Why Do We Want Love?

Excert from the movie, The Mirror has Two Faces...

So, this is the scene at my sister's wedding, right.  There she is, getting drunk, regretting she ever got married... for the third time, mind you.  Umm, my mother is so jealous, she is sprouting snakes from her hair.  And I am thinking... this is perfect.  We've got three feminine archetypes here: The divine whore... excuse me... Medusa... and me... Who am I?  What archetype?  Trevor?

The Virgin Mary? (class erupts into laughter)

Thanks a lot, Trevor.  No, the faithful handmaiden.  Always the bridesmaid... never the bride.  It does just proves, however, what Jung said all along that myths and archetypes are alive and well and living in my apartment.

As I... as I stood at the altar beside my sister and her husband-to-be... it struck me that this ritual, called a wedding ceremony, is really just the final scene of a fairy tale.  They never tell you what happens after.

They never told you that Cinderella drove the prince crazy with her obsessive need to clean the castle.  That she missed her day job...  No, they don't tell us what happens after because there is no after.  The be-all and end-all of romantic love was... Mike?

Ummm...sex?

Mike... Mike... Mike... you have sex on the brain, Mike...

Marriage.

Marriage.  That's right.  But it wasn't always like that.  Around the 12th century there was a notion known as courtly love, where love had nothing to do with marriage and had nothing to do with sex.  In most cases, it was defined as a passionate relationship between a knight and a lady of the court, who was already married.  And so they could never consummate their love.  In this way, they would have to rise above your ordinary, ah, you know, going to the bathroom in front of each other kind of love.

And they would have to go after something, more divine.  They took sex out of the equation; and what was left was a union of souls.  Now think of this.  Sex was always the fatal love potion.  Look at the literature of the time.  Lancelot and Gweneviere; Tristian and Allso(?).  All consummation could lead to was madness, despair or death.  Clinical experts, scholars and my Aunt Esther are united in the belief that true love has spiritual dimensions, while romantic love is nothing but a lie.  An illusion.  A modern myth.  A soulless manipulation.

And speaking of manipulation... It's like going to the movies, where we see the lovers, on screen, kiss... and the music swells, and we buy it, right?  So when my date takes me home and kisses me good night, if l don't hear full harmonic in my head, I dump him.

Now the question is, why do we buy it?  We buy it because whether it's a myth or a manipulation, let's face it, we all want to fall in love.  Right?  Why?  Because that experience makes us feel completely alive.  Where every sense is heightened, every emotion is magnified, our everyday reality is, is shattered and we are flung into the heavens.  It may only last a moment, an hour, or an afternoon but that doesn't diminish its value.  Because we're left with memories that we treasure for the rest of our lives.

I read an article a while ago, that said, "when we fall in love, we hear Puccini in our heads."  I love that.  I think it's because his music fully expresses our longing for passion in our lives and romantic love.  And while we are listening to La Bóheme or Turandot, or reading Wuthering Heights, or watching Casablanca, a little bit of that love lives in us too.  So, the final question is: Why do people want to fall in love, when it can have such a short shelf life and be devastingly painful?  What do you think?  Stacey?

Completes the propagation of the species?

Uh hmmmmmm...  Randy?

Psychologically we need to connect with somebody?

Could be?  Jill?

Are we culturally preconditioned?

Good answers, but much too intellectual for me.  I think it's because, as some of you may already know... While it does last, it feels fucking great.

(class erupts into more laughter)

Right?

I think the writers had something there when they wrote that scene in the movie.  We are born and we get love from our parents.  It feels good and comforts us.  We need it every day.  As we grow up, we feel other kinds of love and then one day, we meet that one person and that feeling is so different and so unique and so wonderful, we wonder how we lived without it.

Everyone feels love in some degree.  People spend their life looking for it.  Some have killed or died for it.  It makes the world go 'round.  Love continues that feeling inside of us. We get up every morning, craving it. We go to sleep grateful for having it.

When we find that right person, the universe aligns with the cosmic Gods and everything seems perfect and right.

Love is the end all, be all of our existence.  When we die, does it matter how much money we had or how many homes we owned?  No because it is does not matter in the big scheme of things and it is not coming with us.

What matters is how much we loved, how many wonderful and amazing people we had in our lives and how many times did we give our hearts to someone and have their hearts in our hands.  How did you love in your life?  Partially? Completely?  Unconditionally?  Did you give it your all and have no regrets?

One misconception everyone has about love is that once we are given it, it stays and the fairy tale continues.  When it doesn't work that way, you throw it away and look for it again.  Love is hard work.  It takes committment, dedication, loyalty and determination to keep it alive.

Yes, falling in love is by chance but continuing it is hard work and if it goes, right, wrong or indifferent, it's a choice.  You choose to fall out of love.  You choose not to make it work.  You choose to let it go.  You choose to end the fairy tale in the making.

Love is not a fairy tale unless you work at it.  No one is perfect.  In order to understand how to make love work, we have to know the other person's faults, habits, likes/dislikes and their quirks and personality.  After you get that started, you both have to work to merge family and friends into the mix as well.  That is a tall order but it is for love... so isn't it worth it?

So again, the question is... why do we want love?  Because it truly does feel fucking amazing!

What are your thoughts on love?

Life In Motion

I hear that word often and for a while, I was ok with it but lately, I find that it irritates me.  It is a word used to describe something that cannot be defined so they make it a "process."

There are no actual processes in life but two.  Birth.  Death.  Can't get away from either and nothing you can do to change them.  Everything in between is what happens after you take your first breath and when you take your last.  Emotions, feelings, thoughts and just living cannot be a process.

Let's take the obvious one that everyone knows.  They say there are five steps to the grieving process but how many people actually follow the "format" laid out?  Someone dies.  You deny it and isolate yourself.  You get angry.  You make bargains with God or others.  You get depressed.  You accept it.  Ok, there are your five steps.  When my father died, I didn't have have four out of the five.  Oh, oh.  I didn't conform to the process.

Compartmentalizing things makes it easier to handle and perhaps allows our mind to feel at ease.  You feel normal like everyone else.

Really?  I know more peope like this...

You feel lost.  You feel numb.  You stop living.  You ignore it.  You feel sorrow. You get stuck.  You are confused.  You hate.  You exist.

Where are the process in each of these? There is none.  Life is not a process and we have to stop giving in to what others teach to be normal and learn to find our own way to deal with our own emotions.  Who knows us best than ourselves anyway?

It's like saying your child picks a pretty flower and gives it to you.  Was that a process?  No, dammit, that is a miracle!  It is called love.  But if you have to live with processes, then you could not see that or feel the love.  Think of how much you miss out on when you do that.

A lot of life coaches I know get stuck in the wording and teaching when referring to life and see everything as a process.  Some times, they have to let it all go and just freaking live.  Let it flow.  Let what comes, comes and stop saying, "that's part of the process."  Bahhhh!  Wrong answer.  I'm sorry, but you should have moved on to the next process.  That should have happened when you were 25 not 40.  That is the problem with processes... it keeps you from actually living because that is all you see.

I see mine as an adventure.  Different things every day to make it interesting and unique to me.  I don't do processes.  If I am angry, I have constructive ways to release them but not in a process outlined in a book or a teaching.  It is within me.  If I am happy, I show it.  If I am sad, I withdraw and allow it to consume me in private.

Maybe if one saw the meaning, it might make more sense.

–noun

1. a systematic series of actions directed to some end: to devise a process for homogenizing milk

2. a continuous action, operation, or series of changes taking place in a definite manner: the process of decay

3. a. Law - the summons, mandate, or writ by which a defendant or thing is brought before court for litigation

3. b. Law - the whole course of the proceedings in an action at law

4. Photography. photomechanical or photoengraving methods collectively

5. Biology, Anatomy. a natural outgrowth, projection, or appendage: a process of a bone

6. the action of going forward or on

7. the condition of being carried on

8. course or lapse, as of time

–verb (used with object)

9. to treat or prepare by some particular process, as in manufacturing

10. to handle (papers, records, etc.) by systematically organizing them, recording or making notations on them, following up with appropriate action, or the like: to process mail

11. to require (someone) to answer questionnaires, perform various tasks, and sometimes to undergo physical and aptitude classification examinations before the beginning or termination of a period of service: The army processes all personnel entering or leaving the service

12. to convert (an agricultural commodity) into marketable form by a special process, as pasteurization

13. to institute a legal process against

14. to serve a process or summons on

15. Computers. to carry out operations on (data or programs)

–verb (used without object)

16. to undergo the activities involved in processing personnel: The recruits expected to process in four days

–adjective

17. prepared or modified by an artificial process: process cheese

18. noting, pertaining to, or involving photomechanical or photoengraving methods: a process print

19. Informal. of or pertaining to hair that has been conked

20. Movies. created by or used in process cinematography: a moving background on a process screen

So, did any of there fit your life?  For my work, banking, food, I found a few that would work but not my life.  It has twists and turns that cannot be defined by processes.  And I didn't see the meaning where it said, creating a way to live your life in a set way.  If we did that, we would all be alike.  Didn't Hitler try that and fail miserably?

Life.  See it with its shiny colors.  Its watery colors.  Its dark colors.  Its bright colors.  Its shadows.  Its light.  Its abyss.  But you cannot put it into a process because eventually, something happens that does not flow with what is outlined and guess what?  You get stuck.

Just live and let iive.  Expect everything.  Expect nothing.  Love unconditional but be detached.  Be kind.  Be compassionate.  Let go of processes and live your life in motion.

To the Universal You!

God Thinks You Are a Dork

If you know me well, you know that a Dork, in my eyes, are great people. They are innovators of ideas. They are creative geniuses that use their minds and their art to convey messages of love, harmony, happiness and compassion. They travel in a direction that is against the norm. They are unafraid of being themselves, doing things that others don't have the guts to do and living outside of the box that society says we have to live in. God and Buddha, for that matter, are Dorks. I am a Dork!

Now please don't get those creative types that write about others in a mean spirited way to make themselves feel better or use their art to put others down. Those are people just looking for attention and they do not have the Dork qualities. Dorks take care of themselves and those around them with great care, love and compassion.

Protection of Nature, taken January 13, 2010 by me

I am a creative being and I love looking at life in a different light than what society says I should. Those who want to fit in, try to mold themselves in what everyone says they should be; own an iPhone, drink Starbucks, wear the latest fashion, or have the latest gadgets and toys. Come on, dammit, you gotta keep up with the Jones! Sorry, not my style. Don't get me wrong. I make very good money and live comfortably. I travel, go out and enjoy time with my friends, buy wonderful art pieces that touch me. But most times, I prefer being home, with quiet time to read or write about life and the experiences we all have in it. I prefer to give back to my community. Volunteering. Whatever to make a small change in the world.

Lately, I have been seriously listening to friends talk about their lives and I look under the surface and see what else they are saying. What their lives are like for them and to see it from their view. Strange how connected we are yet so disconnected at the same time.

So what does this all have to do with God? A friend called me up to tell me a few messages. She got that wherever she went this morning, there was something to remind her of me and thought, "ok, I am suppose to be thinking about Anni" and called to tell me about the signs she got. She mentioned a title of a book that she thought I would enjoy but the moment she started to say it, the title of my blog popped into my head, so I had to start writing. I told her that God has the best sense of humor. You don't believe me?  Look in the mirror, peoples! I do and I have to laugh as well as rejoice at what is reflected back.

I am amazing, silly, at peace, crazy, kind, beautiful, dorky, lovely, emotional, wonderful, dramatic, funny, spiritual, clumsy, loving, compassionate and I fumble through life like everyone else, trying to work out where I am going, with who and why.

Now what you think of as God may be different than what I or others think but you know what? That is awesome. Personally, I believe in the Oneness of the Universe and that the energy of God or Spirit is thrown out to all of us in different ways because we are all different. That is why we have different religions; to accommodate the different kinds of people in the world. What is most interesting to me is that within each religion or even lack of religion, everyone does not always agree to what they know or learn and put their own spin on it. What is wrong with that as long as there is a belief in something and more importantly, that the belief in oneself is just as strong?

So back to God thinking you are a Dork... you heard my view and as much as we want to be perfect, we are not. And IF we are all made in the image of God, then doesn't that mean that God is not perfect, because we aren't? So when I told my friend that God has a sense of humor, what I meant was that God created what we have now way back when, then wondered what was she going to do with all of us and now we have become a tragedy or comedy on her big TV in the sky and I know right now, she is shaking her head at me, saying, "tsk, tsk, Anni, questioning me again?"

Free will, baby! Yes! Yes, I am! (And I know she loves it!)