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3.20.2004
Just so you know, I sat in Starbucks for about an hour and half with two cops staring over my shoulder while I wrote this. My hand is still cramped up from the writing with haste to escape the coppers. Pardon any run-on sentences, they are hard to avoid with this subject.
It's comforting to think that there's someone in the world made just for you. Someone who compliments all of your faults and makes you feel whole; someone to make you stop hating the world -- or more realistically, someone to make you notice the good things in life that work to cross out the bad things. Hell, that isn't realistic either.
Someone who, even though everything sucks and makes you hate life and feel a constant need to turn on your music so loud in hopes of drowning out all the damn noise, gives you something to desire; something to trust; someone to love -- even though those are the last things you could possibily want because that means you'll be risking your feelings again. Because we pretty much all have that one heartbreak that just killed us and haven't fully recovered from, even though we assure ourselves we have because that's the only way to move on.
It seems like all good things have bitterness. Ah yes, our favorite cliché! Bittersweet. But it's true. The bitterness keeps you on your toes. It's there to remind you to appreciate the good things in life while you've got them because you never know when they'll be taken away from you. How long will your love last? Forever? A month? A week?
Yeah, it is nice to think there's that perfect person out there waiting for you or better yet, looking for you. The person who will love you for who you are and not who you pretend to be. The person who makes everything OK even though the shit has the largest industrial-sized fan. But that's just a dream. It never can be completely OK because of this one person.
Why? Because even if this person exists, they will have an undeniable, uncontrollable and probably unrecognized (to that person) power of you. Once you give your heart to someone -- soulmate or not -- it's theirs to break. If soulmates exist and you've found yours, chances are they won't break your heart on purpose but they could still break it if they move somewhere you can't move or if they die. Yes. People die. I know, you're shocked.
But let's say they die. Where does that leave you? Dead soulmate, broken heart, and no hope for recovery because they were your perfect match. Talk about a fucked up situation. If soulmates do exist, you probably do just have that one soulmate. Even if you do find him/her, they'll probably just up and die on you. Or maybe you'll die. Who knows? Either way it will suck because life isn't fair. We do not live in the movies. Hell, even if we did, one person would still die. Only they'd be extremely good-looking like Charlize Theron in Sweet November. And then your surfer pseudo-heartthrob boyfriend would cry over you and there'd be some after school special message at the end about how they can move on without you but will always remember you when they see a butterfly so please donate any amount of money to the Broken Hearts Foundation of America Because Leukemia Sucks Fund. So if you find your soulmate in either scenario you're screwed.
Or maybe life is fair. Maybe you have several soulmates and if you lose one, you have a chance to find another one and live happily ever after. Yeah fucking right. Who am I kidding? Life? Fair? No.
I don't believe in soulmates. I think you're born, you live for a while, you die. The end. How could there be soulmates? Who would set up such an elaborate design and why would they bother when you're only here for a short time with so many people in the world you'll probably never meet that one person? What's the point? There isn't one.
Soulmates are bullshit. They're dreams we're fed at an early age when we watch too many Disney films because parents needed something to distract you while they had sex or took a nap. But love? Well. That's something else. It might not be bullshit. Don't get me wrong, I don't believe in "true love." It's too similar to the soulmate idea. But love--pure love-- might work.
What I mean by "pure love" is this: Love that has no secrets, no lies. Love that has pain to go with the happiness. Selflessness. Love with tenderness. Not just cards and candy but genuine affection and longing to make that other person happy just because you love them.
But love is not like that. It could never be selfless. Why? Because we're human. Everything "good" thing we do gives us a warm feeling. And that's not terrible. Itr's just not completely selfless. Though, there is one selfless thing someone can do but only a certain person could pull it off. Someone who does not believe in any sort of afterlife-- that you just become worm food-- dying (on purpose) to save someone else is selflessness. They'd be giving up the whole world--everything they know--for someone else and getting absolutely nothing in return because they're just going to be worm food. Short of that, selflessness doesn't exist. Every good deed you do benefits you somehow, from a feeling, to free ride to heaven, to a large amount of cash--who knows? It's going to give you something and you'll probably do more things like it for more of that something.
I digress. Back to love. So far I've established that soulmates, true love and pure love [probably] don't exist. So what does that leave us with? The next best thing.
Just because you can't be selfless doesn't mean you can't love. Sure, part of you loves because you want that love returned; you like the feeling of caring for someone and having them care for you, too. You can still give them genuine affection and show your appreciation for their existence. If you love them, you want them to feel the same way--which is not selfish.
Now what's left? Ah. Yes. Everyone's favorite tease. Lust. She's a really old friend of, well, everyone. She's right there from the very first time you were attracted to someone to the day you die. She's not only a tease but she's a cruel tease. She can get you so hot and bothered over someone that you convince yourself it must be love because it's just so wonderful! For a while.
If all you have is lust for a person, eventually you'll see it shrinking back into the shadows it came from. Sometimes it's so slow it hurts because you've realized you only lusted for the person but they genuinely loved you. So you're stuck between a rock in a hard place. Tell them you never loved them? That your feelings have changed? Make up some lie? Maybe that's the best thing to do, letting them down easily. Or maybe not. Every situation is different.
But in any case of pure lust lacking love, you notice something is missing. The person starts to irritate the hell out of you -- something. Then you break a heart or mutually decide to separate if it was lust for both of you -- and move on to someone else. Because we all seem to be looking for something. That soulmate idea lurks inside just about every person whether they see it or not. Because who doesn't want to find someone they find perfect? The puzzle piece that fits you. Even if it is complete shit, it's a comforting thought.
Posted at 11:21:10 pm by TheKaren
 | | | Brian
March 21, 2004 02:18 AM PST
Damn, thats one hell of an article to read. Very interesting thoughts on all of that. Out of curiosity, where did that all come from? | |
| | | Karen
March 21, 2004 06:10 PM PST
My head. | |
| | | Brian
March 21, 2004 08:20 PM PST
I assumed as much. | |
| | | Karen
March 21, 2004 11:38 PM PST
Then why ask? :p | |
| | | Brian
March 22, 2004 09:14 AM PST
To make conversation shortness. Somthing merely to start the flow of posting conversation. | |
| | | Karen
March 22, 2004 12:37 PM PST
There are better questions to begin with. | |
| | | Maniacal
March 22, 2004 02:56 PM PST
Good god! You sound like I did years ago. Are you okay? I wasn't. | |
| | | Karen
March 22, 2004 03:01 PM PST
I'm okay. Just felt like writing my point of view on the subject. | |
| | | Beth
March 22, 2004 03:56 PM PST
Sounds much like a woman scorned. But it's cool. Everyone is certainly entitled to their own opinion. I hope that you find whatever 'love' you believe in. :) | |
| | | Karen
March 22, 2004 04:33 PM PST
I never have been scorned, though. | |
| | | Maniacal
March 23, 2004 02:33 PM PST
Never been scorned? Hmmm, are you one of those girls with all them walls?
Dont you know it is the dream of everyman to make women scorned? ;) | |
| | | Brian
March 23, 2004 06:36 PM PST
Its been my biggest dream and reality for many years now. | |
| | | Karen
March 23, 2004 11:30 PM PST
I'm the scorner not the scornee. | |
| | | Arah
March 29, 2004 10:20 PM PST
I think you argue your points very well. I can say that the english definition of love limits us. There are many types of love including: erotic, affection, friendship, charity and agape love (love for god). Since, I think that the english language is limiting by only giving us one word to describe many meanings, it's hard. I think my only disagreement with you would be on your arguement, that people are unable to be purely in love with someone because of their selfish nature. I find this really hard to understand. Given my very limited experience with love I can't say all my actions are motivated by pure love, but it could be fair to say that we are able to love as humans, but because of our fallibility there are times when we fall short of perfection. Your article reminded me of the movie "the end of the affair" which crippled my heart. This movie proves that one is never happy with just lust, but one always longs for a deeper, more passionate love. | |
| | | Anthony
November 19, 2004 03:32 AM PST
I've recently come to know how you feel, yet again. | |
| | | Laura
November 21, 2004 02:37 PM PST
I understand how you feel as I met mine and as much as I wanted him desperately there was an obstacle, he was married to someone else with a baby on the way. This of course broke my heart as we had developed an amazing friendship and spent every moment together. I wasnt searching for love and it was as if the angels put us together.I was searching and questioning my spirituality and low and behold he appeared. I know for a fact he is my soulmate as we even look alike and my heart yearns for him every day. There are no words to describe him... except I will never forget him and our Romeo and Juliet love affair. It of course being the ultimate tragedy... | |
| | | Jefferson
November 24, 2004 11:37 AM PST
See, now here's a topic I could talk on for hours. If I was in just the right mood, anyway. | |
| | | Angel
January 21, 2005 12:17 AM PST
If my heart were capable of spilling forth it's feelings, it would have been a summary of your words. I stumbled across this...and the dreamer, the romantic, the broken heart in me believes fate guided the course. Human nature has the need to relate to others who feel what we do and I thank you for sharing it here. | |
| | | Lyly
December 8, 2005 01:41 PM PST
stumbled across your blog after linking from the main BD page, I think. Nice reading your thoughts. | |
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