Who is (Endless) Love
According to a Billboard "50 Top Love Songs" listing, "Endless Love," by Lionel Richie, is number 1 when compared to millions of songs dedicated to the complex emotion. After looking through the list, I don't agree with many, but the top pick certainly is a beautiful choice as it embodies the awe-inspiring harmony of love---the creation of an unbreakable bond your heart enters into with another. For a while, CHICO took a liking to the nickname "Heartless" (from Kingdom Hearts), and it's favorite love song was "Love Hurts," by Nazareth, since it chronicled the pain and suffering associated with the emotion. I've been waiting for Cupid to strike CHICO through the heart with one of his arrows to make that foolish clown finally wake up, but it looks like I'll need to find the light myself...
Michael Berg paves The Way for me: "True love, like the process of transformation itself, requires us to go out of ourselves, to go beyond our inborn need to receive, and to place the needs of others ahead of our own. By turning away from our natural inclination, we move ever closer to the nature of the Creator. We come to an awareness that all true love is the love of God" (148). Much like charity, love must be a selfless act in order to reach "endless" qualities, but how can I be sure that my love is selfless versus selfish? Ernest Becker shares in The Denial of Death that "one becomes bound to the object in dependency. One needs it for self-justification. One can be utterly dependent whether one needs the object as a source of strength, in a masochistic way, or whether one needs it to feel one's own self-expansive strength, by manipulating it sadistically" (165). RuPaul was right ALL ALONG: if you can't love yourself (CHICO included), how in the hell are you going to love somebody else...bound through the heart rather than bound in dependency? She abbrev'ed it; here's my wordier response...
RuPaul says CHICO and Who are both here to stay. Gif from RuPaul's Drag Race, Logo
Loving Oneself: I think Alan Downs, Ph.D. explains my struggle with loving myself best in The Velvet Rage: "Sadly, our culture raises men to be strong and silent. Straight or gay, the pressure is on from the time we are very young to become our culture's John Wayne-syle of man: The more pain I can take, the more of a man I am; showing feelings is for women" (122-123). It should be pretty clear by now that I am a bundle of feelings and not the John Wayne-type. As a result, there was a mismatch between who I felt I should be and who I actually was. MATTHEW became CHICO's best effort to fool those around me, and without another strong voice in the mix, this "strong and silent" image became the norm. I struggle to look in the mirror now because I don't know who I'm looking at after a lifetime of hearing CHICO reprimand me for the ways I didn't measure up. What's my belief statement again? "Love myself and trust my instinct." Ok, so if I am able to silence the negativity from CHICO and accept my authentic self, then I can finally be comfortable loving me but that doesn't sound very selfless, which is a requirement of Berg's true love.
Loving the World: When I think about the times I've said, "I love you," I consider the motivation behind my sharing. Sometimes it represents that unbreakable bond I feel within my heart; other times, it's a cry for attention, an avoidance of loving myself, or a backhanded compliment. Those latter examples don't represent true love, though, like what Richie felt endlessly, so how can I navigate truly loving the world while sustaining loves fragile beauty? "Love your neighbors as yourself." The message is so common across religious dogma, spiritual guides, creative media, and artistic expression, but it's also the loose thread threatening the collapse of the web...if I fail to love myself, I will never have the capacity to love someone else. Once again, Becker strikes bone as he shares what happens when I love beyond my capacity: "In one word, the love object is God...Modern man's dependency on the love partner, then, is a result of the loss of spiritual ideologies, just as is his dependency on his parents or on his psychotherapist" (161-162). I've tried to replace God with different love objects throughout my life, seeking validation as CHICO's MATTHEW. As you can imagine, the web then falls apart as my soul fails to shine through, reducing the joy I feel, and diluting love to mere words or lyrics. Moreover, it severs my relationship with the light as CHICO unleashes its fury at those I love for not being the perfect versions of God I imagined. While I may have fantasized being Elphaba from Wicked: The Musical in the dark, I have most definitely been G(a)linda in the light: heartless, wicked, and downright evil. By recognizing the power CHICO had over my soul, the missing thread revealed itself.
Loving God: "Ego tells us that we are alone in the world---that we can and must do everything ourselves...But remember: Every positive action we perform, every empathetic thought that passes through our minds, every emotion of love and caring in our hearts, brings forth the Light and moves us closer to oneness with the Creator" (Berg 89,88). If you've read Survivor or (Proud) Gay Male, you understand why I've separated myself from God for most of my life, but for those who would like the abridged (a.k.a. the RuPaul) version: I felt rejected on an existential level for who I was. As I began to explore my relationship with the light, I found love for myself, resulting in more love for those around me. If you're part spider, you see how this fits into the web of true love then: our capacity to love God increases our capacity to love ourselves, increasing our capacity to love others, bringing us closer God. Or as Richie called it: endless love.
What's the key to true love, then? Choice. I have to choose to empathize and share (thoughts and actions), and it is with those choices I find the path to true love as I move toward the light. Ok! This is already running long so I will share more on that later. If you're still with me, I love you! :) Thank you for creating this bond with me by following these threads, and I hope you'll answer some of these questions!
How has love threaded the experiences of your life together? Has it gotten you closer to the light or the dark?
How does love transform your life?
What is your favorite love song?
Endlessly yours,
Who (?)