Not loving, or not not loving well, is cowardice. Love is a respite from death. Do we fear death, or do we fear life? Do we ignore death, never feeling it’s approaching fangs on the back of our necks? Do we ignore life, looking for a constant state of distraction, so we can slip into moments when we forget that we are supposed to be living?
I’d rather fight than love. Love is a surrender. It’s the ego dissolving and creating space for someone else’s energy to fill you up.
Cowardice. Not loving is cowardice. Not doing is cowardice. Not becoming is cowardice. Seeking constant stimulus is cowardice. Obsessions with distractions is cowardice. Not looking death square in the face is cowardice . . . Not loving is cowardice . . . Not loving well is cowardice.
I will not look at her again. I won’t. I’m okay with being a— . . . No. I cannot say that honestly. I do not wish to be a coward. I wish I was brave. I want to have courage. I will not look at her again, but I will not stay a coward.
Is doing nothing the most cowardly thing we can do? Is freezing in the light-beam of love the worst thing we can do? Who’s to say, and who’s to judge? Not me. Definitely not me.
It is as simple and as complicated as wanting to be alive or wanting to die. To love is to live and to be a coward is to die. It is as simple and as complicated as that.
Shit. I snuck a glance at her again. I can’t even be an honest coward. Being a dishonest coward is hard to stomach.
Being too aware of yourself is a maze you’ll be fated to wander in for a while.
I will not look at her again. I will not. She deserves someone who isn’t this cowardly.
I am scared to leave, scared to run, because I am afraid of what I’ll miss if I run. But I am also scared to take action and go talk to her. I am stuck in stasis. Stuck in limbo. And I recently seared a motto into my soul.
Nothing changes if nothing changes . . .
It is supposed to be seared into my soul . . .
Nothing changes if nothing changes . . .
Meaning that it is up to us to change our lives. If I wish to be more than a coward then I must take on the responsibility to change. I must make change happen.
What a silly game. I’ve watched it from the sidelines for most of my life. It looks silly from here. It feels nerve-racking. It feels exciting. What a silly game. Stay a coward or become more. My character needs to level up. I need to grow. I need to change my own life profoundly.
But, of course, I walked away. I gathered up my things and paced outside for a few minutes.
Hemingway spoke to me—tortured me. That man thinks I am a coward. I don’t care if he died, he still thinks I am a coward. He won't let me stay like this. So I pace back and forth and think. I think. And I don’t know if it helped me or tore me down.
Yesterday my cousin said that my aunt thinks I write like Hemingway. I almost get it. I don’t have a big vocabulary. And I don’t have the technical skills that other writers have. I also write big emotions. I also bleed on the keys; and maybe that’s why I can’t get him out of my head this morning; and also, my brother asked me what books Hemingway wrote this morning—which was strange because he’s never cared about literature before; but he admitted he was trying to impress a woman.
He was also a fighter, like I am. Hemingway.
I haven’t read him since I was a teenager. I preferred the European authors over the Americans. Something about the American style and the western mind is hard to swallow. A tragic sort of life drives these authors. And the women they chase leave them wanting. There is something disturbingly honest about the Americans. Something blunt. They’ll beat you over the head with their tragedies.
It feels as if the universe is attempting to pound a lesson into my stubborn skull today. So I let go and let it smack me repeatedly in the head. I know that this is the right time for this lesson. It can finally sink in through the skull and make a home in my soul. It is a lesson on love—something I’ve desperately wanted to stumble into.
The soundtrack playing through my headphones confirms the pounding.
One must be humbled in order to genuinely learn something new.
To let go is to be free, but letting go of who you are is terrifying . . . I’ve worked so hard to become this, and now I am asked to let it fade away?
These lessons aren’t easy. The ego rages against them.
To love truly is probably the lesson. To surrender. To let go. To be brave in the face of love. To voluntarily submit.
Today, I will let the winds of nature; the whims of God; the flow of the universe; take me where they want to.
Today, I will submit to the forces that are bigger than myself.
What will you do?
. . .
(Midnight In Paris: the movie)
Gil: Hi, Mr. Hemingway.
Ernest Hemingway: The assignment was to take the hill. There were four of us, five if you counted Vicente, but he had lost his hand when a grenade went off and couldn't fight as could when I first met him. And he was young and brave, and the hill was soggy from days of rain. And it sloped down toward a road and there were many German soldiers on the road. And the idea was to aim for the first group, and if our aim was true we could delay them.
Gil: Were you scared?
Ernest Hemingway: Of what?
Gil: Of getting killed.
Ernest Hemingway: You'll never write well if you fear dying. Do you?
Gil: Yeah, I do. I'd say probably, might be my greatest fear, actually.
Ernest Hemingway: It's something all men before you have done, all men will do.
Gil: I know, I know.
Ernest Hemingway: Have you ever made love to a truly great woman?
Gil: Actually, my fiancé is pretty sexy.
Ernest Hemingway: And when you make love to her you feel true and beautiful passion. And you for at least that moment lose your fear of death.
Gil: No, that doesn't happen.
Ernest Hemingway: I believe that love that is true and real creates a respite from death. All cowardice comes from not loving, or not loving well, which is the same thing. And when the man who is brave and true looks death squarely in the face, like some rhino hunters I know, or Belmonte, who's truly brave. It is because they love with sufficient passion to push death out of their minds, until it returns as it does to all men. And then you must make really good love again. Think about it.
(The above dialogue between Ernest Hemingway and Gil was not written by me. It Is from a fantastic film titled, Midnight In Paris.)
CH 8/12/24
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