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Finding love
I want to find love in a culture that is obsessed with lust. Lust is so boring, it is so cliche. Lust is empty, it is transparent, it holds no weight. We are a society that has been taught to chase the shiniest things, to fill our lives with beauty for beauty’s sake, to focus more on attaining and possessing and devouring than sitting with, and diving into the things that actually mean something to us. We mistake what our eyes want for what our hearts want, and that is one of the most dangerous things we could do to ourselves. It kills our humanity.
I don’t envy those who leap towards lust or longing like it is going to change their lives. Those people, I have found, are often looking to either escape themselves, or distract themselves, and it bankrupts them. They are empty in certain ways, always after the next beautiful thing, and the next after that. They devour, and devour, and devour, but they will never be full. They are malnourished where it counts, they will never be satisfied. Because the real nourishment, the real feast, exists not in someone’s lips or the curve of their spine. It exists in the most honest aspects of who they are. It exists in their nostalgia and in their hopes and in the way certain songs make them want to cry.
You want genuine beauty? Real beauty? The kind of connection that isn’t short lived, but rather, feels like it has existed for hundreds of years, feels all consuming and feverish and grounding at the same time? Connect. Sit with someone and ask them about all of the horrible things they have done in their life, and listen to the way their voice cracks. Sit with someone and let them tell you about what it felt like to lose their dad, what it felt like to break the heart of someone they once loved. Sit with someone and look them in the eyes, listen to the way they talk about the things they are passionate about, how their smile curves towards their ears. Sit with someone and let them touch you. Not physically, but mentally. Sit with someone and let them have you, not tangibly, but on a soul level. Only then will you understand why lust is so vacant in comparison,why it is so dull.
I don’t envy those who leap towards lust or longing like it is going to change their lives. Those people, I have found, are often looking to either escape themselves, or distract themselves, and it bankrupts them. They are empty in certain ways, always after the next beautiful thing, and the next after that. They devour, and devour, and devour, but they will never be full. They are malnourished where it counts, they will never be satisfied. Because the real nourishment, the real feast, exists not in someone’s lips or the curve of their spine. It exists in the most honest aspects of who they are. It exists in their nostalgia and in their hopes and in the way certain songs make them want to cry.
You want genuine beauty? Real beauty? The kind of connection that isn’t short lived, but rather, feels like it has existed for hundreds of years, feels all consuming and feverish and grounding at the same time? Connect. Sit with someone and ask them about all of the horrible things they have done in their life, and listen to the way their voice cracks. Sit with someone and let them tell you about what it felt like to lose their dad, what it felt like to break the heart of someone they once loved. Sit with someone and look them in the eyes, listen to the way they talk about the things they are passionate about, how their smile curves towards their ears. Sit with someone and let them touch you. Not physically, but mentally. Sit with someone and let them have you, not tangibly, but on a soul level. Only then will you understand why lust is so vacant in comparison,why it is so dull.
