“Love doesn’t exist” by Joel Thames, NYC

topic: LOVE & HEARTBREAK medium: TEXT

“Love doesn’t exist. We are animals. Nothing but hyper-intelligent animals. Too intelligent, if you ask me. But we’re not as aware as we’d like to believe. We play tricks on ourselves in the name of survival. Self-abnegation for self-preservation. Don’t you see? This is exactly what ‘Love’ is. ‘Love’ is just another application subconsciously constructed by our brains so that we don’t f**k things up and die. I’d really love to believe that we all can go it alone—life that is—but at some point we’ll have to be dependent on someone else. So, essentially, we trick ourselves into believing something beyond ourselves for the purpose of motivation and self-aggrandizement. And what better something to believe in and to act for than someone? Don’t be fooled. Your mind does all the dirty work for you: it’s called ‘emotions’. We’ll all “fall” in “Love”—as the stereotypical saying goes—with whom we’re supposed to and the world will be fine and dandy. We’ll call it ‘Fate’. I’ll call it cowardice and delusion…and I’ll call ‘fate’ that as well. But really, nine times out of ten, we’ll fall into social expectations and norms. Like I said: “We’ll love who we’re supposed to love.” And it’ll work out for us, just as it’ll work out for our innocent beloveds. We’re by no means stupid, just confused. We do what we have to do. All creatures come to terms with this in one way or another. For the “lower-species,” the non-human, we’ll label it ‘instinct’ without thinking twice. Because we’re greater than them, it’s different for us. Right? It has to be, no? There has to be a difference between us that explains the current hierarchical situation. So we don’t call it ‘instinct’, we call it something else like ‘Love’ or ‘Fate’ or ‘God’ or ‘Intellect’ or whatever will have you. But, in the end, instinct is the wizard behind the curtain…and we’re nothing more than animals on wheels. Denial is one hell of a tool. Reminds me of this quote I heard once: “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was making the world believe that he didn’t exist.” Now I’m not saying that ‘Love’ is the ‘Devil’ here—or ‘Fate’ or ‘Intellect’ or any other guise under which we hide. I’m not saying that because I don’t think ‘Love’ exists. What I am saying is that we are the ‘Devil’ here. We make ourselves believe that our instinct—the ‘evil’ inside of us—doesn’t exist. But we’ll make the world and the devil work for us as we always have. And we’ll make love work for us all the same. And once ‘Love’ works for us, so will that special someone else. We’ll call it “reciprocity” or something. But c’mon…let’s not fool ourselves any longer. We’ll all be much better off and free once we admit the truth and let our defenses down: Love is a fungible filament of our collective conscious. Love does not exist.”