Boycotting Valentine’s Day.

A month to go. I am early, I know. I am getting this in, well in advance. I have a major issue with this nonsense marked on our calendar. I am probably not Catholic enough for any saint, and granted: for Ms. Sour-Puss this commercially stoked festive occasion has never meant anything personally (never had it observed in my name), but call me resentful or bitter all you like (and be mistaken), I remain deeply concerned.

I believe there is something ill about the direction we are taking our notions of love into.

Photo credit:Maira Gallardo

Very alluring photo, great colouring, and we can sense the taker of it is looking for imagery to illustrate warm feelings and the significance of sweet little nothings, not to be scorned by any means! However, there is a limit to how much such imagery can hold and lift over long stretches of time (the duration of relationships). It leads me to conclude that we are collectively spilling sugar-sweet love, which is bad for the teeth of our soul

When Love Rots

I wish romance and its delusion would be discouraged in our society.
It inhibits the growth of meaningful relationships. It prevents true encounter. It reflects nothing of what we need to see in order to learn and get our act together.

No I am not advocating arranged marriages and business contracts or Platonic relationships only. Far from it! But do read up on or listen to the In Our Time podcast on marriage for a wider context on the subject of partnerships supposedly built on love alone, as convening with our prevailing ideal. Know why (Saint) Paul was not against sex but against marriage. Understand why the Babylonians already used marriage mainly to regulate sexual behaviour (and fault adultery or promiscuity).

I understand we are in that phase of (God's) children becoming (independent) adolescents. Beware how you won't be getting another set of teeth, now.

The Slow Road

In relationships we learn about responsibility. In how far am I responsible, ever, for anybody else? Toss a child into the mix and pose the question again! If only we could enter the stage where we wholeheartedly (with great sensitivity and objective observation) first assume responsibility over ourselves before the idea to connect romantically comes to us as a next life-step. So far, overall, we bump into someone we fancy and take it from there. Nothing regulated or determined about it. Often little more than sex-therapy. It makes for a slow and bumpy road of self-discovery at the expense of very many other lives, interpenetrating your casual affair.

Photo credit: Rod Long on Unsplash

Down with romance!

I wish romance and its delusion would be discouraged in our society.

My son and his pipistrelle have created a lovey-dovey world for themselves. If humans continue to entertain such romantic drivel into the future, I will not hold out for the salvation of Man. I hear the pros countering my disapproval (as if their love were innocent – if only it were even love).

• But it is better than gang warfare!
• But it isn’t needle park drama!
• But it isn’t bullying nor suicidal tendencies!

It’s cute and fluffy and safe and sweet, some might croon at the sight of their heart-spilling apps. Not one but three smileys with hearts for eyes, hearts for mouths, hearts around their smiley hearty heads precede and conclude I heart U.

I despair.
Before you call me a down-right party pooper, let me leave you with a song of which I wholeheartedly approve. It's only sex and money (pop) after all. It's the mush which is neither/nor and dolls itself up as domestic bliss that irritates me into blazing hot-flushes.

---

• Film Tip to complement this post.

Not a mind-blowing film, but Italian enough to make for a pleasant little excursion if you fancy travelling, "Il Colore Nascosto delle Cose" (The Hidden Colour Of Things) makes for a (fairly obvious) plea that love is only discovered when one sees with the heart (so when one is blind for superficialities, as the visually handicapped woman is while the advertising agent deals in nothing but).