On Enthusiasm

I'm calling your bluff.

There is a card game that has achieved underground appeal among college students. The game, produced by Steve Jackson, is called "Chez Geek," and follows the lives of college-age Slackers as they attempt to slack off enough to be the most relaxed (and therefore best) members of their household (the game is quite hilarious and innovative; I recommend it for an evening's entertainment). One of the ways to accumulate slack is to invite people over to your ficticious house, and one of the best people to invite is named Mr. Enthusiastic. In the game, Mr. Enthusiastic travels to whatever place is the most fun, with the most people, where the most is going on. His quote of flavor text at the bottom of the card reads "That's AWESOME!"

I am this man.

It is a point of personal pride that in any given situation, for any given possible activity, I am the guy who will do it. I am the guy who will chug El Scorcho salsa on a bet. When sea kayaking in Able Tasman National Park, I was the only one out of our entire tour group with the balls to actually climb Split Apple Rock. I am the only person I know of to complete his 21 shots on his 21st birthday. The list goes on and on. Win, lose, or draw, I am the guy who will step up to the plate and do it.

I say this only to set the stage for my disbelief at the general lack of enthusiasm that I see around me all the time. It happens in varying degrees in widely varying situations, but happen it does. People stay home instead of going to a party. They stay seated instead of dancing. They stay silent instead of singing kareoke. They dream about great things and never even attempt to achieve it.

The other day a friend and I were flipping through a new issue of Maxim Magazine (believe it or not, I actually do read those for the articles; the pretty women are just a perk). In this issue, we came upon an interesting list: The Top 10 Wildest Parties of 2006. Perhaps you saw it yourself. Included on this list were things like Carnival in Trinidad, Oktoberfest in Germany, Midsummer's Eve in Norway and Sweden, and the like. These are insane parties, parties to put all other parties to shame, such magnificent havens of booze, sex, music, and debauchery that legends are made and lives are forever changed. The sort of place that any good college student would kill to go.

Upon reading this article, my friend jokingly said that he was going to publicly announce online that it was his goal to attend all of these parties. I then looked him in the eye and asked him, seriously, if he wanted to. That was 48 hours ago, and his answer is still inconclusive, leaning towards the negative.

I fully intend to do this.

There is no good reason that you should not enjoy all that you have in front of you. These world-class parties are not a futile dream of fun. They are a very real possibility. It can be done. There are a thousand things like this for every person, big and small. The only thing that is required to realize them is the willingness to stand up and actually take the plunge.

This is not a call to carpe diem. It is far too mundane and oft overlooked for that. It is merely a reminder that life can be a lot more fun if you simply take it upon yourself to enjoy it. I would bet that virtually everyone reading this would like to attend those amazing parties. I would even wager that if asked lightly in conversation you would talk about how great it would be and how much you'd love to attend and maybe even start to make up whimsical plans to go.

You're bluffing.

How many of you, whipping these plans and dreams out of thin air, would actually end up going? Few or none. But why not!? It's a fully viable thing to do, and might actually prove to be a sizeable fraction of the fun you would imagine.

There seems to be this tacit understanding among people that the very act of doing things is a bad idea. Why not make a daring commando raid into an ostensibly secure building and poke around a little while? It's fun! That's basically my last recourse of argument here: my version is just more fun.

You know what, forget grand parties. Let's start small. The next time someone asks you to play frisbee, say yes. Or play a card game. Or make a movie. Or dance. Or play fruit baseball. Or eat something for money. Anything. Just do it.

Because it sure as hell beats just sitting there.

On Communication

How do you know what to say?

One of the virtues that I prize most about myself is open communication. It is, more often than not, the characteristic that most sets me apart from the rest of humanity, for good or ill. It helps me out in the various predicaments that my life meanders into and it gets me into trouble with frightening regularity. But beyond the results, beyond the madness, the method is always the same.

The simple formula goes as thus: If you are thinking something, say it. Simple. If you are asked a question, answer it openly and truthfully. Openly. There are a few sentiments, of course, embodied through language that fly directly in the face of this ideal. Among the most flagrant are "Never mind," "Don't worry about it," and "I wasn't thinking about anything."

I have a hard time understanding how people operate when they allow themselves and others the usage of these, the most blatant tools of self-censorship. How do you know when to say something and when to not? Who is worthy of knowing what about you in what circumstances? Call me a simpleton if you wish, or perhaps just idealistic, but it seems much easier to just operate under one standard: say it.

It does no one any good to hide the truth from those around them. It is dishonorable at best and destructive at worst. Yes, it is true that there are certain circumstances under which keeping certain facts to oneself is the pragmatic decision. There are things about you that some people just do not want to know. Bear in mind that I am not talking about lying here. This is not outright deception. It comes more along the lines of pleading the 5th Amendment in court, keeping silent for fear of self-incrimination. Sometimes, by all evidence, this is the path to take, and it seems that there is little fault in it.

Wrong. Wrong.

This is not the resolve of honorable men and women. This is skulking in the shadows, whispering despair, pocketing a pair of loaded dice. This is not just or upstanding.

If there is something wrong, let it be known just as you would the right. If there is something unseen, uncover it. This is the true measure of your righteousness of deed and thought; to expose that which is pertinent, be it good or ill, and then face what you must even in its wake. Be open.

So many times I have been in a situation where a friend dismissed a thought with the "never mind" approach, only to insist upon being pressed that the thought was 'not important.' But how is one to know? What is important? When one gets right down to it, it was not 'important' that I be hanging out with that person in the first place. But it was enjoyable to do so. I daresay the interaction is enriching, but it remains so only so long as the interaction is free and unhindered. Speak your mind. Follow the conversation's natural track and see what comes of it. So what if the result is 'unimportant?' That is what comes naturally, and an unimportant or ugly result, arrived at without artifice, is far more valuable to me than a glorious end surreptitiously obtained.

Between conversing persons, the important thoughts are those that are arrived at through the conversation. That is the point of the whole thing. Attempting to control communication from one perspective through withheld information defeats any attempt at synthesis and makes interaction on any meaningful scale impossible. Let trivia be heard and damaging discourse voiced along with the seemingly important and the positive. It is through all of ourselves that we may milk the best out of our lives, not through the sunny sides only. You can't be afraid to share of yourself what is dark and spooky.

You never know. That could just be what they want to see.

On the Friend Zone

That's right, I said it. Settle down.

This may not be the most popular or all-encompassing topics that I've ever dealt with in my short and unsung career as a philosopher, but it is an important one nonetheless, and I feel obliged to deal with it.

The problem with talking about the Friend Zone to a large group of people is that it conjures up in many folk a quasi-religious zeal in favor of its own protection; I might as well challenge the immaculate conception over the Vatican loudspeakers as challenge the Friend Zone in front of modern college-age human beings. It is a part of many people that lies outside of any rational consideration and will not be brought down by any sensible argument.

That being said, let's get to the business of exercising futility.

For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, as any under-rock dweller would be wont to do at this point, let's just go ahead and figure out what exactly the Friend Zone is. The Friend Zone is a tiny part of a person's interpersonal psyche in which they place their conceptions of certain people, after which those in the Zone are stripped of all romantic capability. Or, in short, the Friend Zone is how a close friend of yours (usually of the opposite sex) looks at you after they have determined that they could never, ever date you. Most of the time you can tell when you have entered someone's Friend Zone by the utterance of a few key phrases. These include:

"You're like a brother to me."
"I think friendships are so much better than relationships. Don't you?"
"I could never do anything that could ruin our friendship."

My guess is that the overwhelming majority of those reading this blog have encountered one or more of the above on at least a couple of occasions. If you have, feel free to take a minute to gouge at your own flesh in remembered frustration. I can wait.

Once again, it is very important for me now to establish for good and all the gender differential at work here. In keeping with the somewhat more popular perceptions of the Friend Zone, I have found that the overwhelming majority of adherents to the concept are girls. I won't attempt to tackle the complex psychological issues at work in that fact, but suffice it to say that I have found the Friend Zone to be a tool largely wielded by females, and I will treat it as such. If that case does not work for you, feel free to switch the gender approach to the argument; you'll find that it works exactly the same.

It is a great curiousity to me that many girls, the same ones who are avid supporters of the Friend Zone, often complain about guys. There is no general type of complaint that comes to mind in particular, rather the whole field of them that strikes me, and they are many-varied. All guys are assholes. There are no good guys. Why are all boys cheaters? All boys care about is sex. This boyfriend/ex-boyfriend doesn't really care about my feelings. He forgot my birthday. He forgot our anniversary. He hooked up with my roommate/sister/mom/pet cat... There are tons of them, and I only just hit the very basics.

On the surface, these seem like fully legitimate complaints. I know that if I were a girl and no matter how I tried I couldn't find a half-way decent man, I would need to vent about it, too. The problem is that at the same time these girls would like to complain about all their guy troubles, they are continuously shooting themselves in the foot. For, as it turns out (and this is the best part), the people they are often complaining to are guys. Guys who are their friends. Guys they have locked away in the Friend Zone.

To this I pose a question to all you lovely ladies. And bear in mind that I mean this as respectfully as I possibly can.

Are you out of your fucking minds!?

Let me explain what I mean from the beginning. Suppose there is a girl who is single and looking, and two guys, who we will call Good Guy and Bad Guy. Good Guy is funny, attentive, respectful, smart, and interesting. Bad Guy is a drug addict, a known cheater, and eats kittens just for spite. Girl meets Good Guy and instantly senses the goodness within him. So they start to hang out. They have a great time and enrich each others' lives immensely every time they are together. Until one day, Good Guy tells Girl that he is awed and joyful at how well they work together, and he suggests that they take things to the next level. Good Girl, however, thinks that he could be right, but she also recognizes that relationships are not as stable as friendships simply by virtue of how deep they are. She knows that if they do become more, there is a chance that in the future it could all come crashing down. So she tells him, "I'm sorry, but I don't want to do anything that could ruin our friendship." Welcome to the Friend Zone, Good Guy.

Meanwhile, Girl has met Bad Guy. They don't see each other all that much, and when they are together Girl is ansy, uncomfortable. She doesn't quite get it, either. After all, Bad Guy is really hot and quite charming, but even so she doesn't feel quite right with him. When Bad Guy asks her out, however, she does her best to stow away her misgivings and give it a shot. Because, hell, it's not like there is anything really on the line. Despite her flippant attitude, though, Girl ends up dating Bad Guy for several months. Theirs is a rocky relationship, but at least they have each other, and whenever Bad Guy blows her off or takes advantage of her, Girl does have Good Guy to go to for emotional support. When the day finally comes that Bad Guy dumps her, Girl is the only one who is surprised, and she is pretty much emotionally destroyed by it. But, thank God, she can still run to Good Guy and cry on his shoulder. After all, she knows that her good friend will always be there for her.

Sound familiar?

When you look at it like this, the absurdity of the Friend Zone snaps into focus. Virtually all of a girl's friends are good guys, just the sort of guys that she would love to be with, who already care about and love her for who she is. THAT'S WHY THEY ARE HER FRIENDS. Girls, you have a perfectly functional source of good guys to date. It is called your friends.

This is why I am always astounded whenever a girl uses the rationale "He and I could never date, he's my friend!" to justify not being with a guy. It's lunacy. As it turns out, your friends are the first place you should go to look for a significant other, not the last.

Tell me that this makes at least a little sense to you.

I can understand the underlying rationale behind the Friend Zone. It comes from fear. Relationships are the gamble, and a Friend is not a gambling man. To hell with that. Yes, if you date someone who you are already friends with, you run the risk of losing that person. There's nothing wrong with that. And really, what's the alternative? Dating someone you don't care about? Bad call. Everything worth anything in this world is a risk, and you can never win anything if you don't put up anything to lose.

The idea of the Friend Zone is rooted in the most virile of pessimism; you see everything that you might lose but not what you stand to gain. But the beauty of the thing is that it doesn't have to be that way. In the same sense that a friendship-turned-relationship might crash and burn, it might soar like nothing else you've ever known. It might be incredible. Because, honestly, if a friendship with a guy is that great, think about how utterly amazing it could be if that friendship grew into more. Think about that. Keep it in mind the next time you think about how you feel towards a certain good guy friend. Keep it in mind when he pours his heart out to you. Imagine what wonder could come of it. And before you tell him that you're just friends and only ever friends, stop for a minute and think about what you're saying. You never know.

It might just be worth the risk.

On Inferiority

Is it truly possible to turn weakness into strength?

I have a massive inferiority complex. I have understood this for some time. For those of you who don't know, an inferiority complex is a general feeling that oneself is inferior to others in some way, resulting in either a tendency to overcompensate through achievement or surrender in antisocial behaviors. As you might guess, this could be a horrible affliction. The idea of going through life feeling inadequate in comparison to those around you is not a promising one by most standards; I would go out on a limb and say that the fair majority of people would like a healthy, stable sense of their own capabilities and confidence in their worthiness to fill a niche in society.

This is a stability that I can never seem to achieve.

No matter what situation I am in, I see only the best in those around me. This does not necessarily mandate that I hold myself in a negative light, only that I am less positive than the best around me. For instance, if I am superior in every way to a given friend of mine, simply a better human being, except for physical strength, I will look at him and immediately see that strength. This would be an acceptable arrangement were he the only person I knew, for in the final balance of things he would be less of a man than I despite his brute superiority. However, I know more than one person. Many, many more.

For every human virtue or skill, there is someone I know who is better than me. Stronger. Faster. More eloquent. More funny. More musical. More charming. More coordinated. A better speaker. A better actor. A better writer. A better filmmaker. A better guitarist. Though I would say that none of them are better men, that does not matter. I must always compare myself to them in terms of their greatest virtue, and thus I always lose.

This is horrid. So let's take a look again.

The key to living with this sense of selective inferiority is the choice inherent in the complex. It's right there, at the end of the definition: "...is thought to drive afflicted individuals to overcompensate, resulting either in spectacular achievement or extreme antisocial behaviour."

Spectacular achievement or antisocial behavior. The choice.

Achieve or retreat. Fight or surrender. Evolve or stagnate.

The choice.

My solution to this very real series of problems is the same as my approach to most problems: face it head on. It really is a simple thing: if the problem is that someone is better than me at something, then the solution is obviously to become better than them at it. Simple.

Under this rationale I have done many things. I have learned to play the guitar. I have learned to juggle. I have studied history and psychology and any number of other subjects for no objectively apparent reason. I have learned poi. I have learned to play the drums. I run daily. I lift weights. I travel. I seek out the bizarre and the unseen for no reason but to claim uniqueness and originality. I perform in stage shows. I make films. Hell, most of the reason that I wrote my first novel way back in the day was just to prove to my high school that I wasn't the worthless weirdo they thought I was.

It is the proof that matters. The tagline to a very popular independent film starring John Heder says of the title character, "He's out to prove he's got nothing to prove." Such could not be farther from my life. Every day is a constant battle to show those around me that this man is not to be overlooked, not lesser or weaker than they, but is rather a force to be reckoned with. You think you're a good man? I can be better. "Teach me to love?" Cowly asks, "Go teach thyself more wit. I, chief professor am of it. The God of Love, if such a thing there be, may learn to love from me." This is my truth, spoken through the poet's long years: let even a god show me his mettle, and I will beat him at his own game.

Naturally, to hope to beat all at their games is nigh impossible for any son of man. Daily failure is nearly inevitable, and daily fail I do. But I will be damned if I don't try. If perfection cannot be reached, than the pursuit of it will serve to assuage the illness.

Can weakness truly be turned into strength? I say that it can. I say that skill can be built from where there was none and can rock the heavens. More than that, I say that an affliction, a compulsion grown from the seeds of inferiority and insecurity can be turned on itself and breed greatness. All that it requires is the wherewithal to do so.

I am not a perfect man, nor reasonably close, and my grounds to preach it are far from sure. But I do not believe I stand alone when I say that I live in the hope that the weaknesses which bind us today may be the very source of tomorrow's thunder. I bid you stand. Stand alongside your betters and learn from them. There is no power that they have that cannot be ours if we but ready our pens, open our eyes, square our shoulders, and prepare to learn. Every day.

School is in session.

On License

What do you not allow yourself to do?

I have recently become twenty-one (in the words of the great Larry Miller, one does not "turn" twenty-one in our society... they "become" twenty-one). Among other things, this means that I can now legally imbibe alcohol, something which I have been doing for some time now without legal permission, but which I now have an increased amount of freedom in. As such, I feel that now is a good time to air a concern which has been growing with me for some time. It has to do with license. I do not mean anything legal in this use of the word. Rather, I am retreating back to one of its more basic, yet often overlooked definitions.

License: noun: Latitude of action, especially in behavior or speech.

The specific spectrum of contexts and behaviors that I now wish to address are not regulated by the government so much as they are regulated by each person for themselves. As most of my concerns seem to run, this has particular weight for girls, but certain males would do well to heed the issue as well. The specific issue of license is at the junction of passion and alcohol.

Those of you who have known me for a long time will remember the days in the not so distant past when I did not drink at all. When questioned about my abstinance from spirits, I would cite the fact that I did not need them to have a good time. It seemed to me that people drink to do things like loosen up and lower their inhibitions. Well, I naturally have very few inhibitions and more often than not I am so laidback in attitude that it sometimes gets me in trouble. Therefore, I had (quite correctly) judged that alcohol was unnecessary for me to interact with people in the same sort of party atmosphere that accompanies heavy drinking for most people. I maintain that spirit to this day, drinking more from the cultural significance of the actual drinking than for any effect that it has on my attitude or behavior.

Because of the comparitively late start of my drinking career and my naturally gregarious state, I quickly saw the need for a code of behavior to regulate my drinking for the benefit of all. The rules that I came up with for myself are few and universally simple, but I have adhered to them to this day, which is not small point of pride.

1) I will never do anything in a drunken state that I would not have done in the same situation were I sober.
2) I will never drink in such a way that I unduly endanger myself or others (e.g. driving under the influence).
3) I will never drink so much or in such a way that I lose my memory of what occured while I was drunk.

The first rule may surprise some people given my admittedly bawdy behavior while drunk. To them I would say, "Remember how bawdy I am sober." There is truly no difference.

I arrived at these rules for the simple fact that, through them, I remain safe and regret-free while still enjoying all of the pleasures of an inebriated state. I never have to worry about what I would do while drunk, because I have sworn to myself that I would retain enough self-control to act exactly as I would sans liquor. Most importantly, the person that one sees in me with alcohol in my system is the exact same person that I am at any other time, if perhaps a bit moreso.

I seem to be almost completely alone in this.

A few months ago, a friend of mine committed an act that I could only classify as a betrayal. It came as quite a shock to me, since never before had a friend performed treachery against me. Left reeling in the wake of such a thing, I did the only thing that I knew to do: I talked to him about it. His only defense of his actions, which he fell back on time and again, was that at the time, he was drunk. Upon sobering up the next day and realizing it, he had attempted to make amends as best he could (despite the fact that much of the damage was irreperable). I accepted this out of the spirit of goodwill and we continue to be friends. With one small change: when that friend is drunk, he ceases to be my friend and becomes a stranger. This is not malicious, but simple fact. If he, or anyone else, for that matter, wishes to excuse an action because of drunkenness, they are effectively saying that, while drunk, they are not themselves. They are instead completely out of their head, doing things that the real them would never do. So, if they ceased to be themselves when drinking, every aspect of themselves must follow suit, including their familiarity with me. They wish to be excused from a standpoint of a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde transformation, which is satsifactory so long as they realize that one cannot execute the lechery of Hyde while maintaining the civility of Jekyll. At any given moment, it must be completely one or the other.

With increasing regularity and increasing frustration, I hear people constantly cite a state of inebriation or lack thereof as a reason for behaving a certain way. This is nothing short of confusing at best and madness at worst.

The other day I was talking with a friend of mine about her exploits of the past week. She was describing how she had gone to a party but refrained from drinking (if memory serves, she was the designated driver for her group). At the party she met a young man who she found very attractive and they hit it off, talking for some time and enjoying each others' company. Both were single, young, mutually attracted, and in the perfect situation for at least mild sexual contact. Naturally, my next question was whether or not they hooked up (or perhaps I used the more specific term "made out"). In response, she looked at me like an idiot and replied, "Oh, no. I wasn't drunk."

Let's recap here.

Hot girl, hot guy, party, want each other, not hooking up. Why? Because she was not drunk. She would not kiss a man she was attracted to because she was not drunk. This is right below ethnic clensing for horrors that really get my blood pumping. So much so that I'm going to say it again, just so everyone can really get a grip on what I'm mad about.

People are so uncomfortable with themselves that they cannot even respond sexually to people they genuinely want just because they have not been drinking.

I'm really losing my hope for humanity right about now.

What is so horrible about acting on feelings for someone that an induced state of consciousness is needed to do it? This is not someone else's life. This is not someone else's body. This is not some stupid drunk shit that doesn't count or doesn't matter because it's not really you making the decision. This is not a booze-worshipping theocracy in which all decisions must be made under the influence on pain of execution as a heretic. This is your life. This is someone you want, this is something you want to do. What is so special about a chemical in your bloodstream that makes you refuse to let yourself have fun without it?

If you're willing to go somewhere and make out with someone drunk, then why not sober? Why are you fine with sweaty closet time just so long as you can't walk a straight line? Why would you be so enthused to rock the headboard all night long, but as soon as the booze works its way out of your system, think it was a mistake? This is your mind, your heart, not someone else's. All this shows is a bizarre lack of self-trust and self-control. If you do not have those things to begin with, maybe you shouldn't be drinking in the first place.

There are two angles to consider here. One is doing things you don't want to while drunk. The other is not doing things you do want to while sober. There has to be an equilibrium here. There has to be enough self-control to go for the things you want and shy from the things you don't, in any state of consciousness. You made the decision to drink, and you made the decision not to. That was decisive, and you made the choice either way of your own free will. Can't that sort of clarity be maintained given any circumstances?

If it can't, then God help us all.

If it can, then get ready to party.

On Romanticism

Are you, or are you not, a hopeless romantic?

My social adventures are such that I tend to meet and talk with a lot of different people from many different subcultures of young America (and, to a lesser extent, other age groups and nationalities). This provides me with joyfully unfettered opportunity to indulge in my fascination with people's conception of their own identities. In the course of all kinds of conversations, self-proclaimed labels leak out from around the seams of our interests and activities in frank declaration of what may or may not be true. Social status, religion, philosophical base, world view, entertainment preference, sexuality, racial socialization, sub-gender, and so many more that it will cause your brain to dislodge from you skull come out in an unbounded symphony of self-perception.

As diverse as these labels may be, there is one that has come to puzzle me, namely the label of Hopeless Romantic. More than any other abstract moniker, this emotional life-state is claimed by anyone and everyone who has the werewithal to realize that such things exist. Virtually everyone seems to call themselves a Hopeless Romantic. Even (and I might be persuaded to argue "mostly") those who have no right to call themselves that.

So you think you're a hopeless romantic? Think again.

I was reading somebody's blog the other day, as I often do with certain blogs. Now, this girl thinks, behaves, and talks in ways that would cause many people to rightly label her a "bitch" (don't ask me why I might choose to associate with her given this fact, just accept that the association is there). Her view of men and how she interacts with them is somewhat non-traditional, even to the point of being horrifying. Her cynicism is rampant, her sexual ethics paltry, and her coquette status will eventually, I have little doubt, lead to ruin. There will be anger, and men will die.

So, naturally, she refers to herself as a hopeless romantic.

This is not an isolated case. So many times over the last months and years have I heard a girl (and in lesser numbers, a guy) refer to herself by this term only to have a Piven-esque "What the fuck" response bubble up inside me like so much falsely idealistic bile. Of all these girls I have heard call themselves hopeless romantics, not one has ever measured up.

What does being a hopeless romantic mean? I ask this only because it seems like many people, in describing themselves as such, have either never thought about the meaning or have exercised heights of poor social concept in doing so the likes of which are normally only seen in the declaration of holy wars. Take a minute and really think about what it means.

Being a hopeless romantic means falling in love hard and fast and not recovering in accordance with rational procedure. It means never citing potential or past pain as a reason for not acting on that love. It means surrendering to your feelings for another person, be it boundless passion or burning envy. It means acting on those feelings. It especially means accepting grand gestures of love when they are offered, and accepting them in that same spirit. It means recognizing fear as just a sign of something that is meaningful enough to you to pursue by any means necessary, and it means disregarding that fear as soon as it comes time to pick up the phone, walk across the room, or lean in for a kiss. It means taking joy in candlelit surprises, grand declarations, spontaneous trips, unexpected gifts, and new loves. It means returning all those things in kind and with a song in your heart. It means forgiveness instead of anger and action in the face of despair. It means stopping for a moment before you say "no," and really thinking about what it would be like to say "yes."

Does this sound good to you? Think about it before you answer.

Here's a test (forgive me my bias, this is designed for the women in the audience). Most of us by now have seen "Hitch," starring the ever glorious Will Smith and the incomprably beautiful Eva Mendes. It is as fine a romance on the screen as I have ever seen and is quite popular right now, so we will use it as an example. Think, if you will, about the last few minutes of that movie. Hitch goes to his estranged lady's apartment and levels with her, essentially telling her in very impassioned terms that despite all of the romantic horror he has experienced, he is completely at her mercy so deep are his feelings for her. He is so dedicated to making her understand that he leaps onto her moving car just so he can explain, braving severe injury in the process. Oh, yes, and he does most of it in the presence of another man who he assumes is her new beau. The final line he says in the grand speech is "There is only one person who makes me feel like I can fly. And that's you." When we watch the movie, we "awwww" appreciably and think what a great guy he is (as does his lady love, predictably).

Test Question: If a guy actually said this exact same thing to you, how would you react?

I would give heavy odds that, when the chips were down, virtually every one of you, your friends, and everyone like you would think he was the biggest freak this side of the Mississippi and refuse to have anything to do with him.

People in our culture simply can't deal with romance. They don't want it. We are brought up in the belief that our amorous interactions either have to be meaningless or coldly calculated. The rationale here seems to be that anything we really and truly care about and might heavily affect our lives should not be decided upon while the amor in question stands underneathe our window serenading us after filling our room with flowers (sidebar: Don't think that guys wouldn't go for that, ladies. Serenading and flowers may seems immasculating to some, but they also show you care).

In fact, most of us are so removed from all things romantic that they can't even recognize what is romantic and what is not, and when we do recognize it we react with revulsion. I believe that there was an episode of the much-lauded "Sex and the City" regarding the subject. The conclusion of which, I am sorry to say, supports the idea that American women can not/should not even attempt romance, that they are "romance intolerant." I hear this declaration and witness women agree with it and then see those same women turn around and declare themselves hopeless romantics.

I myself have fallen prey to this in the past, and I still wrestle with the question of whether or not I myself am I hopeless romantic. It is an ideal that I aspire towards, but the necessities of daily life lead to devices to prevent it (not to mention the horrid lessons of romantic actions failed), which I constantly battle against. I can only suggest that others do the same. If you are one of those rare and fortunate individuals who truly eats, sleeps, and breathes romanticism, then I salute you. If you are one of those who, like myself, truly wishes to achieve that highest light, please just think about it enough to realize what you truly are. Only then, once you know what you're in for, can you make headway into all those things that it means to be a hopeless romantic. Only then can we begin, ever so hopefully, to take that leap.

And hope to God we can fly.

On Loss

You are going to lose everything you love.

I’m not just being morbid. It is inescapable fact that much of the time we simply overlook. Well, take a minute just to think about it right now. All of your loved ones will die or leave, all of your possessions will be lost or crumble to dust. It is not a question of ‘if,’ but rather of ‘how’ and ‘when.’ Eventually everything will be gone.

Contrary to first impressions, this is not all that depressing a concept.

When you think about this general principle of loss, there are a couple of different tacks that you could take in response. First is to live with a sort of nihilistic malaise, wholly depressed by the idea that since working for anything is in the big picture a guaranteed failure, there is no point to doing anything at all. In surrender to such a state one drifts along through life, dynamism extracted from their soul through the burden of a lost cause.

The second option is to fight on the field that can be carried. That is to say, look at the short picture. While it is true that everything will end in loss, that does not mean that such a loss must construe failure. A failure is simply an inability to achieve a set of predetermined goals. Thus, you can only fail if you hope in the first place to hold on to everything. That, however, is not the only thing that you can shoot for.

While I often hesitate to quote pop culture in serious context for fear of losing credibility, I will now do so and hope that you reading this will bear with me. There is a popular TV show in which one of the characters, going through a tough spiritual time, eventually has an epiphany regarding the meaning of his life. The quote, as he explains it (and this may not be a hundred percent accurate as I do not have the script or DVD in front of me) is, “If there’s no greater purpose, no divine plan that we have to work for, than the simplest act of kindness is the greatest thing in the world.”

This sentiment is easily adapted to a sense of loss. If one surrenders the hope of holding on to everything that you would wish to (as only makes sense since any attempt at fulfilling that hope is doomed to defeat), then you are left with a life that is not about holding on to it, but by exploring ‘it’ while you have it. This is a far cry from the depressing, nihilistic view of things. Rather than caring about nothing because your care will in the end amount to nothing, your pursuits cannot help but be flooded by every bit of joy and rapture that you can conjure up. Every moment that you have in any given place, all the people, things, and experiences that are there, everything becomes a single effort to absorb as much of it as you can. You do not retreat from it and cease to care, but rather fill every minute with meaning and profound love and laughter, because at any moment you may lose the opportunity to do so.

I have a very dear friend who I was recently forced to part ways with. I fear that I may never see them again. Not a day goes by that I do not hurt because of it, that longing for an absent friend. I mean that literally: not a day goes by. I would very much like to have the power to reunite us, to set things right, but I cannot. This is a cycle that has and will continue to be repeated throughout my life, and throughout your lives as well, with the last cycle ending on the day I die.

Depressing? Not so. We each have a very finite time with each of the people we care about. We can extend it if we wish, but not forever. Either by design or fate they will be removed from our lives. So what do we do with this time, then? This very finite, all too short amount of time?

Everything that we can.