Love. One of the things in this world most worthy of fear. Capable of building worlds up and destroying them in the same exact …
[Music] I am afraid of love everything about it is terrifying from giving someone else the limited time I have on this Earth to having to understand the emotions of another when I don’t even know my own I’ve never in my life felt ready for such a commitment to say that I can provide something which I do not understand and yet I have before and even now After experiencing so much pain from it all I still feel a drive for it alone at night I want contact and reassurance as much as anyone else and when faced with an empty dwelling I Feel The Melancholy usually watered off by the energy of another I crave to understand so that I may properly seek without hurting others or getting hurt myself as I so often have but to understand means involving another who themselves will seek love and who can only be hurt by my exploration so I find it a good exercise to see with the creative minds of the world tell us about love specifically today the fear of it so let’s examine the subject lay some groundwork tackle a few series which talk about it and I’ll spend a bit of my own tale at the end and of course be warned there will be spoilers I think the only place to start is with the inexplexibility of love it is a Formula that cannot be solved now there are many scientific explanations for why humans form intense emotional bonds through observing our conscious and unconscious Behavior it’s been shown that we are creatures wired to be social and that has been reasoned as a natural or evolutionary response most of us are raised by people who care for us even in the Bare Bones physical sense providing an early example we follow through our lives and as observed in most life the ultimate purpose of life sprung from nature is to continue the species not exactly itself individual survival instincts are simply so one stays alive to produce offspring humans as creatures who evolve to rely on the brain rather than the body do this best in groups to make up for our physical detriment one human versus one lion is an obvious outcome but 20 humans makes it a different story and working together we build walls so we never even have to face the lion to begin with whether we like it or not it seems the bonds we form are simply natural love as an extreme version of this then is not inexplicable at a base level but at the same time as we escape from The Lion we change love closed off from the threats we once needed groups to advance away from however it’s returned to less natural Pursuits like business literature games the logic of our world changed thousands of years ago you may have needed a close-knit group to survive but now you don’t living aside if it’s mentally healthy or not you could wake up go to work in a cubicle hardly talk to anyone all day go home do the same and repeat every day and You’d Survive physically just as well as someone who’s interacting with others constantly in the rapid advancement of human race where entire cultures could change multiple times within one lifespan we outpaced these social evolutionary aspects I say love is inexplicable because of this the benefits of Love aside from monetary concerns like one dwelling or tax break for marriage things that we have added to it within Society are mostly abstract if I say love doesn’t provide benefits you’d likely point to how good it makes us feel to mental benefits things which can be felt but not observed outright only interpreted that’s why it makes so little sense to me when detached from the physical world we can agree it’s good and have an idea of how but that idea will present differently in every single one of us what we can Define about it is that we have to care for someone else give our time to them or spend our money on them or commit ourselves to them in some way physical limitations remain obvious but physical benefits all come first through mental ones there’s no way to explain the benefits of love that would work for everyone because no two people will have the same interpretation of the reality it Springs from it’s just like my arms can never be soft and warm not the way yours will always be I actually didn’t plan to talk about Violet evergarden here today but I think it explains this concept Violet is a Child Soldier formerly under the command of major Gilbert Bogan via I put command in quotes there because it was more forced than anything else she was a gift from his brother diet freed a cruel man who described her as a tool and nothing more Gilbert had no desire to see her fight but she found the only way to feel valued by someone was for her utility and all she knew was how to kill to pay back the kindness Gilbert gave to her she then did this having Never Been Loved Before now she lacked the example we mentioned for how to then love others so when the major presumably dies protecting her leaving her with the words I love you she’s confused what does I love you even me to her it has meant nothing so far she’d never heard it before she has no way to associate it with a warm touch or a close hug or a hot meal without feeling much herself she can’t even pair it with particular emotions the statement lacks all context so when she becomes an auto memories doll someone who writes letters for others to express what they can’t she Witnesses many different forms of love there’s the overbearing care of parents the hopeful Solitude of siblings the romance of Youth the lasting love of a morning Father and even more well she becomes adapted her career until the very end Violet never claims to know what I love you means even though she hears it in different words from every one of these cases and that’s exactly the reason they’re all entirely unique situations each one expressing a different take which falls into the umbrella of love it is at once the tears of a sibling who can’t face their brother out of fear and the anger of a father who can’t face his daughter because she is past it is it once a romance which is starting from words on paper and also one which is founded on the gentle feelings of an entire lifetime together it is parents who are alive and distant from their daughter and one soon to die AI who’s always been right there when all of these things which can be reason to contradict each other are love then how do we ever Define it the answer is simply that we don’t Violet eventually claims to understand what I love you means however we never witness her definition and it seems she puts no more words to it herself the answer is that there is no answer we can only know by experiencing it our quests may seem more mundane than hers but through home and friends in school and careers we go through just as many stages and cases picking up our idea of Love along the way not one of us could describe exactly what they feel and in no way could they ever use the perfect words to make someone else feel it in the exact same way love has reasons and logic but it is also inexplicable we can fear it so much because it is everything this isn’t helped by the fact that even though we escaped the physical reasons for evolutionary love we still heavily focus on the physical and most of our societies that extra capacity didn’t go to understanding the emotions which now fully constituted love but rather shifted to new concrete means the advancements of modern science and technology are absolutely stunning and Fields of it like Medical Technology are developments no one can rightfully question they are outright good but for a number of factors one of the most heavy being monetary gain understanding the logic of the world became much more beneficial than the emotions of those within it many of you were probably raised under this mindset without even ever thinking about it for me accomplishments which could be tied to logical Pursuits were the ones which were praised the art project I brought home to design a building was met not with mention of the color or form but that if I could do that then maybe one day I could be an architect taking apart toys when I was younger in the hopes of building some weapon from a show that was on TV wasn’t met with mention of my imagination but the ability to Simply remove screws or play with Legos being the sure signs for future engineer the repetition’s acts of filling in blanks on a worksheet proved I must be right for physics but entire canvases of imagination meant nothing for future Pursuits were quite often trained and guided to be logical over anything else the Hallmark of science the pursuit of it is great but unchecked and worse co-opted by monetary or power-hungry forces becomes an all-consuming Beast with no morality it can really inhibit our path to understanding love it’s funny how much things have changed just a few months ago you were always so sad you know here we have Steins Gate the show which very much emphasizes that danger through the butterfly effect and CERN the organization which will kill to get their hands on even a rudimentary time machine leading the world to completely dire circumstances that time machine was made somewhat accidentally by okabe rintero and the future Gadget laboratory the fancy name is given to the few crappy rooms where he hangs out with his friends messing around with miscellaneous bits of Technology through anime science magic a microwave above a CRT television set allows them to send text messages back in time and eventually enough information to jump Consciousness is back as well at least for okabe well he isn’t a real scientist he does have some ability and knowledge of scientific Pursuits at least of engineering since he and his friend daru mate all these wacky gadgets is able to somewhat keep Pace with the in-depth work of others like Maki say kurusu a genius who’s published only at 18. well sometimes his art arguments are nothing but conjecture he still has the wherewithal to pull that conjecture from the right places at the very least he is extremely logical but his longest friend is the most odd pairing given his other company in these traits Mayuri Shina a warm and bubbly present she’s often the one bringing emotion to the table as others bicker about hacking or theorizing or sit in silence unable to understand their emotions she calms them down with appeals to togetherness while she works on Creative Pursuits like cosplay for herself and others at times she’ll reach up into the sky lost in some feeling which is incomprehensible to anyone else operating so much on emotions it’s difficult for okabe to understand how to help her even if he feels strongly for her this comes out most after the loss of her grandmother Mayuri is left so depressed she’s unable to communicate with others spending all her time with that grave she begins to grow detached from the world as if she’d soon float away when she reaches for the Stars here while okabe is watching he rushes in and holds her claiming to suddenly be a mad scientist named Halloween kiyoma holding her hostage and Never Letting Go afraid she would leave him forever he provided a reason why she could never leave a cold hard logical one Stark in its contrast to how she operates and solving okabe’s conflict of not knowing how to help he bypasses the emotional with physical logical means someone with the ability to think most prominently in cold measurements this is one solution to love I mean first of all how do you organize your thoughts to express them and then secondly how do you make someone else understand them once you have this is very difficult but what if you didn’t have to do either what if you were simply able to skip all of that which you don’t understand this works for interaction overall unlike okabe the wandering unemployed young adult kiyoma is someone with a defined role in interactions some way to provide a basis to these unknown factors he runs the future Gadget laboratory and directs the efforts of others daru is his hacker kurusu his assistant rukako and Ferris his students in their respective tasks I think understanding love is a reason for this anyone else who tends to overthink can attest to any number of good nights ruined by a few moments of this doubt of not knowing exactly where you stand and what you provide to people the way your friend coughed when you made that joke was it genuine did it just happened or did they simply want to avoid fake laughing at it to be polite maybe that’s why when they get up to get a drink they sat somewhere else next to someone else later on and then well I understand it I mean if you can’t make them laugh then why do they like you why would they want to be around you you aren’t doing or can’t really do anything special so maybe they don’t actually like you anyway what are you for or to them anyway what logical reason do they have to like you interactions are very complex and understanding how someone else feels is almost impossible the arrangement of Halloween kiyoma avoids these issues he knows exactly why they’re around him they work in his laboratory and he provides them with knowledge Direction and training even if it’s kind of they have cleared defined reasons to love him so no guessing for such an overthinker plus these are controlled interactions if you don’t know what to say and are worried that an awkward pause is the spiral into hate somehow then you mention the training you gave them on exorcism or special attacks you can always tie back to those reasons giving them a two-fold benefit their definition and also guaranteed positive interaction the basic elements in the formula of care someone who’s something to us that we do things for Joma is also in a way an act of service for these friends not just Mayuri and help her have a reason to keep going but by continuing the formula to its next extent those factors relisted May constitute care but that doesn’t make it good they just make it so once you have the excuse for interaction you want to make it one which is positive for them you praise them on their progress at these tasks give them ways to feel valuable with the achievements they find in your employee act outrageous and outlandish so that at the very least you’re entertaining to be around that’s always something right kioma is a ridiculous Persona yelling openly about his mad science speaking on a dead phone about the organization that’s out to get him surrounding his Pursuits with Pomp and claiming the righteous feeling of a fresh lab coat there’s always something fun wild or engaging to him some sort of distraction from the pressures of life like the ones which left Mayuri so depressed okabe knows deep down that kioma is a falsehood so he finds genuine value from the Persona not just fake logical value chioma does provide something positive to them all and to someone else who seems prone to that kind of down feeling he seeks to save them from it bypasses another fear the bad times a feature of this brand of overthinking mixed with logic is looking at interactions like an exchange if someone gives you their time and all you can do with it is lack energy speak about sadness or be depressed then why would they want to be around you anymore it doesn’t feel logical even if you know that you yourself would still love someone through any of those days as okabe did people want good times and sadness doesn’t feel like a good time by playing the same beats again and again with kioma okabe puts on an act he can replicate in almost any conditions only breaking down under the extreme stress of reliving the death of his best friend again and again and again and again in being powerless to stop it even after sacrificing everything physically positive he tried to do for others that’s how much it took to break this act love isn’t logical but we can be if it isn’t a formula we can solve then we might try to apply our own formula control the variables and get the desired result which works to some extent all of this is an attempt to generalize the extremely varied nature of Love kioma boils down the constituent parts to just the essentials and runs off of those it does the job and to some extent it works but it’s also a constant Duty a lifelong struggle which amounts to stagnation when it inevitably fails love isn’t something conquered by science or logic even for those who do best with such things we can fear it because it makes no sense even as we need things to make sense you’re right I am a horrible person the world would probably be better off if I wasn’t around a silent voice expands upon the idea of needing to be something for someone by more directly addressing self-worth with regards to love shows why we feel that need in the first place the story is of shoya and shoko two future friends who began as anything but transferring into their class into Elementary School shoko is bullied for being deaf the other kids either pay her no mind do so and are bullied for it to the point that they themselves leave the school or are the ones directly doing the bullying shoya being one of the main culprits through these horrid interactions they both find a complete devaluation of themselves shoko is essentially told she’s worthless when people aren’t directly hating her for something she can’t help they’re outright ignoring and refusing to help her and making sure that no one else does either we return to logic here as our minds try to make sense of the interactions we have things happen for a reason or at least we want them to so what’s our reason I don’t know what other conclusions someone can draw from seeing this over and over again than I must not be worth the effort if one person doesn’t try for you it could be anything but when no one tries from you there’s one common thing you shoya finds his devaluation later once shoko is bullied out of the school by him and his friends he’s pinned with all the blame helped Along by the worst teacher in all of anime the once bully becomes the bullied he’s forced to feel absolute shame rather than guilt which could have led him to be better he’s locked into place forever vastly changing as a person but always looked at as the horrible bullies since his former friends made sure to tell everyone the truth about him he did something horrible and was never allowed to forget it or make up for it left alone forever his logic kicks on as well this must be the cost of his actions he deserves to be alone for making someone else feel so he is also worthless so how does this then nest with our idea of love the instinctual response of many when asked if love is valuable would be of course we could point to personal anecdotes to publish stories life-changing narratives even the interactions of animals outside of ourselves and say this is something inherently beautiful and worthwhile even if it is just a chemical response in our brains trying to invoke survival of the species we interpret that as value and so it is how many stories end in Romance are the importance of family how many songs are written about the process of loving and losing how many nights have we sat and wished for the intimate company of another there was a drive for love which speaks so deeply to The Human Condition into our logic our Arts our communication into the very recesses of our mind and spilling out into our interactions love is valuable so what about when we aren’t should we be allowed to love can we have love if we cannot contribute to that value this is what shoya and shoko both feel once they reunite shoko has felt love in between these parts of hate but in addition to feeling worthless she also sees herself as a burden on others they have to take classes to communicate with her efficiently those who showed care for her in the past were subject to harsh treatment themselves and her family is left quite fractured and stressed would that be lessened without her without the girl who was always needing new expensive hearing aids and to change schools who now needs to be taken to appointments and classes when other kids her age are relaxing at home logic wants more are there others who deserve those warm feelings of love more ones who take less effort to maintain than her what is she giving to deserve such things when someone else could do more for Less show your wonders if he is atoned enough to deserve Love part of his isolation being his own choice to pay for what he did he literally asks am I allowed to have this much fun He Could Be So Unworthy of love one day maybe if he paid enough he would be but he’s been atoning for years and no one has started to treat him differently right so maybe not maybe it’ll never happen if everyone says this is what he deserves who is he to argue so he shouldn’t enjoy himself he shouldn’t be loved well it may be natural for others he’s starting from behind maybe if he gave 200 300 more than others that would make love worthwhile to share with him now all of this logic forms are somewhat transactional idea of Love Now that word itself doesn’t mean that it’s bad if we assume a completely normal situation with an even playing Ground this is fine an equal give and take is in theory perfect love but we see that theory is called such for a reason connection is not often entered from the same level shoya is in a way over giving by believing himself to be undeserving of love in return he goes out of his way to try and make things better and once he’s repaired their connection to make her life itself better even as he drives away his other friends he continues spending as much time as he can with her he often puts up with harassment for or from others and thinks nothing of it shoko’s younger sister actively insults and lies to him yet he stops to help her every time anyway when he thinks of leaving the world forever he first earns back the money his mother paid for his bad actions as a child working Summers away and selling all of his things to do so he’s always giving more but that’s just how it should be that’s love for him but everyone wants to give as much as they take so what if someone he loves can’t do the same there’s a specific scene where shoko tries to communicate to shoya as he did with her she attempts to speak with him like how he learns sign language for her but she’s not able to do the same act he was no matter how much she wants to and by no fault of her own it must feel like she’s holding him back taking up all of his time and energy and not able to give the same efforts in return without her own input on the matter she is overtaking just for the nature of her condition in what shoya is doing it’s a miscommunication one each side is trying to over correct on their own driven by their lack of self-worth love is terrifying because we have to learn and communicate what each of us can give it is a give and take but there’s nothing saying the levels need to be equal because we’re not coming to it on level ground someone raised in a loving family their whole life and one without will likely have different ideas of not even just how much they should give and get but what giving and taking even is it’s not that calling love a transaction is bad even if it feels productive it’s that it’s like trying to set a price when everyone has their own currency and there’s no exchange rate that’s what we establish with our communication we build the bridges and close the gaps to learn what we can exchange there’s nothing saying it is equal or has to be equal if both parties agree on it and it’s healthy does the tip of the scale even matter we want different things and we need different things so when we provide them in the combination needed that’s what matters but we can never know that without communication and we’ve already covered how hard that could be this is what’s stressed in a movie or that which seems so basic to us and even then we fail at is shown with two people who have a legitimate barrier to it shoko and shoya eventually break down to each other expressing their supposed worthlessness and how much the other means to them they finally see firsthand what’s so often hidden and guarded they might not lay out an exact plan for how to be healthy but they now know more of what the other fields needs even if their relationship Remains the Same the error has been cleared they don’t need to be equal they simply need to be what the other wants the way they got to recognize that was dramatic and almost cost each their life love is terrifying even experiencing something so great can drive harder home the feelings we wish to be rid of love was almost the last straw for them both the thing which proved how little they were because it’s so great we have to be careful with love detailing its ins and outs to make sure we aren’t losing sight of the fact that at the most basic level if we are part of something so great then we must be valuable love is terrifying because it means loving ourselves enough to be loved everything was so horribly dry even people’s hearts I always found myself wondering how and why could they possibly keep on living I think Trigon is my favorite look at the fear of Love though its main character of Ash’s Stampede is a wanted criminal known as the humanoid typhoon with an insane bounty on his head for the destruction caused wherever he’s found imagine to be sick twisted or sadistic the man we find is anything but he forgets to load his gun goes weak in the knees to the side of blood and scarfs down on Donuts he’s such a goof to the point where it seems unbelievable he could be such a feared outlaw but there’s more to Vash which explains his seemingly superhuman abilities in luck bash isn’t human rather he’s a plant a natural living source of energy the humanoid version of what powers the few remaining cities on this planet’s surface the civilizations which exist in any meaningful capacity have a plant and the almost concern of them all is keeping that important object up and running life itself on this world depends on what Vash is but this also makes him a danger While most of the destruction in vash’s Wake is the result of someone else blamed on him there are times where it is his unfortunate doing against his will his power can be brought out in his Angel arm and released into the wider World destroying entire cities and only a few brief moments it’s a torturous experience Vash at just his most bare nature is able to offer this world and its inhabitants so much but at the same time he can also take it all away without even wanting to or trying to he would be best in the form of the other plants tolls which can be used and maintained or keep locked away safe as such he wanders evap is mostly pneumatic returning to a few places but without ever really establishing a home staying in one place is simply too dangerous for the others there it can only live a peaceful life in solitude because of who he is and who others make him after the destruction of July he became the legendary Outlaw capable of flattening entire cities and worth 60 billion double dollars the sum of money he’s worth drives people mad as even towns who see him for the kind being he is turn on him for the money and chasing him down they destroy themselves shooting holes in their walls taking down their towers with rockets a self-inflicted destruction a round of Ash but not of his fault due to the greed of others the necessity of money the plans of villains or simple bad luck bash always ends up as the seeming Center of Destruction the wild destroys itself around him but he’s blamed for it so he goes anywhere and everywhere making sure to most often never remain too long but in this a Wonder arises why go near people at all bash isn’t constrained by Evolution or reproduction he has nothing within him calling out for the company of humans but he loves them anyway the tragedy of Ash’s character is that he’s insanely empathetic believing the words of his most influential figure REM that all life is valuable when you see his suffering he wants to fix it he knows he has the power to as someone who is above human limitations he throws himself into the Flames time and time again to help others never giving his own body a break it’s covered in scars with a fake arm and Patchwork metal holding it together the mark of every save he’s ever had is worn on him forever a physical cost he can only bear precisely because he isn’t human but still loves them Vash helps however he can whenever he arrives and when he’s done all he can he packs up and leaves that’s the only way he can ever express his love for their sake to reinforce this he plays Dom in the hopes it’ll seem like an accident he accidentally dances into hostage situations or hangs around dangerous places because of Attraction he plays the villain they want him to be once pretending to kill two star-crossed lovers hoping for escape so that they can do so in peace away from their forced obligations staying Forever on his name so that no one can know the truth whatever he can do to a shoe credit to make his name even worse he will do he doesn’t want people to love him back to get attached because if they knew how great he really was how much he could do and how much he helped they’d want to keep him around and that’s dangerous if he didn’t have a bounty they wouldn’t fear Him or force him to run away he needs to be seen as a fool to hate for the good of those he loves and sacrifices so much for most notably is Meryl over the course of the series her disdain for the goofy man drops for the exact reason he was afraid of as she and Millie chased the humanoid typhoon across all of this desert they witness how kind and caring he could be how much he loves and respect every life and how hard he tries and how he does so they get to see the real Vash a narrow falls in love with that but the man who can never be seen as he is it would be better if she kept hating him like she did at first so when bash knows how she feels he disappears without a word as often as possible the more reason she has to see him as a selfish the better the second time his Angel arm is forced to destroy a city she was even right there right in the thick of it because she was always around it’s nothing but trouble for her of course there’s some reason why Vash himself doesn’t want to get too attached either as a planet his lifespan is longer than humans already over 100 years old and without signs of aging for many years if Ash grew close with the people he loved so much settled down and stayed with them he’d have to watch every single one of them grow old and die he’d have to see all of their pain and never be able to solve any of it hurting himself the whole time endlessly and forever a witness to one of the harshest worlds ever where survival itself is a daily task he is the Observer of it all destined to see that which he loved destroyed at every turn the best thing not just for them but for him is to love as little as possible and yet he does no matter how much pain love inflicts on bash he never forgoes it no matter how much his foes use it to their advantage he never stalls on his ideals unless absolutely pushed and when he is absolutely pushed even when the man he’s forced to kill is genuine evil he cries love is often seen as terrifying because of how much we can get hurt from but Trigun shows that there’s also hurting others a fact which so often feels worse than hurting ourselves may not have hidden Angel cannons in our arms we may not cause chaos wherever we go but we are dangerous like Vash maybe more so because of how subtle it feels until the very moment it hits there is no big show of Lights contained within a few moments there’s only the chaos in our minds our emotions are our weapon simply by being Us by existing as we are just like him we run the risk of absolute Terror it’s because we can never help how other people feel the beauty of human life is in being unique and distinct from everyone around us a fresh entity which is only capable of witnessing the world through its own lens an interpretation Guided by a set of factors so complex no two people have ever or will ever be the same art music literature comedy none of these would interest us with the same mind love friendship and romance none of these would feel special if we were the same person but it also creates conflict because we fail to understand the realities of other people at a basic level we War we hate and we destroy we turned against our neighbors in those we don’t know alike and we’re ever changing the way we understand someone and feel about them now won’t be the same as it is in 10 years if we even still know them then what I’m getting at here is still that love is terrifying it’s terrifying because it’s a responsibility like no other we can’t help when someone else falls in love with us without trying the longing of a friend or the gays and acquaintance or unrequited emotions are not the domain of personal fault for the object of them if we took responsibility for our unique Natures which make us desirable then we’d all be scattered off in isolation but when we reciprocate when we have a hand in that love and then change or realize we feel different or learn that we didn’t even know what we were feeling to begin with suddenly we’re faced with our weapon aimed right at them there was a specific moment where this hit me for the first time it was almost five years ago now but it feels so much more like yesterday I’d been with someone for something like four months we met at college but over summer break we were two hours and 15 minutes away a route punctuated by a small sandwich shop at exactly halfway one marker of many on a route that’s forever burned into my mind with this distance we’d always swap who traveled on every other weekend trips it was the end of one of those the sweltering months of somewhere where my room was unbearably hot at night a fact which of course didn’t stop the human drive or physical connection I set up afterwards looking at the depressingly faint view of city lights in the distance from my window and for a moment acted out my desires of living life like a movie spilled a bit of my guts the motivations for what I wanted in life that I never tell anyone I didn’t just want to get closer to those lights I wanted to be the reason they existed I’ve reveled in the faint musk the linger in a way our bodies felt so uncomfortable together but remained bonded anyway a cool breeze rolling in every now and then to punctuate the moment as the only bit of relief it was quite Perfectly Imperfect the kind of scene I’d always imagined putting in my movie someday when she got in her car to leave the door propped open on her elbows we said goodbye I saw the look of absolute shock on her face as the few words instinctively slipped out I love you seeing the Panic that’s set in her eyes with a quick recoil my own instincts of tending to another kicked in I love you too a quiet relief seemed to wash over her and send her home with the kind of smile that accompanies her greatest fears going unproven the smile that stays occupying the mind too much to care about traffic or distance is as long as you’d normally skip play out anyway because nothing is of any concern as that overwhelming happiness is I felt it once before but right now I felt much different it was the moment I’d felt I became a monster I was used to saying instinctual I love used even if it was in a different context my mother ended every single conversation with the phrase since as long as I can remember which meant I’d been saying it without meaning it for most of my whole life from years of fighting at home emotional manipulation and abuse I knew that she didn’t deserve such a thing to be true saying it was just a procedure to maintain the peace when I think of that I remember how a few times I’ve actually said the phrase with meaning in my life I can’t remember a single time that me and my father had even exchanged the words any confirmation of the inherent Bond we’re forced to share is rare to come by even in the worst moments where emotion couldn’t be avoided when I turned that corner at the rehab facility and immediately saw how much of a toll the process took on his body the moment where I came out multiple times where multiple reasons due to necessity knowing that if I hid forever I wouldn’t be hiding for that long every time bawling my way through the words we sat or stood at the same distance that had separated us for years however far the couch is from that big chair there were a few times I heard said it meant those words though somewhere in the half finished basements of the most paper of towns where I grew up I sat anxiously my mind overcome with one single thought as any and every movie played out the role of background noise incomprehensible over my own mind will she say it back I was 16. the prior 15 years had been spent in a stupor of absurd awkwardness the only connections I had and maintained were from grade school I used to ask the teacher who could I be friends with and I’d stick with whoever they pointed me to one friend a year since I’d end up in a different class every year I panicked every time I was called on and saved my maybe seven sentences I spoke a day for that one friend my parents were divorced my mom worked nights so there was nothing at home to say what I’m getting at is that my connections were pretty thin the fact that I’d found someone and made an impression enough to start dating them was an amazing and a testament to how powerful Mutual interests can be we’re both in theater the first school activity I’d ever done and it gave us a lot of time together I asked her out a couple times the first time was only because word got around that I liked her because I told everyone and asked them what they thought and then people said she already knew so I had to ask in that very high school way and it led to a pretty clear rejection but a second try a few weeks later when I heard that maybe she was interested now in a very high school way and something like 1am and an after party for one of our shows and we were a thing everything we do of love we were learning together in those awkward interactions that followed all the way to the first time she said I love you seven months in the very same night I was debating so hard whether or not I should say it I was overjoyed I don’t think I’d ever felt so much relief in an instant I immediately said it back held her closer it’s meant the rest of that I unable to wipe that smile off my face and I imagine it was a lot like the one my partner would feel some five years later and that’s what terrified me in that moment I knew how good it felt I knew how much simple words and gestures from one person could mean to another a card from someone you don’t know is nice but it sits there for a few days and then goes in the trash but one from someone you love like that it goes in the special box under the bed you keep for silly memories knowing one day you’ll both look back on it and reminisce about the good old days that led you here together it’s knowing but not knowing that’s what I did with my high school girlfriend like I said we were learning love from each other we both had divorced parents who remarried but with shaky relationships even then my mom would be divorced again only a few years later I think about that a lot I think what if I’d been less resistant what if I’d learned from my father’s mistakes and been kind to someone I was supposed to share a bond with NATO’s two wouldn’t have had so much tension between them to divorce if I was a bit more kind that’s just wishful thinking though anyway the point is that neither of us knew what it meant so when it turned from puppy love honeymoon into tell me exactly where you are leave your friends because I hate them don’t sit too close to me or talk unless I say so I just thought that’s what love was you give everything to someone so I guess losing everything wasn’t that big of a deal it was just natural we watched our movies and went with her friends and paid attention to her and her needs and with no frame of reference emotional manipulation was just what love looked like it was better than the fights my parents had which left holes in the doors little reminders I’d pass by every day saying what you have must not be that bad then instead marry someone who actively hated me riding the high of that real first I love you she was my life present and future with the past clearly given up when we were good I could manage life I’d wake up and go to school and exist so I could go to hers after but when it seemed like things might end I couldn’t do anything I stayed at home laying in bed with Comfort shows to drown out any and every thought that could enter my mind except for when I got around to cutting myself up a bit in the hopes it would let her know that I was hurting too no I wasn’t quite clean in all of this either I didn’t know how to say what I was feeling and I wasn’t trying to learn I thought talking about anything addressing it and bringing it into frame would just lead to things ending because we realized how awful they were so I did my own bit of manipulation too I was weak reliant on her hate I need something to live for even if it was that and things ended a few times and started back up a few times creating a roller coaster of life until the final one for a few months at a time each time I would shut down overcome by such a minor grave that seemed like the whole world because to me it really was I learned how easily love could make and break all that we are it’s a big part of why it terrifies me even to this day I’m weak it can overcome everything I know in an instant when I instinctively said I love you again for the first time since then five years later in college I couldn’t handle the feeling suddenly I had taken a responsibility that changed the relationship I had to reciprocate to a high degree I had taken on the emotions of another out of the bad habits farm from my youth the instinctual I love you now I couldn’t ignore that I was a huge part of her world there was no more plausible deniability no way I could act like it was no big deal I knew that look because I felt that look I knew the power I had and I I didn’t want it I was just living out some stupid movie fantasy of hot summer nights content to be finding my way through however long a random College relationship would be and now it was more I never recognized it up until that point and well not even until after that point but I was afraid of loving someone after high school and after being used as an emotional outlet for people with terrible Partners many times since I think the switch flipped that moment when I stopped caring and just went for it when someone I was in love with reciprocated for one day and then backed out with the text the next the exact exact moment was probably when I was buying cough syrup to abuse so I could fall asleep that night missed my turn off exit slammed the car into reverse and floored it backwards to reach that exit again luckily it was late in the small town Highway was empty but it’s like the literal impact of that break in Reverse is what flipped the switch divorced parents twice emotional abuse a balance from every form of love it sucked I hated it it only hurt I didn’t want to love anyone I just wanted my movie moments but I never knew I was afraid of being loved too until someone for the first time truly loved me looked at me like the whole world and treated me like it too shut me off to their friends to their family took a picture of all the moments to remember planned their life around me maybe should get her Masters at the school back where I lived so we could stay together someone was willing to change the entire course of their life for me I what was I supposed to do with that some more or less twerp from nowhere Paper Town trudging their way through a degree they didn’t want holding on to the hope that they weren’t wrong and transferring schools to keep making YouTube videos for 20 subscribers with their best friend who by the time they got to that school they hated them I had nothing I was nothing I wasn’t worthy of changing someone’s life all those words just an excuse not to care the responsibility got to me I started to panic I couldn’t handle ruining the life of someone heading in such a positive direction graduating early and prepping for a masters to get a job that would actually help people face to face what if because of me she never got to do that what if lovingly kept her from helping all those people she would because she is someone nice and kind and caring and who loves and is worthy of love all for someone who so clearly wasn’t who so clearly isn’t I kept finding excuses not to end it though there were weddings and birthdays and finals there was always some reason not to end it yet not to ruin their life yet but I knew I had to I knew that when they introduced me to all their kind and caring friends for their birthday and I left early staffers staying silent the whole time so I could work on a project that I would only make things worse to keep going becoming like the one who manipulated me all those years ago coming to hate someone but keeping them anyway I couldn’t do that but either way it hurt maybe it would be better to torture myself forever crying alone than I had to destroy someone’s world than actually doing it and that is the most I’ve ever cried that’s how weak I am how little I can handle other people’s pain the thought of breaking someone’s heart of putting them through the dark sobbing showers and lifeless days in bed I knew would something I couldn’t even handle the thought of I cried more when I finally said it to her too I cried afterwards when I had to think of her crying all alone I cried a lot and cheated too two people and some of the worst moments of their life because I had let myself be loved so I never wanted to do it again every relationship past that point I tanked at the first hint of danger I wanted them to feel anger at me to hate me and turn that energy into something else so they wouldn’t cry alone I turned into a workaholic telling people who feel for me that I couldn’t I just didn’t have the time for them and even when I did like someone I wouldn’t show it I would never say it I’d be Lively and fun on dates but I wouldn’t text back for days until they found me worthless I’d be lying on the chest and feel the vibrations of the way they said the words I can’t tell if you like me or not that was the point you idiot I didn’t want you to know ing was dangerous knowing meant pain was on the horizon no one I just didn’t want to know but don’t get me wrong the isolation and self-hate wasn’t enough to keep the monster in love is too strong to be penned in like that eventually I was forced out of that shell a friend paid for me to follow him on vacation and act so kind and so already paid for them I couldn’t say no and was forced to let down that barrier of I can’t and experience the world again for the first time in years I met someone hundreds of miles away and fell in love in that one single night staying up until 2 A.M on a Monday night looking for anywhere that was open to get out of the cold and keep talking trying every place seeing them closed or so slow or not having enough staff and eventually winding up with some under construction hole in the wall pizza place that we had to get and take back to the hotel I was at but couldn’t take her into the room because my friends were staying in the room asleep already and one of those nights never forget but it ended I’d never see them again after they walked down that long hole shamefully I even forgot their name because I only asked once didn’t remember I don’t even have a name two nights later I became that for someone else I went out met someone and proved myself that I was someone who could be loved like I just felt the issue wasn’t me but really it was them who proved it to the shower serenade the way they looked at me with every word the hope they had that even with so much distance soon to be between us things would somehow turn into something I’ll always remember how they said they wanted a place designed for fun and memories but could only feel that they missed me I purposefully became the object of a painful longing from my own ego but that’s a story as long as this whole video for another time I am a monster of love it terrifies me it’s the most worrisome part of this human existence I have to live I’ve loved and been hurt been loved and hurt felt too worthless forward and used it to feel worthwhile and knowing all of this saying all these words here today acknowledge the weapon and wielded it purposefully it’s the source of my worst days and my best how I lifted others up and tore them down just the same it’s my greatest fear in so many ways and yet and yet here I am always giving it another try it’s even scarier for that it’s such a worthwhile thing it’ll make us risk the ends of our worlds and others all over again and again and again it’s something so dangerous that we can’t live without it I’m not telling you that the fear of it should say you should avoid it I’m telling you it’s a fear that we have to confront I’m telling you that that’s the only choice we ever have we will love and be loved no matter what and we deserve to be loved in Love no matter what embracing it is the only choice we have foreign …