The Game

Sometimes you find the most beautiful little jewels in the most unexpected of places.

I was reading The Game, by Neil Strauss, in the spare time I don't have, because sometimes I like to adulterate my mind with trashy nonsense before returning to linear approximations and gradient vectors. Frankly, I'm not sure which will affect my life more in the long run; right now it seems multivariable calculus might lose in such a contest, but that's a rant for another day. Anyway, in this book of loose morals and tips on how to pick up the ladies, I came across this gem of a quotation about love, as follows:

"We have this idea that love is supposed to last forever. But love isn't like that. It's a free-flowing energy that comes and goes when it please. Sometimes it stays for life; other times it stays for a second, a day, a month, a year. So don't fear love when it comes simply because it makes you vulnerable. But don't be surprised when it leaves, either. Just be glad you had the opportunity to experience it."

On a not-quite-but-somewhat-related note, I went to this slam poetry reading/ open mic session at the Lone Pine Tavern last week. It was... lovely, and perpetuates my awe that the people here are talented beyond comprehension. What follows isn't exactly what I'd call a poem, prose, or even good writing. It just... is.


We’re taught to think that
love is beautiful, that it
transcends our bodies, that it
heals our souls.

And even though we don’t know what this
“love” thing is,
we come to associate it with concepts like
cozy fireplaces on winter nights, like
holding hands in apple orchards, like
coming home to a person—-
your person.

But most of all we associate it with a feeling of
forever. We’re told that love is
everlasting,
consistent,
permanent.
Love is growing old and wrinkly,
together.

And if you find that kind of love you become
“one of the lucky ones.”
The ones who have someone to come home to.

More often then not, though, love is
fleeting,
transient,
impermanent.
It comes and goes like
waves in the ocean, or
ripples in fields of grain.
Sometimes it comes and lasts for mere moments or
days, or
weeks, or
months, or
years.
But when it leaves
(if it leaves)
you’re left wondering if it was ever really there.

It was.