january 13th 2009

i just read this and felt the need to post it...........



The Man Who Didn’t Believe in Love

I want to tell you a
very old story about the man who didn’t believe in love. This was an
ordinary man just like you and me, but what made this man special was
his way of thinking: He thought love doesn’t exist. Of course, he had a
lot of experience trying to find love, and he had observed the people
around him. Much of his life had been spent searching for love, only to
find that love didn’t exist. Wherever this man went, he used to tell
people that love is nothing but an invention of the poets, an invention
of religions just to manipulate the weak mind of humans, to have
control over humans, to make them believe. He said that love is not
real, and that’s why no human could ever find love even though he might
look for it. This man was highly intelligent, and he was very
convincing. He read a lot of books, he went to the best universities,
and he became a respected scholar. He could stand in any public place,
in front of any kind of people, and his logic was very strong. What he
said was that love is just like a drug; it makes you very high, but it
creates a strong need. You can become highly addicted to love , but
what happens when you don’t receive your daily doses of love? Just like
a drug, you need your everyday doses. He used to say that most
relationships between lovers are just like a relationship between a
drug addict and the one who provides the drugs. The one who has the
biggest need is like the drug addict; the one who has a little need is
like the provider. The one who has the little need is the one who
controls the whole relationship. You can see this dynamic so clearly
because usually in every relationship there is one who loves the most
and the other who doesn’t love, who only takes advantage of the one who
gives his or her heart. You can see the way they manipulate each other,
their actions and reactions, and they are just like the provider and
the drug addict. The drug addict, the one who has the biggest need,
lives in constant fear that perhaps he will not be able to get the next
dosage of love, or the drug. The drug addict thinks, “What am I going
to do if she leaves me?” That fear makes the drug addict very
possessive. “That’s mine!” The addict becomes jealous and demanding,
because the fear of not having the next dosage. The provider can
control and manipulate the one who needs the drug by giving more doses,
fewer doses, or no doses at all. The one who has the biggest need
completely surrenders and will do whatever he can to avoid being
abandoned. The man went on explaining to everyone why love doesn’t
exist. “What humans call ‘love’ is nothing but a fear relationship
based on control. Where is the respect? Where is the love they claim to
have? There is no love. Young couples, in front of the representation
of God, in front of their family and friends, make a lot of promises to
each other: to live together forever, to love and respect each other,
to be there for each other, through the good times and the bad times.
They promise to love and honor each other, and make promises and more
promises. But after the marriage – one week later, a month later, a few
months later – you can see that none of these promises are kept. “What
you find is a war of control to see who will manipulate whom. Who will
be the provider, and who will have the addiction? You find that a few
months later, the respect they swear to have for each other is gone.
You can see the resentment, the emotional poison, how they hurt each
other, little by little, and it grows and grows, until they don’t know
when the love stops. They stay together because they are afraid to be
alone, afraid of the opinions and judgments of others, and also afraid
of their own judgments and opinions. But where is the love?” He used to
claim that he saw many old couples that had lived together thirty
years, forty years, fifty years, and they were so proud to have lived
together all those years. But when they talked about their
relationship, what they said was, “We survived the matrimony.” That
means one of them surrendered to the other; at a certain time, she gave
up and decided to endure the suffering. The one with the strongest will
and less need won the war, but where is that flame they call love? They
treat each other like a possession: “She is mine.” “He is mine.” The
man went on and on about all the reasons why he believed love doesn’t
exist, and he told others, “I have done all that already. I will no
longer allow anyone to manipulate my mind and control my life in the
name of love .” His arguments were quite logical, and he convinced many
people by all his words. Love doesn’t exist. Then one day this man was
walking in a park, and there on a bench was a beautiful lady who was
crying. When he saw her crying, he felt curiosity. Sitting beside her,
he asked if he could help her. He asked why she was crying. You can
imagine his surprise when she told him she was crying because love
doesn’t exist. He said, “This is amazing – a woman who believes that
love doesn’t exist!” Of course, he wanted to know more about her. “Why
do you say that love doesn’t exist?” he asked. “Well, it’s a long
story,” she replied. “I married when I was very young, with all the
love, all these illusions, full of hope that I would share my life with
this man. We swore to each other our loyalty, respect, and honor, and
we created a family. But soon everything changed. I was the devoted
wife who took care of the children and home. My husband continued to
develop his career, and his success and image outside of home was more
important to him than our family. He lost respect for me, and I lost
respect for him. We hurt each other, and at a certain point I
discovered that I didn’t love him and he didn’t love me either. “But
the children needed a father, and that was my excuse to stay and to do
whatever I could to support him. Now the children are grown and they
have left. I no longer have any excuse to stay with him. There’s no
respect, there’s no kindness. I know that even if I find someone else,
it’s going to be the same, because love doesn’t exist. There is no
sense to look around for something that doesn’t exist. That is why I am
crying.” Understanding her very well, he embraced her and said, “You
are right; love doesn’t exist. We look for love, we open our heart and
we become vulnerable, just to find selfishness. That hurts us even if
we don’t think we will be hurt. It doesn’t matter how many
relationships we have; the same thing happens again and again. Why even
search for love any longer?” They were so much alike, and they became
the best friends ever. It was a wonderful relationship. They respected
each other, and they never put each other down. With every step they
took together, they were happy. There was no envy or jealousy, there
was no control, there was no possessiveness. The relationship kept
growing and growing. They loved to be together, because when they were
together they had a lot of fun. When they were not together, they
missed each other. One day when the man was out of town, he had the
weirdest idea. He was thinking, “Hmm, maybe what I feel for her is
love. But this is so different from what I have ever felt before. It’s
not what the poets say it is, it’s not what religion says, because I am
not responsible for her. I don’t take anything from her; I don’t have
the need for her to take care of me; I don’t need to blame her for my
difficulties or to take my dramas to her. We have the best time
together; we enjoy each other. I respect the way she thinks, the way
she feels. She doesn’t embarrass me; she doesn’t bother me at all. I
don’t feel jealous when she’s with other people; I don’t feel envy when
she is successful. Perhaps love does exist, but it’s not what everyone
thinks love is.” He could hardly wait to go back home and talk to her,
to let her know about his weird idea. As soon as he started talking,
she said, “I know exactly what you are talking about. I had the same
idea long ago, but I didn’t want to share it with you because I know
you don’t believe in love. Perhaps love does exist, but it isn’t what
we thought it was.” They decided to become lovers and to live together,
and it was amazing that things didn’t change. They still respected each
other, they were still supportive of each other, and the love grew more
and more. Even the simplest things made their hearts sing with love
because they were so happy. The man’s heart was so full with all the
love he felt that one night a great miracle happened. He was looking at
the stars and he found the most beautiful one, and his love was so big
that the star started coming down from the sky and soon that star was
in his hands. Then a second miracle happened, and his soul merged with
that star. He was intensely happy, and he could hardly wait to go to
the woman and put that star in her hands to prove his love to her. As
soon as he put the star in her hands, she felt a moment of doubt. This
love was overwhelming, and in that moment, the star fell from her hands
and broke in a million little pieces. Now there is an old man walking
around the world swearing that love doesn’t exist. And there is a
beautiful old woman at home waiting for a man, shedding a tear for a
paradise that once she had in her hands, but for one moment of doubt,
she let it go. This is the story about the man who didn’t believe in
love. Who made the mistake? Do you want to guess what went wrong? The
mistake was on the man ’s part in thinking he could give the woman his
happiness. The star was his happiness, and his mistake was to put his
happiness in her hands. Happiness never comes from outside of us. He
was happy because of the love coming out of him; she was happy because
of the love coming out of her. But as soon as he made her responsible
for his happiness, she broke the star because she could not be
responsible for his happiness. No matter how much the woman loved him,
she could never make him happy because she could never know what he had
in his mind. She could never know what his expectations were, because
she could not know his dreams. If you take your happiness and put it in
someone’s hands, sooner or later, she is going to break it. If you give
your happiness to someone else, she can always take it away. Then if
happiness can only come from inside of you and is the result of your
love, you are responsible for your happiness. We can never make anyone
responsible for our own happiness, but when we go to the church to get
married, the first thing we do is exchange rings. We put our star in
each other’s hands, expecting that she is going to make you happy, and
you are going to make her happy. It doesn’t matter how much you love
someone, you are never going to be what that person wants you to be.
That is the mistake most of us make right from the beginning. We base
our happiness on our partner, and it doesn’t work that way. We make all
those promises that we cannot keep, and we set ourselves up to fail.



it makes me sort of weary
and it's kind of a little bit scary
don't trust your happiness with me
i'm no fed ex
i can't always deliver....

on a better note,
bk and i are official
who didn't see that one coming?
one/ twelve/ oh nine
i have to clean all day today
so i think i'll write about things i'd rather be doing

" what i do when i'm not cleaning"

i'd rather be
in a boat on the sea

we can watch the waves crashing
dress up crazy, always clashing

sail every ocean, i heard there's seven
dance with some wolves, like that costner dude, kevin

talk with english accents, come come, cheerio
aye mate, shall we see london? aye aye let us go!

laugh and laugh and laugh some more
one taquila two taquila three taquila floor

enough of this silly funny business
out of all my friends, you're the best!