Love, for many people it’s like a fairytale. It happens to others, it will never happen to them and when for some reason it does happen, it doesn’t take much time to let love be overruled by expectations and the disappointment that follows. Many times love is pointed outwards, love is used to put another person in a scale from 1 to 10. Despite the fact that it’s nothing more than projecting your own lack of love to the people surrounding you, you tend to use it as an instrument. At the end, many times it will turn out that you are not good enough to anybody, especially not to yourself.

I have been writing a lot about love the last couple of years. Many times I started writing, using other people’s love and affection and from there on starting an analysis about how, why and when. Once you become aware that it’s not about others, but about yourself, life can become tricky. Actually, my thoughts about it made life tricky. What’s wrong with loving your children, what’s wrong with loving your partner or lover or whatever, what’s wrong with giving love in the most passionate way you can? The answer is simple, nothing’s wrong with it. Yet, it’s not all. I realized when I would continue to be the lover I am, someone would be forgotten.

I imagined what it would be like if I would put the love into myself. I considered my motives to give my love to others, in stead of to myself. I realized spreading the love in my case, was nothing more than avoiding exploring the love inside myself. Sure, the passion I exposed to the outside world also was a part of who I am. On the other hand, it was a brilliant excuse not having to face the lack of love within. One of the conclusions I draw was that I brilliantly developed a distraction strategy: a way not having to face myself.

So there I was. All that had been so clear, so steady and comfortable, wasn’t all. It was a tiny part of me. Maybe that explained the fire I sometimes felt in myself but that didn’t have a way to get out. Maybe that explained the pain in my stomach sometimes, when I was acting on the automatic pilot. Maybe that explained the lungproblems I had been suffering. The question was: what to with this new insight?

Of course I started with doing absolutely nothing. I spent weeks on the couch, trying to get off, but I couldn’t. It was almost as if my body told me to go through every grief, every conviction, every thought I had. Sometimes I did move, yet I was hesitating because I didn’t know where to go to. Imagine a fish, who has always been swimming in the same pond and suddenly is kind of forced to move to the endless ocean. Or imagine a philosopher, repeatingly asking himself the question how and why. Or a statue, built by itslef not able to move an inch.

In the meantime my precious little heart patiently awaited what would follow. Sometimes it gave me a signal, for instance by bouncing really hard. But most of the time it said and did nothing. It was just there. But by being there and by me being aware of that, something slowly changed within myself. I couldn’t touch it, I couldn’t find the words to describe it but I felt it amazingly strong. The fact that it was all blank, made me realize that maybe I had to start off all over again. To investigate my actions, to become aware of what I really felt about them, to try to discover whether the things I did in life were really mine, or just a charade. Eventually I realized that I had to ask myself the question: What Do I Live For?

And that’s where I am right now. Trying to find out where I live for. Where I want to live for. Of course I live for my children, but when they are not around, I still have a reason to live. So it’s a bad excuse to hide behind ‘living for my kids’. Of course I live to earn money, but what if you perform a job which is really a cheap appendix and doesn’t produce any satisfaction. Of course I live to love, but what if the love isn’t shown to myself. It’s gonna take some time for me to find out. In the mean time daily responsibilities don’t stop, rent needs to be payed, food needs to be cooked, taxes need to be payed. And I can give plenty more examples.

What do I live for? At first sight such an easy question, at second sight overwhelmingly scary. Because it implies that all I have done in the past, wasn’t really me. It was in a way of course, but it produced a blanket that softly overtook what is within me. I’m gonna start with not writing about it, because writing sometimes is overrated, In this case it helps me to summarize what is happening to me. I guess one could say that the final goal (if that exists) is to explore, find and be the love within. From that point on, I can put myself first in a non selfish way and be the man who I know I am and always will be.

WesIam