"As You Wish"

( in review, i must admit that i sound perhaps a bit dry... passionless about this intense... emotion. i'm really not at all, but i am being very... careful in my wording and syntax so i communicate Exactly what i am trying to articulate. If you and i were to sit together below the canopy of stars and have our eyes meet and our bodies communicate and rely upon that hidden syntax that is the complexity of our language then my meaning and intent would become as clear as the air above a hidden mirror pond ringed by purple and white mountains (in that land where everyone breaths clearly and calmly) and nothing would need further explanation. But prose is often clumsy, and alas, it is now my only resort. have mercy and forgive my incapacity.)

i have spent far too many hours thinking about allot of miserable and ridiculous things, mostly by the requirement of different gatekeepers in my life. Lately, though, i have recovered most of my thinking time as strictly my own. And so my thoughts would naturally gravitate to more important issues that would, during my short and frail life, be better contemplated sooner then later.

a good time ago, i thought i was in love. I thought that i was in love, once again, and then, after that, a third time. (although it might be permissible to note that a close friend asserts that i have been in Love only once.) i reviewed carefully those times at the inquisitive prodding of a now very close friend of mine (same one, yep). Through many letters and discussions with her, i have discovered what i believe to be the closest approximation of how love manifests itself in my life.

but first, some things have to be said for groundwork.

When somebody refers to someone they have met, especially of the opposite sex, someone else invariably asks if they 'like' them, or 'like-Like' them (emphasis shown). This question, usually playfully put, presupposes there is any difference. I contend that there isn't. Those two references to how you feel about someone are in fact identical: they are two different ways to referring to the same feeling. In both, you like the person, what you know of their personality, their demeanor, the way they carry themselves. You are interested in that person because of who they are (hopefully we're all past being interested in someone because of they role they play in your life) only the form that liking is in expressed varies. usually, for most, and me especially, i drew artificial lines of 'sexual interest' and 'non sexual interest'. Those lines do not exist anymore once i realized they were proprietary, and only there to limit the way i express myself with that person. i was placing false antecedents upon myself, that prevented me from actually getting to know the person. I got to know what i wanted the person to be. either way, the actual feeling toward the person is the same, the content. the only difference is the expression, the form.

now that is said, onto the body of this series of thoughts.

within my life, i have met many different and wonderful people. I have also met allot of people that sucked (plainly put). Of those who didn't suck, i found a few people who i have gotten close to. Most of those people are now my friends: some of them are something more. (this is all not to use the word 'friend' lightly- i use it because in it's true definition, it is appropriate. if you think 'friend' and you are actually thinking 'acquaintiance' we are on separate wavelengths here.)

I like all the people that i call a friend. I also care about those few people that i call a friend. when i say 'care about' i mean that i want them to be happy, not simply content with life, and am willing to undergo hardship for them if will make them happier. I am willing to assist them in tasks that they need help. And, if given the choice, i would choose in their favor. I am also interested in them as people, and they, being who they are, have left a deep impression into me. That is what i mean when i refer to caring about someone.

When i mentioned the word 'friend', i also qualified it. I stated implied that it was often taken lightly, perhaps over and mis-used. The word 'love' is often misused by those who are trying to say the word 'care.' Of course, there are those who, in my own personal reality-tunnel, are misusing the word, such as many sitcoms in popular culture and quite a few highschool romances (and college, too, mind all of us. I used high school only as a... private joke. sorry, y'all just gotta deal.)

In my life and own little personal reality-tunnel, which i of course, with full arrogance believe is a close approximation of the truth, love has two different definitions. I differentiate with those two definitions by writing the word as 'love' or 'Love.' All of us are familiar with the word 'love'. Recited often by most in pillow talk, after a passionate moment, where you truly believe there is a connection there, in the half-hour window of a popular sitcom, or within the multitude of daily life. People recite this word often, with meanings in many forms. here are a couple: 'love' meaning, 'i really care about you.' 'love' meaning, 'i haven't ever felt this connected with someone before (so it must be love).' 'love' most often meaning, 'i want to possess you', often in a primate-aggressive-domination role. 'love' meaning, 'damn that was good sex' (and i want more). 'love' meaning, 'i want you as an important person in my life.' 'love' meaning, 'i hate you but don't know it yet.' All of these are completely authentic expressions of feeling. But the question i pose, is this really love? When i review this kind of love, i remember statistics stating that wife-beating go up around the superbowl. I remember the divorce rates. I think about the latest love scene in a romantic (or any other genre these days) movie. but then i think about my life, and those few people in my life that i can say 'I Love.'

When you make that huge leap and realize you Love someone- you love them without condition (it does not presuppose some sort of overt sexuality). You love them, and make them an important part of your life, regardless of where they are, their past, their friends, their family, their nationality, intersecting boundaries, or allegiance (from their religion to what kind of motorcycle they ride). Love is Love and when i say it is 'blind' i say that it knows none of these antecedents- it is truly without condition. If you can think of something that would 'stop' you from loving the person, an event they participate in, a decision they make, or a way they might act, then you simply 'care' about them. When i talk about Love i used to speak in terms of a 'deep connection' or 'total trust'. It is both. You trust that person to be the person they are. You are connected to the person because you put their well-being and happiness at a priority to you. This is not to advocate some Catcher-in-the-Rye syndrome that ruins and estranges many loves. Love is not, and i repeat, IS Not possession. You do not hold anything over or own/possess a person in any way, shape or form when you Love them. On a metaphysical level of symbolic language, if the person you Love trusts you with their trust, their intimacy, or a portion of their heart- then you are a caretaker of it. Like a forester trusted to preserve our shrinking natural beauty, you care for it and are attendant to it, but you never, ever own it.

In my wanderings on Love, i have spoken to many people. Their responses almost invariably contain a distinction i also use, but not one because there is an actual distinction, but one of category. Almost everyone speaks of being 'in' and 'out' of Love. (I'm long-winded sometimes. if you can't handle it go read the constitution and deal.) Once you Love someone, you never really stop loving them. When you Love someone, they are a part of your life. They are an active role- you make them that way. When you look into the future, you see that person you Love still being an active person in your life. That looking in the future and seeing the person there is being 'in' love. When you are 'out' of Love, you still feel the same things for that person, you simply don't see them being an active force in your life in the future. That's it. Over time, the feelings you felt for that person might sink below the surface... but when you look into the sky and see the same stars you once gazed at with that person and think about those times, then those emotions can be called back up. They never leave you.

When i think about the easiest way to explain a precondition of Love, i think of 'deep understanding'. In my brief experience on this world (ha! my syntax reveals decades of oppressive christian theology. just to be clear, when you're dead you're dead. nothing but your geneseed (genetic envelope) and memories are left. with the shutting down of the fourthaxis nervous system goes the consciousness and comes the final darkness.) i have found that before you Love someone, you Understand them... you understand not only what shapes them, what compromises them, what their motivations are, but you also understand the symbolic language in which they relate to the world. This Understanding is easiest to be achieved when both people are completely and totally honest- which doesn't always mean that they're the nicest and rosiest of people to you- it just means that they share themselves and what they think to you without censor. This level of honesty is usually not achieved if they are not honest with themselves, but this is a totally different subject. This understanding grows and deepens once you've accepted the Love you feel for the person.

hmm... how to tackle the sticky syntax of that last statement... well... hmmm... 'falling in Love', 'accepting the Love you feel', etc. are all references to the moment of epiphany in where you realize that what you're feeling is larger, deeper and stronger then friendship, caring, trusting. It is Loving. When does this occur? Addressing this in symbolic language, i would say that this moment comes at a time of leaping. When you are walking your path of life, and someone care about and understand deeply treads beside you, and when you look ahead of you in your path, you receive a lucid moment of vision: you see this person beside you with you also ahead of you on the path. When this moment comes, you come to a chasm. Below you is certain death (of the person you know to be you), above you, the endless fire of countless stars. You can step aside, and re-tread your path upon a different direction, or you can leap- you can make what you're feeling a part of your life, and authenticate it. You can turn your head to the side, gaze deeply within the other existent's eyes, and tell them what you're feeling. You leap. You leap into the area of uncertainty, the area out of your control, you reality-tunnel. When this is done, the Love is felt and brought to blossom as a part of you. It is held between you and the other existent, as a feeling toward them. In essence, you place the Keystone between the two reaching arms of the arch that is the threshold of living your life with Love within you to another person.

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