When love is not madness, it is not love. ~Pedro Calderon de la Barca
Interesting quote to say the least. It was posted as the status of one of my Facebook friends. Reminded me of something I wrote well over a year ago about passion:
"Holding back your heart is a tough thing to do. We do it out of fear and we do it out of pride. Fear of getting hurt and for the sake of pride...not to look foolish. As a young man, I always thought that real love transcended all these things. That it was endearing to play the fool for the sake of the one you love and that the risk of getting hurt or looking stupid was well worth it. To stand out in the rain for an hr just to catch a 5 min glimpse of her and a hello was once considered romantic. Not so today. Today in this "me society" no one is willing to take the chance to look foolish anymore. Everyone wants to play it safe. Reading the poets of old, you would think these men desperate or foolish for professing all they did...but it was all for love. There was passion...real passion. Yet sadly, today that is missing and those that show such passion are looked down upon. Today, its no longer who I love but what can they do for me because I have to "look out for number one". Now I am not advocating the pursuit of a destructive relationship because in it's pure form, real love is not destructive. It's just that I've seen love taking a back seat to convenience too many times to count. That may seem fine in the beginning but what it creates is a long term compatibility lacking in any real passion. Its a form of settling. One can tell the difference even in a kiss. One passionate kiss can create a moment that lasts for an eternity. Those moments you never forget. Sadly some have never experienced this love and for others, if they have, it scared them. It scared them because they finally got what they wanted but didn't really ever realize how intense it would be. The heaviness of it, the work to keep it and the confusion it can bring. For within the same passion your love springs out of, so can other emotions...including hate, anger and jealousy. How can you want to be with someone you cant stand or just had a serious argument with?...Passion. That confusion will cause sides of you to appear you never knew you had...especially if you are one prone to need answers.
I had relinquished all notions of this love when I decided to stabilize my life. Such unpredictability might've been disastrous in my growth. I let it go and became more mechanical in my approach until it hit me square in the eyes one day. I couldn't do anything about it and the road it led me on would've been great had it not been for the timing of its arrival. Instead of a great experience, I suffered loss. In its short time, when it was good, it was REALLY good but when it was bad...it was REALLY bad. The pain of it was more than anyone should ever bear which leads me to the reason for this missive. My perspective was skewed do to my bitterness, anger and pain. To see through their prism will distort your reality and all your conclusions will be wrong. Bitterness and anger had caused me to create images of people that they didn't deserve. Yes they have failed me but there were reasons (not excuses) behind that failure. Accepting those reasons didn't excuse behavior, it just gave way for a change in perspective and my change in perspective gave way to real understanding. Understanding gave way to real forgiveness and real forgiveness gave way to healing for me. Healing that allowed me to see things for what they truly were, not what my bitterness had dictated. My anger had caused me to dismiss love and passion as something to avoid and I was fully prepared to live that empty role everyone figured I'd live anyway. Yet with my healing came the understanding that love and passion were in fact something to cherish...something to shoot for and something never to take lightly. I don't care how much pain I was in or how foolish I looked throughout this process, I was true to my feelings. Like the poets of old, I stood willing to be the fool and endure the pain for the sake of another. I trusted and became vulnerable. I surrendered myself to it because I wanted more and that is never something to feel ashamed of. Even though it seems my passions' target has broadened, I refuse to give up on these notions. I am alive...in my pain, in my hurt and in my elation...I AM ALIVE.
Passion...without it, I die a slow death."
I re-read this today and wow. I have since learned the difference between this intense crazy passion for someone that was real and a toxic relationship that may have been passionate...but had become too harmful to stay in. For the latter, I still hold to that passion and love with the exception that the relationship must be done away with for the sake of those involved. You see I posted this on facebook Monday, July 13, 2009 at 7:50am but it was written a bit earlier. The quote posted today dates back to the 1600's. People, truth spans generations. It remains relevant throughout time. Re-reading this and looking at my condition today...damn this still fits like a glove.
I struggle between being angry at things I see that make me want to burn every bridge imaginable and moments of the purest desire to relive and create new moments exclusive to one. It is the hardest thing to write about because it is madness. It makes no sense. It has no logic. All sense tells you this person is no good for you but you insist. All sense tells you to run the other way but you cant. It takes a lot to wake one up out of such a thing. It usually takes something really f**ked up to happen and sometimes not even that will do it. Passion is sometimes like an uncontrollable fire. You don't know how it began...you just know you're burning. Even in times of anger, it can manifest itself in ways where you just want to thrash the object of your passion in complete sexual abandon. Sounds awesome right? It is...the only problem is that it's volatile. Folks talk about "happy love" and "happy happy joy joy" comfort but there is this "thing" where talk of marriage, future, family...all these things just fade in the background of moments together. Its all background noise in the presence of the one you're passionate about. It just doesn't rank as high in priority as just feeling that person's breath on you as you lay next to them. Wanting to bring them pleasure with all that you have as you make love to them. It's all I ever wanted and the truth is...it is madness. Real life gets in the way of that and the problem is that without "real life" there is no "life".
I've decided that I'm gonna fix life. I'm gonna fix it so that it does not get in the way of my passion. I will take this pursuit to my death as I will not relinquish what my fire has lead me to...ever again.
~Moses Apollo
