V-Day
...fuck it

Michael Bolton sang, ìLove is a Wonderful Thingî, I disagree. The J. Geils Band sang, ìLove Stinksî, I couldnít agree more.

Love sucks, surely, but donít get me wrong, I am not preaching hate to the world. Depending on how you look at it, there can be many different types of love, but I will go ahead and say that there are basically two kinds of love, and even within these two categories there are many other underlying branches and sub-categories.

There is love associated with peace, respect, and goodwill; usually referred to as ìBrotherly Loveî, which is something the world definitely needs a lot more of.

Then there is the other kind of love, romantic love, which is just total crap.

ìWhat is love?î A question that has been answered many a times by poets, songwriters, and lovers, making utter fools of themselves. All of them usually coming up with cliches such as, ìLove is bindî Blah, love is blind all right, it canít see reality. You could take the scientific way out and say that romantic love is a biologically driven phenomenon. It has been selected for because it helps our genes to propagate, along with a complex set of other qualities, and they're not independent of each other, i.e., the state of "being in love", "lust", "jealousy", "anger", "trust", and many many others, are all tied together in a complex way and it's really not a clever thing to separate them out. It's a complex function of the interactions happening within us.
But if I were to answer that question, I would have to say: Love is a luxury, not a necessity. Love is societyís dangerous pressure, which ruins those who vainly try to comply with it. Love leeches you of your intelligence, rational abilities, creativity, time, and money.

Is love really necessary? Does the Constitution mention it? Does one of the Ten Commandments say, ìThou Shalt Fall in Loveî? No, love is a luxury. One can live a happy, healthy, productive life without falling in love. If Plato had fallen in love would he have had the time to create his philosophies?

Turn on the radio, what do you hear, a love song. Watch a movie, what do you see, a love scene. Perhaps to escape the problem you go to Meijer. Sorry, there are lovers holding hands in the parks, sidewalks, and shopping malls across the world. What happens every time this year? We are bombarded with hearts, Cupids, flowers, and candies. We feel the pressure of the marketing ploys of Valentineís Day (a so-called ìholidayî with a strictly commercial purpose and no historical significance whatsoever, designed to suck your purse or wallet dry on overpriced gimmickry).

Love is certainly responsible for the problems of the world. Take overpopulation, for instance, Love leads to sex, and sex leads to babies. Too much leads to too much sex and too many babies. Perhaps the world's governments should take that into consideration. Without love, there would be a dramatic decrease in the instances of date rape and spousal abuse. Not to mention a massive decline in AIDS cases.

Love makes you dumb, thatís not just opinion, but is fact. A study performed in 1993 at Tuebingen Univeristy in Germany dealt with electroencephalogram (EEG) readings of people with low IQís and high IQís. One of their findings revealed that some of the high IQ subjects showed brain- wave patterns of a "clearly reduced complexity," comparable with those in the low IQ group. The researchers questioned them and found out that they were genuinely and passionately in love. And how many times have couples neglected work or their studies just to spend time together, far too often.

Lovers are very un-creative people, and they succumb to dullness and cliches. "I'll love you forever," a man would say to his woman. Bo-ring. What does that mean, "forever?" No one loves forever. People break up. And even if they marry, they get divorced. And even if they stay married they die. Nothing lasts forever.

I have lost count of all the times I wanted to hang out with a friend, only to hear, "Oh, sorry, I can't. I have to spend all day with my girlfriend." (My mind hears the sound of a whip cracking). And lovers are so intoxicated with each other that, for them, "Time seems to fly by so quickly.î

As for money, ha, love leaves you bankrupt. There are the necessities of life: food, water, and shelter such as clothing, rent, and heat. But love upsets one's financial priorities. Lovers have to spend money on such things as presents, flowers (either real or golden), presents, candies, presents, perhaps even birth control and, oh yeah, presents. And I didn't even mention how money disappears when people go out on dates! All of the above leaves one financially weak. Itís no wonder that lovers have to end up living together.

So ultimately I don't think love is an emotion or a feeling, but rather a state of existence for and between two people. That is, love is the interaction between the partners in a relationship. This may vary based on the type of the relationship---it could be dysfunctional, or sado-masochistic, or consummate. In an ideal world, love is a Zen-like state, where two people are together as one. (While this description appeals to the romantic side of me, the cynical side of me gags at such a statement---perhaps this is how it should be.) But we don't live in an ideal world, and no matter what, there's bound to be an imbalance---if the imbalance/asymmetry is too much (i.e., one person cares too much and the other person doesn't care enough), then it's bound to frustrate. In such situations, it's better to end it completely (cut your losses) rather than end up in an objectifying cycle, which will inevitably lead to a bad ending. My philosophical concept would mostly likely relate to being Platonistic, which believes that choices lead to a rationalized life that eventually produces failure, anxiety, destructiveness, boredom, and unhappiness

Face it, love is not such a wonderful thing now, is it. Stuff sucks.

Once again, may I remind you, this is just me sounding off and is not meant to be taken personally or to offend anyone.

Happy Valentineís Day!