Eighteen months ago, I wrote a column entitled “The Unnecessary Other Half.” It was a stinging critique of the institution of marriage. “We need to learn to love ourselves first and foremost. Learn to love without contracts,” I ranted.
I now ask permission to apologize. It’s a fitting day
to do so, but this has been on my mind for a while. Being a cynic of love “due to my upbringing” is no excuse — especially on a matter so close to people’s hearts.
“If one takes life as a breeze, then there is no clinging, no attachment — no obsession — one simply remains available, and whatever happens is good,” used to be my mantra. Osho spoke these words. He developed a cult following in India that spread around the world in the ‘80s and ‘90s. When I stayed with my friend Deepti in Mumbai, we meditated to his music before her Hindu prayers each morning.
With all due respect to the dead, I’m going to try and refrain from saying he was crazy. But the poor man was disillusioned on the topic of love. The man never loved, and was single his entire life. Which, of course, is not a problem until you start preaching things such as, “The man and the woman cannot meet eternally — the meeting can only be momentary. That is the misery of love … ”
OK then Mr. Miserable, while your followers wallow in their fleeting moments, I am going to come out and say I was wrong. It seems clear now something that has the power to maintain the grip it does on all human societies, and to conjure words such as misery points to the existence of something rather powerful.
It is much easier to run away from love. After all, we all know from experience the “misery” of love. Seeing couples usually made me want to take a trip to the bathroom. Commitment seemed like a complacent safety net of security and lost dreams.
I traveled. People run away through casual sexual encounters that avoid going beyond physical gratification or shun the idea of relationships completely. Many instead remain in, or search for, the safety of mediocre or unhealthy relationships. These are the relationships in which people just want to be with someone. There is a lack and the other half is filling it.
If you look at the ways we run from the idea of love, they are the same ways we run from ourselves. I guess it’s because it is essentially the same thing. Love is an overflowing — an abundance — and can only be experienced in its giving, not its taking. The beauty of relationship arises when two beings give: Not to gratify loneliness but to share wholeness.
And this is just a prerequisite. Beyond this, love must be practiced. Like learning a language, an instrument or creating a painting — love requires practice. It is constantly growing and changing, requires effort and time, but the experience is all in the journey.
It’s very true, we need to learn to love ourselves first and foremost. But this is just the beginning. It is the beginning of a wonderful, exhilarating, ever evolving journey in which a person who is happy in his or herself is able to experience this alongside another. It makes me a little queasy to say this so publicly, but having someone who supports me no matter what, yet challenges me each day to continue toward being the person I want to be and leading the life I’ve dreamed of makes me feel like the luckiest person alive every day. Dreams are so much more colorful when shared.
Now run away from this mushiness.
I would if I were you. Down a bottle tonight,
as my beloved single friends and I plan on doing. More than ever I’m committed to them too. Love is a way of being — every day — within yourself, friends, families, lovers and the earth.