Wednesday, July 4, 2007

The One True God and the Myth of True Love

It was hard for me to become an atheist. Becoming an atheist was not like becoming a vegetarian or a Republican. When you become an atheist, you give up on comforting myths that you will live on after death, you can pray for help, and there is a controlling and benevolent hand behind the workings of the universe. The reality is that there is no God, and the people who persist in believing in God do so not as a result of the evidence but as a consequence of wish fulfillment.

There is another myth I should put into this category, and that is the myth of true love. I think everyone believes that they will find that special someone who will truly care about them for the rest of their lives. This is why people persist in marrying even though all evidence points to it being a miserable affair most likely to be marred by infidelity and betrayal. Even the marriages that last do so in spite of the hurt and the pain the two have inflicted upon each other.

In the back of my mind, I must admit that I have cherished this fantasy of true love even while being publicly cynical about it. Part of me believed that I would meet the exception to the rules I had already pointed out. I believed that there would be that one special lady who would change my mind about all of this when she came along. But I was deluding myself on this.

I resisted becoming an atheist because I did not want to exist in an empty universe. But I did become an atheist, and it does not trouble my mind in the least these days. I don't need God. I am happy without him. I never needed God.

I am at the threshold of the next great rejection. I am accepting that true love really does not exist. The great marriages we read about are really about friendship than love. Plato was right. Friendship is the greatest love. It is not as intense as eros, but it is long lasting and true.

The great fear that accompanies the myth of true love is the fear of dying alone. But to be honest, if I could choose between being surrounded by my friends when I die or being surrounded by my lovers, I would choose my friends. They have astounded me with their concern for me that I am humbled that they even thought about me. Contrast this with my various girlfriends who swore eternal love only to fuck me over as hard as they could later.

The only way I will ever die alone is to outlive all the friends and family I have. I might be alone at the actual event such as accidentally asphyixating myself while performing an autoerotic act in the closet. But I will die knowing there are people who care about me, and I will be missed.

I got dumped recently, and the only issue that I have had in my mind is whether or not my now ex-girlfriend cared about me. I tried to find out and explore every possible reason why she dumped me including blaming myself. But the truth is inescapable. One day, she woke up and found she didn't have the same passion for me anymore. But how could she get rid of me without appearing to be a shallow immature bitch? Her only concern was not for how I felt but for how she would look. But the bottom line was that I had to disappear. I went from the love of her life to being an incovenience. I was trash that needed to be taken to the curb and forgotten.

It doesn't hurt anymore. The reason is because I have given up on the myth. I use to really be mad at God and bewildered by all the crazy crap in the world. I couldn't understand why God let all this shit happen, and it caused me much grief. Now, I realize there is no God. These things don't bother me anymore. Likewise, it should not be surprising that women can fall in love with you one day and dispose of you the next or go fuck the poolboy while you are at the office. It's just hormones and biology.

I realize that no woman will ever really love me. She will either want to fuck me or to fuck me over. But she is not ever going to have my back. She is never going to feel sympathy or compassion for me. No lover can ever be your friend. Their concern exists only to the extent that you fulfill their sexual and/or material needs.

I've always known these things in the back of my mind much to the same extent that I always suspected that there was no God. But we like to indulge the fantasy a bit. We desperately want to believe that the things we want actually exist. But unhappiness is the product of wanting things that are not real. This is what the addict, the idealist, and the romantic all find in their lives. They chase for things that do not exist. Misery is the only logical outcome of this order.

So, what are we to make of love? It is no different than doing cocaine. When you are under the influence of the drug, it alters your mind such that you believe that you are happy and can only be happy with that drug. But the Greeks pointed out that happiness was not a feeling but a state of being. On the basis of feelings, the happiest people in our society are the winos and crackheads wandering the streets of rundown urban areas.

Happiness comes from finding pleasure in things that are real. Love is not real. Friendship is real, but love is never real. Love is false. It is a lie. It is a narcotic haze that overcomes us and tempts us to abandon our projects and our friends. The romantic in the throes of love is blissfully unaware of the emotional peril he has put himself in. But it will always end the same. Those feelings will end, and he will be left with the consequences.

Looking back over my life, I think of the one night stands I have had, and I have fond memories of every single one of them including the ones that were less than stellar. I can laugh at them. I do not have a single pleasant memory of any romantic relationship I have ever been in. If love was present, I am left with either bitterness or indifference. That should tell us something.

I do not ever want to be in love again. Sex is best on a recreational basis. Love is when the social drinker becomes the alcoholic. When it goes from mood altering to mind altering, you are in the danger zone. Love is a mind altering drug.

The key to remember here is that you are missing nothing if you live a life without true love. That's like saying you are missing something if you go your whole life without seeing a unicorn. You can't miss what does not exist. True love does not exist. And we know this because of the definition of true love. True love is the bonding of two people in an inseperable physical and emotional union that lasts undiminished until they die. I can't think of a single couple outside of fiction that ever pulled off that trick. Of course, it can be pulled off if you die young like Romeo and Juliet. But those two silly kids had shit for brains.

On the other hand, friendship is lasting and amazing. I think of the Bruce Willis/Demi Moore/Ashton Kutcher thing. Ashton and Demi will probably split when Demi's tits point south, but Bruce and Demi will always be friends. I think it is cool that divorced people can be civil and still care for one another. They couldn't get along as lovers, but they can get along as friends.

In the way of a conclusion, I am hosing out the last remnants of the true love myth from my brain. Believing in true love is like believing you can be successful as a cocaine addict. I'm sure someone has pulled off the cocaine thing, but the general advice is still the best. Stay out of love. Don't do it. If you find yourself falling for someone, get away from them. I still feel some religious emotion when I am in a church listening to hymns. But I will always be an atheist on God. Likewise, I am an atheist when it comes to love. I already know it will not pan out, so I will save myself the pain of going down that fruitless path. I just needed to get hurt one last time to show me the foolishness of it. As for her, she is a believer in both God and love and will pay a lifetime of frustration and grief. She was going to make me believe in love. Instead, she fell out of love with me and blamed it on my "negativity." I'm probably also the reason why so many prayers go unanswered. And so it goes. . .

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