Bryan W. Alaspa 1Coming down on the idea of love
July 26th 2009 21:39
Sometimes it’s tough being a cynic. People tend not to like us. They say we are negative. I say we are just practical, facing the world without the blinders of optimism. Cynics are not always miserable and we don’t seek out misery, we just acknowledge the fact that misery, pain, hate and anger are the actual natural state of things. When humans rise above it, it’s a moment to rejoice, but you should also take a look at the reasons behind it and do so with a critical eye.
So, it is tough to come down again the one emotion everyone seems to think is the greatest thing in the world. The doe-eyes optimists of the world all say that “love” is this great and wonderful thing. These are the same people who are then shocked when “love” goes horribly wrong and they end up broken and shattered on the side of the road. Those of us who assume everything is going to go horribly wrong in the first place are not usually in the same boat.
As for love itself, I have a hard time believing it actually exists. I think primitive man stood outside his cave or hut and looked around. The world was a big scary place and when he looked up at the night sky he saw more black then he saw light and that was scary too. He looked at his life and how hard it was and figured there had to be something that made all of that hardship worthwhile. So, he looked at his mate and his family and decided that the natural, protective and warm feeling he had needed a name. He called it love and people have been pursuing this thing ever since.
Of course, the first man to name it probably had a better idea of what it was than we do today. Those early men had no concept of the gooey, sickeningly sweet emotion that we currently think of as love. They didn’t expect fireworks to go off in their heads or to have this “walking on cloud 9” feeling that modern men and women think. There were no divorces then. Couples were together because they needed each other to survive. So, there was no “falling out of love.” Was the man still able to provide food and protection? Was the woman still able to care for the home and children? If the answers were yes, then the primitive man was happy to continue things as they were. Love was very easy to find and the promise of it was easy to fill.
Modern men with their short attention spans cannot understand why those powerful and dazzling emotions that they first feel when they meet someone new doesn’t just stick around. You mean I have to work at this thing? Well, that’s stupid. Meanwhile couple after couple drops dead because the aforementioned sparks and fireworks didn’t happen the very first time they met.
I think the poets and the songwriters and the movie-makers have polluted the minds of too many people. I am probably guilty of it myself. They promote the idea of this thing called love as something to give our lives meaning.
The fact is that there may be no meaning to our lives. We are here and we are living here and we just need to do the best we can. I think the true purpose of our lives is to help other people and try to make the world better for our having been here. Too many think that love is the reason. I say love itself may never have existed, but was merely myth created by early people to give their difficult lives meaning.
But it’s hard to come down against something so many people pin their hopes and dreams on. So many people right now are walking around all gooey and mushy and believing that they are in “love” and that, somehow, what they feel will last forever.
In a way, I feel very sorry for them.
So, it is tough to come down again the one emotion everyone seems to think is the greatest thing in the world. The doe-eyes optimists of the world all say that “love” is this great and wonderful thing. These are the same people who are then shocked when “love” goes horribly wrong and they end up broken and shattered on the side of the road. Those of us who assume everything is going to go horribly wrong in the first place are not usually in the same boat.
As for love itself, I have a hard time believing it actually exists. I think primitive man stood outside his cave or hut and looked around. The world was a big scary place and when he looked up at the night sky he saw more black then he saw light and that was scary too. He looked at his life and how hard it was and figured there had to be something that made all of that hardship worthwhile. So, he looked at his mate and his family and decided that the natural, protective and warm feeling he had needed a name. He called it love and people have been pursuing this thing ever since.
Of course, the first man to name it probably had a better idea of what it was than we do today. Those early men had no concept of the gooey, sickeningly sweet emotion that we currently think of as love. They didn’t expect fireworks to go off in their heads or to have this “walking on cloud 9” feeling that modern men and women think. There were no divorces then. Couples were together because they needed each other to survive. So, there was no “falling out of love.” Was the man still able to provide food and protection? Was the woman still able to care for the home and children? If the answers were yes, then the primitive man was happy to continue things as they were. Love was very easy to find and the promise of it was easy to fill.
Modern men with their short attention spans cannot understand why those powerful and dazzling emotions that they first feel when they meet someone new doesn’t just stick around. You mean I have to work at this thing? Well, that’s stupid. Meanwhile couple after couple drops dead because the aforementioned sparks and fireworks didn’t happen the very first time they met.
I think the poets and the songwriters and the movie-makers have polluted the minds of too many people. I am probably guilty of it myself. They promote the idea of this thing called love as something to give our lives meaning.
The fact is that there may be no meaning to our lives. We are here and we are living here and we just need to do the best we can. I think the true purpose of our lives is to help other people and try to make the world better for our having been here. Too many think that love is the reason. I say love itself may never have existed, but was merely myth created by early people to give their difficult lives meaning.
But it’s hard to come down against something so many people pin their hopes and dreams on. So many people right now are walking around all gooey and mushy and believing that they are in “love” and that, somehow, what they feel will last forever.
In a way, I feel very sorry for them.
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