.  Let's hope the latter travels from my life at the speed of light.

Time.

An interesting concept, time.  

Strangely, I've been having quite a few conversations about it as of late.  It's always interesting to hear others talk about their views on it, if they have any at all.  For me it's fascinating to hear other's views about anything really...I always love to be wrong about life!

So...TIME.  A way to measure our lives, essentially.  A quantified hypothetical/manifested element used to define so many other loosely "existing" components of life.  Of course I can almost completely understand why we need it...it's a way of grounding ourselves, of giving ourselves limitations.  Basically as human beings we don't know how to truly exist with no boundaries;  we are unable to conceive the principal of "just being."  It gets us from point A to point B, though, and with that then we learn to provide some sort of meaning to it all.  

I'm over trying to explain the obscure in too much detail. I seem to either bore individuals (and groups) fairly quickly, or I just lose them altogether, when doing so.

In any case...MY time, my length of existence, has been one filled with moments that have either seemed to be in fast-forward or slow motion.  Real-time is not a concept I grasp too firmly--although I'm positive I cannot be the only person that knows what I mean by this...at least I hope I'm not.  Forever in retrospect my moments seem to be so beautiful, or at the least interesting and worthwhile.  I have little indifference to any event in my life;  people, sure--events, not so much.  I am fortunate to truly believe I've walked away from every experience with a gained knowledge or some sort of benefit.  This thought might be equivalent to the universally [daft] cliched saying/belief that "everything happens for a reason,"  which I loathe, by the way (people choose their wording too simply all too often.)  

In any case, before I make this wholly indiscernible and too broad let me interject and say that all these thoughts are directly related to my latest "adventure." Ok--so, the concept of time, to me and in direct relation to my 11 day loafer-fest around London, is again tying into my trying to understand my place in this world.  

Rob Thomas (oh God, spare me the musical references...I KNOW) says, quite nicely I might add, that it's in these small hours that our lives are made.  

I keep losing this "supposition," although I do truly believe that.  I guess that might be in correlation to the idiotic and, again, cliched saying that "you only live once," etc.  I DO believe that IN the little moments is where it all really counts.  And to have the capability to devotedly immerse myself in them and appreciate them for how beautiful they really are would likely be one of my top 3 accomplishments in life.  I am unsure, in some ways, why I can not commit to doing this.  I get stuck in the tread-milling thoughts of societal reality, obligations, responsibilities, etc., and I seemingly can not afford myself the invaluable opportunity of getting swept off my feet by Life.  

No matter how bitter or afraid I become of life and of all of its uncertainties, I will, I'm afraid, always have a flicker of hope inside of me that one day....maybe....I'll have that dream of bliss cloaked in love, affection, and ultimate happiness.  We all have our pursuits of happiness, and if we look closely enough we can see so many of them in daily happenings.  Learning the art of being undisciplined in the precisely the right moments is where the trick just might lie, and it seems to be a difficult one to learn.  Again...it all boils down to balance.  

Tick.               Tick.                                                             Tick.  

Time seems to feel much more slowed down when you have something you'd much rather be experiencing.  

Like LIFE, for example.  

Eros?

Throughout my "adult" life I've often found myself wondering how it is that I had ever managed to get over the loss of my great loves.  

Before I proceed I'll say here that while, technically, in the U.S. I was considered an adult at 18, legally and ordained so by myself, I am starting to truly believe that I'm only now coming into my adulthood....at 26.

I have a great capacity to love.  I am curious if this might actually be stupidity, in that when normal people are hurt by love they're smart enough to let themselves grieve and eventually heal;  oftentimes they also end up shutting out certain things in life with regards to love, as well, though.  I believe I have illusions of love.  I also believe I have aversions to love in some ways.  Nevertheless, "love," even in it's most shallow disguises, never seems to evade me for long.  

I am not sure what love really is anymore.  As a child, and until this very moment, I believed it to be a set of rules that I'd been informed of infused with overwhelming feelings of desire, need, intimacy and something brought down from On High.  I absolutely put the entire notion of love into the hands of fate and God and some mystical forces that were forever beyond my realm of understanding.  And while it is still beyond my realm of understanding, I'm over putting my feelings and entire future into the hands of some unknown destiny.  I am almost pretty sure that in order to have the Adonis I must first pick up the proper tools:  Understanding.  

Did I take a piece of my loves with me?  I am not sure.  Some of them are evident in me almost daily, for others it takes concentration and effort, but I can still find a memory or two.  This is the double edged sword of intimacy...true intimacy is never forgotten.  I have had many loves and lovers and there isn't one that I don't still have some fondness for.  Whether he was a rebound or a disaster, a great love or a fleeting  romance, I loved them as wholly as I knew and very particularly.  I could never regret a single one, no matter how disastrous the "ending" might have been.  

So, I have a small piece of each of them with me, yet I'm wondering HOW exactly did I move on?  There were a few, in fact, that I fervently believed I would never make it another day, let alone years, without them.  Of course it was always more devastating when I believed I was the one being left and not vice versa (which indicates something more serious like the devastation of loss of control rather than love).  There are some that are still particularly painful to think about, while with others there is simply an indifference...I thank God for indifference.  My aching is not for the loss of the love but simply just another loss altogether and it is almost too much to bear at times.  And, again, I find myself wondering HOW did I ever manage to get over these pangs of abandonment and betrayal of love and loyalty before?

Building.

Building a bridge to the one you love.

A person could build hundreds of bridges over a lifetime.  We develop in so many different ways in our short lives, and for each new milestone that we reach there could be a new love.  

So how many bridges have I and will I build in my life?  Of this I am not sure.  For me, to build one and have it be eternal would be virtually euphoric.  Although, I've given away a lot of my building supplies to those who seemed promising and it would seem that I only have enough supplies to build myself a shelter instead of an entire bridge.

Maybe (just maybe) someone will have some extra building supplies to spare, and we can somehow meet in the middle.