Alls Fair in Love and War?
I have to defend Hank a little on this one. In the context and to the extent that you let us in on the discussions that you were having with your psychologist, you did make it sound like some flippant conclusion to what should be serious conversations about things that are troubling you.
Since Hank and the rest of us are really concerned about you, we kind of thought, from your post, at least, that this guy was short changing you, and didn’t think that was right. You have to understand that we only know what your doc is like from what you tell us, and that first post sounded kind of shady. especially since, out of most people here, you come across as a pretty cool person, seemingly at least, not in need of “professional” help. Not in the same way that someone like, say, neck, needs help.*
That being said, I laud you on your honesty with us. I don’t know that I would have had the guts to make this public, but then again, I’ve always battled my demons in a more private and spiritual way. And in the sense of being able to get your balance back, to extract yourself from the mental and emotional torment that life can hand you, I think the “alls fair in love and war” statement is absolutely a valid statement. A fight without concern for others is absolutely necessary at times for any of us to return to a personal equinimity, for without being centered and secure from within, can we understand ourselves and the world around us effectively, meaningfully.
I don’t know anything about what you’ve been experiencing in your relationships, so this is not aimed at you, slothy. But when it comes down to someone who you are convinced may be the love of your life, the feelings of family and friends genuinely have to lose importance. This is especially true when the person you are in love with shares that love in kind, in intensity, and with commitment.
"Alls fair in love and war’ is meant to drive home the point that love is like life itself, and that you have to fight for it without measure. If two people are totally and undeniably in love with one another, then you surely give up all aspects of your life to be with that person. And this can be a pretty intense statement when you consider that you might have to forsake your family, friends, jobs and livelihoods, hopes, dreams, rock bands, musical aspirations, moral turpidtudes, ethical precepts, religious beliefs, everything and anything that you could define as something “vital” to who you are.
Alls fair in love and war means everything and anything is compromised in the preservation of love, or your life, in the case of war. Walking away alive is all that matters, and in the most extreme cases, this is a pretty damn difficult concept to accept. Most of us will compromise this away, and would rather die than live, at least philosophically. The truth is, the individual human instinct for self preservation is unbelievably difficult to deny. As much as we believe ourselves to be above the baseness of our nature, when push comes to shove, we opt to survive at the expense of one another, and this is nothing to be ashamed of when it happens.
About relationships in general, shit, at your age, sloth, you’re supposed to be moving in and out of them. Most teenagers do. There are some “couples” that work for longer periods, but that’s not necessarily a measure of the norm. Teenage life is chaos, and from what I’ve seen in my lifetime, that’s the norm. There’s nothing wrong with it in most cases, and anything that you need to do to get through it, is basically OK as long as you don’t seriously hurt people in the process (and by seriously, I mean kill or injure). If hanging out with a doc, helps you to center, that’s absolutely cool. Although I am curious what he says about your being sonted, but you don’t have to answer that here. Maybe I’ll pm you about this.
Anyway, I hope this is the kind of discourse you were looking for when you started this post.
- Thom, if I didn’t have an extaordinary amount of respect for you, I wouldn’t have been able to implement this joke on any effective level.
