Back when I used to line dance [I'm just going to throw that out there from the offset, pass your judgements if you will.. I had great fun in my cowboy boots] we learned a dance to a song which I had never heard prior to that: “Commitment” by LeAnn Rimes.
Now, at that point, not actually being all that many years ago, I felt a fairly strong bitterness towards the idea of commitment, relationships and, the dreaded, love.
I genuinly thought that “love”, in the romantic sense of the word, did not exist.. but that is not really the point of this entry, we have Oprah for that kind of thing.. The point is that the idea of “commitment” is pretty poignant, no matter what your age or status in life.
Recently, the discussions of commitment have been opened up again, possibly due to that end-of-summer mood slump which accompanies the return of rain and workloads. There comes a point in every drunken night, lying on the deck of a boat that you don’t know how you came to be on or sitting around bewailing the lack of rum, when someone brings up the topic of love - usually in connection to some kind of recent event, and usually negatively.
You see, the fact is that there are very few of us who haven’t been fucked over in some way, shape or form.. but we all feel like we’ve had it the worst. Naturally, it is your own personal experience which is going to hurt you the most.. and sometimes you can find it hard to accept that others could possibly understand what you have gone through, but the fact is - they probably do.
Youth is such an egocentrical time that of course all our personal aims and wants aren’t going to correlate, and when we all want different things, people are going to get hurt.
These days, sex is not a taboo.. which should be a wonderful thing.. but it’s becoming apparent that we are going to have to take responsibility for our actions.. the sheer number of bitter teenagers out there is somewhat indicative that more and more of us are being used when we are much younger. This breeds anger and upset which inevitably causes an increased number of people to end up damaging others along the way, and so on, in a viscious circle.
The trouble being that with all our self centered behaviour we’re taking people’s trust away.
To be honest, I feel I am preaching to the converted when I say that not being able to trust people, even when you want to, is a truly awful feeling.. but the point being that maybe we should make it our business not to spread this mistrust any further? Perhaps if we were all upfront with one another then the viscious circle wouldn’t suck in quite so many people?
~ We’re never so vulnerable than when we trust someone - but paradoxically, if we cannot trust, neither can we find love or joy. ~
Walter Anderson