I have a thing about worship.
I tend to do it, a lot.
I have been a very, very lucky girl, and I happen to have had, and still have, many people in my life who simply amaze me. And I have told them this. And some of them have expressed the same back to me. My best friend once said, "I think you should be in love with your friends." I'd have to say, then, that I'm in love with a lot of people, some whom I've never technically met. ("Hi, Steve Nash? Want to follow me on Twitter?")
A guy I used to date ("Electrical Storm") was obviously trying to tell me, through his actions, that he no longer wanted anything to do with me. Canceling dates, not calling, barely responding to texts, etc. I gathered what he was doing, and I sure as hell was not about to let him off easy. This is a guy I once baked a carrot cake for, and walked around the city with it, in a bag, just to deliver it to him. This is a guy that had no response for me when I told him that I had fallen in love with him. This is a guy that I would read to, in bed, late at night, when he was tired.
The last time I saw him, I asked him point-blank. "I can take it," I said, which is true, and was true. "If you don't want to have anything to do with me, just tell me." He looked at me, eyes slightly wide, poker-faced. He couldn't say it. He looked down at his fries and picked one out and said "Are you sure you're not just trying to be hard?" "No, I simply prefer honesty." "Look," he began, chomping on the fry, "I think it's better for you if you spend some time away from me." What about me suggested that I couldn't handle him telling me to fuck off?
And what is it about brutal honesty that repels people? And I mean, being brutally honest about both the bad, and the good? Why does just hovering around zero seem to feel best to most?
When was it decided that embellishing the truth, or flat-out lying to people, was the best way to go about things? That divulging a passion, an obsession, was worse than being quiet? That prolonging a falsehood, and extending pain and discomfort, and unawareness, was better than a swift, blunt kick to the crotch? Or, punch in the boobs? Or that dispassion, and nonchalance, were somehow the ideal? And were infinitely more comforting than the warmest, most nurturing embrace?
I love honesty. I realize that in all situations, it's not wise to deliver it, but fuck, when someone asks, why not just tell them? Especially when your later behavior makes it ABUNDANTLY CLEAR that you should have just put your cards on the table?
There's a book called "The Four Agreements" that says that we agree on elements of what we call "reality" (which in many cases, can be un-truths) in order to be able to communicate, and live harmoniously. But when so many of us are so often doubting each other, smelling something foul about another's behavior, and feeling so out of harmony, then where do we begin to break the cycle? And I'm not just talking about the lies we can sniff out. I'm talking about the beauty we can feel: that the client from work would totally want to hang out with you outside of the office; that the guy you're dating is falling in love with you; that the friend living in the state you left misses you so much, they wish you could come back and move in with them?
Why can't we be a Declaration Nation and SCREAM IT FROM THE HILLTOPS?!
I try my best to come up with explanations for people's behavior, as a mass. I try to give them the spiritual benefit of the doubt (except, of course, in the case of individual guys I used to date. Their diagnoses are still TBD).
So, regarding the "unreality as reality" agreement, I would argue this: that maybe everyone, deep down, really just wants to love everyone. Maybe, since it's easier and nicer to feel good towards someone, or, to have no obvious negative feelings, people - myself included - are more inclined to go with a slightly skewed version of them. Maybe the goal for all of us is love, under ideal circumstances. If it has to be from a distance, then so be it. If it has to be by not having them in your life, so be it. If it has to be by believing that they will one day stop doing drugs, or "stop being gay" (as if that's a choice), or that you were the one who pushed them away, then that's the way the cookie crumbles. Or I guess, in this case, this is how the cookie is kept together.
Love from a distance is more pleasant. Sometimes it burns too brightly. Sometimes it's so intense, like an infra-red light, that you feel uncomfortable with it. Perhaps because love is truth, and truth feels the same way, people feel similarly in the presence of both. I don't know many people who can handle worship, or constant admiration and adulation. Most I know still struggle with it and run in the other direction. There seems to be a pretty standard frequency of expression of affection among people, and the same level seems to lie within people's comfort zones.
I see the sun as a physical symbol of the Light, or love, of God. I believe God set it up that way so we'd understand Him through our senses and our intelligence. It's a constant reminder for us, and science confirms it: the sun never goes away, it merely lights upon other parts of the earth, when it's out of our sight. Even in the darkest night, we know it will rise the next morning. And even under the grayest cloud cover, we know it is there, trying it's best to reach us.
Maybe with the ozone layer slowly depleting, we will adapt and our tolerance to light will build up, generation after generation. Maybe in a hundred years, we'll be able to embrace people we used to fight with without having to say a word, we'll be able to take in strangers off the street like they were our own children, and we'll be able to be totally honest with each other, because we know it won't be the death of either of us. And we'll be eager to honor and love and worship each other, because we all deserve it, and we'll be quick to show it in ways and with a frequency that is now beyond our reach.
To do my part, I'm going to stop wearing sunblock.
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