Suffering through several hangovers recently I have questioned my need for alcohol or if it is indeed a need at all. I consider myself a very disciplined person...perhaps too disciplined as I often feel fun walks out of the room as soon as I enter it, but in saying this, I have my vices like any other warm blooded, imperfect being. I like to have a drink but only on weekends, I like fruit far more than what is considered the healthy portion and my love of salt may just be the death of me. I’ve never considered myself an addictive personality as I’ve seen addictions close up, the type that tears you in two, so I feel I can safely say that I have the discipline to not fall into this destructive pit.
But what really is addiction? And does not having one or believing that I don’t, mean I am stronger, superior in some way? We all know the big three; drugs, drink and gambling but are there hidden ills that control our lives? What about love? Is it possible, as Robert Palmer told us, to be addicted to love? Or is this simply a need and not an addiction at all, but a fundamental need, to need another human being to simply survive being human?
The word “need” has always sat awkwardly with me but perhaps this goes back to a lesson in grade 5 where my wart infested, dragon lady teacher advised us that all we need is water, food and shelter and everything else falls into the ‘’want’’ category. This idea has stayed with me for 23 years and sends my stomach into knots whenever I ask for something outside the scope of survival. Unfortunately for my stomach, I want so much, more than anyone could ever give me. More than I would ever dare ask for.
But what about those that do ask for what they want? Do they get it just because they asked or do they just return dishevelled, disappointed and more desperate than before? And why is it that I associate desperation with someone that has wants...or is it just the people that confuse their wants with their needs that upset me?
Is love a need or a just a cherry on top? Are people addicted to being with another? Is love more worthy when it is a want and less worthy when it is used to fill a need? Is a need simply a bottomless pit as addictions seems to be?
Addiction = need
Need = weakness
Weakness = survival?????
This brings me back to love and my ceaseless conflict to comprehend it. For some reason I need to compartmentalise every damn element of my life and your own, so can someone please tell me if love is a need or a want so I can justify its pursuit! Or perhaps this isn’t a debate about indulgence but rather a sad soirée into my scared, silly state of mind. Perhaps the answer lies with whether it is the brave or terrified ones that love anyone at all.
But this question, like so many that I insist on asking, have many answers because we all love different things and people for different reasons at different times for very different reasons. Apparently we are all so different, even if we all seem so damn the same. This is not where love falls down, this is not love’s undoing, we fail at love because what we want and need are rarely the same thing. We fail, because what we need now is never what we need in a few moments time and what they needed was never even addressed, except by some past person in a past time that provided it in a precise moment that unfortunately never addressed their needs in the first place. It’s all a mess, a mathematical mess and I never understood maths in the first place. So like in math class, I tune out and talk to the person behind me about anything else to distract me from the fact that this is a world I will never understand and may as well not participate in.
So should one love because it is a need under the shelter of food and water or should one love because it is want, a little bit extra that makes everything brighter, bigger, and better? I guess that depends on what you want love to be, what you want love to do for you.
Can love change you? Maybe, if you believe people can indeed change.
Can it make you whole? Maybe, if you believe that it’s ok to believe that you aren’t a complete being
Can you live without it? Maybe, but what do you define what living is?
Can you survive without it? Possibly
But we all know that survival is a whole lot different than living.
I can survive, I’ve proved my stripes without a doubt, what I haven’t proved is whether I can allow myself to live, to love, to love living.
And perhaps this is the true test of a person if this is indeed a test in the first place.
But on the flipside maybe love means nothing at all because it means everything and it is just a given. You live, you love, and you love living. If we had a purpose, if we were meant to achieve something surely love is worthy of that pursuit? Surely it is the essence of a human being, the one magical ingredient that separates us from others in the kingdom of animals. Our ability to fall in love with one another is unique, a little awkward, often painful, and a little bit wonderful. From love we create art, we open our mouths for no good reason but to sing, we tap our feet for no good reason but to dance, we open our lives for no good reason but to feel the skin of another warm body beside us in the coldest corner of our rooms. This can’t be about survival, it must be about living.
It seems Math has nothing to do with it.
But my beef is not with love but with the reasons why we try to find it. The things that we do to each other and ourselves to find it, and eventually to lose it, define us. I don’t know much but I do know that we seek love for the same reasons that we feel we can’t. Fear pulls us towards it as magnetically as it repels us. It benefits us as much as it harms us and it destroys us if we need it, but it isolates us if we don’t understand the need to want it. This just means that some needs are even more complicated than I first believed. So, for now, it is solved. Love is a need that we need to want to understand why it is a need or do I mean that you need to want to need it to want to need it at all..... No survival is..... This blog was never about that it was about addictions and these are needs that destroy our lives and the way we control them determines if we survive.
Ever heard of the man that died of a broken heart? No? Because it never happens as you can survive without love. But this blog was never about survival either ;)
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