The Cheese Stands Alone

Some people consider me a cynic. Some consider me a pessimist. Is there even a difference? Certainly people close to me laugh at the idea of me ever getting married or otherwise "settling down" into any sort of long-term cohabitation. My sister laughs the hardest of them all, probably because she's witnessed me go through four (or is it five, or maybe only three - I really can't keep track) "engagements". But let's not get tangled up in a mess here. Marriage and love are two different things. Yes, sometimes they coexist, but one is not guaranteed with the other. It's not some kind of two-for-one deal.

Anyhow, people think I'm "cynical" about love. On the contrary, I've always considered myself realistic about the matter. I'm not denying the existence of love, nor am I denouncing it. In fact, love is amazing. And at the risk of sounding like a tree-hugging hippie, I would even go so far as to say that love makes the world go round (believe it or not, science actually doesn't have a better answer).

What leaves a bad taste in my mouth is the idea of falling in love. I mean, the very idea of "falling" should stop any sane person in their tracks. I liken it to the feeling of "falling" for the craving to light up a cigarette (which thankfully I gave up a few years back) or "falling" for the excitement of buying something you know you can't afford. Yes, there is a certain pleasure - a release - in surrendering to your "feelings" (I'll apologize now for my overuse of quotation marks. I can see it's going to be impossible to write about this subject without using them... profusely). But at the end of that fall is a hard floor (if you're lucky). Sometimes it doesn't end there. Sometimes you fall into a dark and sticky abyss coated in black tar, with very little hope of ever crawling out, and certainly no hope of crawling out clean.

I remember being sixteen, riding in a car with a friend, when we stopped at a crosswalk. A couple holding hands crossed the street, and I remember looking at them, baffled, like an alien visiting earth for the first time and wondering what this "hand-holding ritual" was all about (or "aboot" if you're a fellow Canadian). Immediately, it came to me: this was a symbol of possession. A sign to the rest of the world that this being belonged to that being (hmm... sounds eerily like slavery). Of course, very few people agreed with me. It seemed pretty much everyone I came into contact with had fallen for the idea of love presented in poetry, literature and, most notoriously, the silver screen (damn you, Hollywood!) Hell, even advertisements these days are trying to sell us distorted ideas of "love". So, being outnumbered (and being sixteen), I gave up my unpopular notions and slowly slid into a comfortable easy chair of complacency. After all, when society is serving up such a delicious-looking meal, why should I go out hunting and gathering my own fare?

Years later, however, after several incidents of "falling in love", I came to realize that sixteen-year-old me had been on to something. Now, I'm not saying that all hand-holders are on a leash. It's entirely possible to hold someone's hand without adding unnecessary meaning to the whole affair so long as you're holding their hand for the simple sake of holding their hand and nothing more. But beware: you may be tethering someone without even knowing it. It's a sneaky business, not unlike money laundering. Except in this case you're both the victim and the perpetrator. Who, for example, doesn't want the person they love to love them back? Seems quite natural, doesn't it? But if we really, truly loved, wouldn't it be that we would let that person be exactly as they are, with no desire for reciprocation and no desire to change them, not even the shit that's really fucking annoying, the shit that makes you roll your eyes so far back into your head that you give yourself a headache? Real love asks nothing in return.

When my last "relationship" ended (or should I say when I ended my last relationship), it hurt, yes. Why? Because I'm human. But upon contemplation, it was clear that it wasn't the end of a relationship I was mourning, but rather the death of an idea, or dare I say delusion.

I went back through time and revisited those initial moments of "falling in love" and how I had really believed them, which was actually quite funny because never before had I believed them with such blind faith. It's not that I didn't love this person. I really believe that I did. However, despite my best efforts, over the course of a year, something had happened. Strings! I had tied invisible strings! And in the end I would wind up in a tangled mess from which only a vat of acid could free me. You might think this a bit dramatic. Surely cutting the strings would be a saner option. Well, I tried that. I tried that for months. But, you see, once the strings have been knotted and entangled, it's near impossible to untangle them, and so the only "solution" becomes to hack the shit out of those strings with a machete, usually losing a few limbs in the process (or to burn them with the aforementioned acid) - quite plainly, to walk away.

The funny thing was that a few weeks after the "break-up" a friend commented how they'd never seen me so happy! And it wasn't because I had gotten out of a bad relationship - not at all. It was because in my bereavement I had found the "secret" of love, and that is this: it doesn't matter who you love, but simply that you love. Simple words, yes, but the seed had taken years to sprout. I found I could have that thrilling "in love" feeling simply by having love in my heart. You know the thing that happens when you "fall in love" - where it seems like a dam you didn't even know was there is suddenly breached and you find yourself riding on the rogue wave of a magical sterling ocean? Perhaps you find my description a little phantasmagorical. But is it really? 

Notice how when you're "in love" you're generally a nicer person, and not just to the person you love, to everybody? Life in general seems easier, smoother somehow, doesn't it? Suddenly the clerk at the grocery store smiles at you, the bus driver waits for you, and the impending thunderstorm doesn't start until after you get home from work. All those love songs you used to hate (and for good reason) suddenly make perfect sense. Any hatred that was in your heart for any being (or government institution) dissipates without further ado. It's not like the world out there magically changes. It's not like someone's notified the gods that you're in love and that hereinafter all things shall work out in your favor because you're now a proud club card holder. No, it's simply a state of mind. A wonderful state of mind. A state of mind that is at your fingertips - believe it or not - at all times.

It occurred to me that the reason I had been "in love" had nothing to do with that person. At first I considered it could have been other circumstances in my life at the time that caused this spree of glee. But in the end, the truth emerged that it wasn't that person or those circumstances. It was simply my willingness to open up my heart. Now we're getting a little hippie-dippy (at least for my tastes), but there's really no other way of saying this without candy-coated words, so please bare with me fellow stoics. Or wait, I can put it another way. Or rather, I'll let the Buddha put it another way: "By oneself is one defiled. By oneself is one purified." In other words, you're exclusively responsible for your happiness or your misery, as the case may be.

This insight was both a crushing blow and a wave of relief. It revolutionized my whole idea of love and "relationships". You see, it meant I no longer needed another person in order to "fall in love". It meant I could have that gooey feeling all the fucking time! As long as I cultivated love and practiced loving all beings everywhere. Now, I don't mean that I do love all beings everywhere, but it's a work in progress. And the more I get, the more I want. The reason "falling in love" feels so fucking amazing is not because the person loves you back (if in fact they do at all), or because the person you love is so damned wonderful (because as we all know that person's "wonderfulness" eventually expires, exploding into infinite fragments of irritation that lodge themselves like shrapnel in the shin). No, it's because you're usual self-centered, self-involved, self-absorbed self is all at once uncoiled. You don't need to wait until you've met a "worthy" recipient of your love before you open the arsenal of your heart and let the love flow freely. You can decide to unlock this arsenal at any time. Really. And where that love is directed is not important, or at best secondary.

If you don't believe me, I dare you to try it. Seriously. Prove me wrong. Practice loving - your mother, your pesky kids, the cat that just pissed on you, the boss that just reprimanded you for something you didn't do, the homeless man whose filling the tram with his eau-de-hobo smell (God bless him). I have a friend who says "It's hard to love the unlovable." Ain't that the truth. But if you practice it consistently, your entire life will change. I promise. Here's some simple tools to get you started: the Buddhist practice of loving-kindness meditation and the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi (I think you're all big enough to Google that shit yourselves). On a side note, I'm not a Buddhist, or a Catholic. Nor am I a "Buddhist in denial" as my friend Michelle claims. But back to the case at hand...

The more I cultivate love, the more love I have in my heart. The more love I have in my heart, the more I love everyone around me. The more I love everyone around me, the more love I cultivate. It's like a damned perpetual motion machine! And this is great news. Please don't misinterpret this as some kind of doe-eyed, pie-in-the-sky, turning-a-blind-eye (damn, I'm a poet!) mind trick. It's not about ignoring the "bad" things; it's about focusing on the "good" things - about life, people, situations, you name it. Love does not come for free. It's back-breaking work opening up those pearly gates (or, for some of you, iron bars) of your heart. Unless of course you "fall in love", in which case the opening is temporary and precarious, at best. The bonus of loving all beings is that when you do meet someone whose company you thoroughly enjoy, you can really enjoy it, completely free of any bullshit. Now that's love.

Indeed, the cheese stands alone. But that doesn't mean the cheese is alone. Or loveless. Capiche? After all, who doesn't love cheese?