Fools in Love

Let's not fool ourselves. We've all been had. 

In honor of this Valentine's Day (as if I hadn't read that certain Roman officials changed the calendars so that they could remain in power longer), and as if every other wise man (the honest ones) hadn't already warned me, Only fools rush "in love." We all are, to an extent, fools when it comes to love. It actually kind of dumb you down. Simply put, when you're in love, you can't think straight. Under the debilitating spell of an array of emotions, these elusive but alluring moments secretly shared thrills us, the excitement of seeking out that which obsesses and capture our imagination, it beckons, it compels us.
Nothing was said about those things and that's perhaps the best policy when it comes to past, present and anything in-between lovers. 

It's like a role you play in any way you look at it; except, some argue, if you're aware that you can see yourself in the play and logically choose the right path according to a calculated input, then it's cheating. When you choose shoes, you wear them to see if the fit is comfy, you ask for your size, and you choose the style, but not when it comes to love. In love, you get to wear shoes that are two sizes smaller, and do so with a smile; we're rather cave-dwellers suddenly awe-struck by a blinding torrent of light. We turn to ourselves for council as if our judgment were truly partial.
You can always implement a different course of action, even if it's for just a change of pace. This is where freedom lies: not just in the realization but also in the ability to push forth, to put a dent on the status quo and claim ourselves out of deplorable states of mind. Whenever we cave in and succumb to such, often all it takes is a shift in your perception and the reality in front of your very eyes is uplifted and transcended. Beings will evolve, for better or worse; either we adapt to the changing tides, impart our mission and move fluidly towards our most fixated objectives, our most promising goals, or else it withers and dies. It doesn't require genius: the goal itself is not the point; it's having goals, minuscule as these may seem, the moral fabric woven through laces of goodwill and thorough determination. It may require a degree of shamelessness, of being naked and crude, no matter the cause it will unravel, it'll unsettle some, it will astonish others.
I met Natasha in South Beach, one-night stand turned into a steady fuck-spree over the course of four months. She was the good girl in the group, her two female friends having deserted her to go get their freak on, and she had kept a standoffish attitude by the bar that fended off low-status males who tried to covet and pique her interest sending a drink, a smile, a look from a prudent distance. Instead I walked right into her domain without making it about her. It wasn't pretense; I didn't play aloof. It was really as close as a take-it-or-leave-it kind of deal, either way it wouldn't faze me. I ordered a drink and pretentiously unpretentious put my back to the bar, facing the frenzy mob that engulfed the dancing floor. Initially, I walk with the certainty that there are no hidden agendas, at least not of the sexual kind. My mouth speaks of trivial things, plain nonetheless insightful observations, a force to be reckoned, poised, eloquent, tasteful, fit, tall, stout, broad shoulders, immaculate clean, handsome man. Irresistible, yes. And so, when the time comes, I lead her to the dance floor, no questions asked. Maybe we did exchange a couple of clever sentences that she'll find fun, somehow Natasha felt both at ease and disturbed, in her own words: "Scary good."
As she played the role of resisting temptation, I persuaded her to come back to my place for a quick make-out session after which, I promised, I'd kick her out or she can lay down next to me in bed. "Sleep, just sleep, between compatible strangers is just as alluring, if not more, than sex with actual partners. Nothing is as intense as those first encounters, and nothing as strong and irrevocably desirable as giving in to each other: the first look, the first touch, the first kiss. Temptation we have too much of; it's succumbing to it that transcends the mundane, childish infatuation, and open up what initially seems like a Pandora's box, but in actuality is an insurmountable source of pleasure.
We went back to the motel I stayed in. Her bed was bigger, memory foam mattress, so that you could jump on it as a mug of coffee rests still nearby. Instead my bed was one shade of comfort above prison-grade and its foundation cricked as I pounded her legs up high, held in place by my abdomen and chest, as I pinned her down as her arms were immobilized by my hands, locked eyes buried just as deep into one another, lift her up with ease after pulling up your own weight in chin-ups at home, a ratio of ten to twenty reps, five sets, enough to lift any woman under two hundred pounds and keep her suspended there, until I change positions. Make her feel my strength, mindful that she's a fragile creature but rough enough so that she feels in the presence of a larger, meaner, almost predatory animal-like man.
Now, wait. We used the last condom I had and so I rushed to the nearby pharmacy. I walked the first block unassuming and then ran across the avenue, picked up a box some kind of thin latex and got back to the motel in under three minutes, sprinting back and forth. Enhanced senses, heightened state of mind, all thanks to a a few minutes under intense physical exertion.
Explosive mini-workouts throughout the day complement the short periods spent daily at the gym lately. In periods of minimum activity, I'd still conduct these rituals: pull-ups, chin-ups; push-ups; squats; abs. You can get by if you devise a workout plan that targets the three major muscle groups, upper, middle and lower anatomical parts. In other words, hit your legs, midsection and upper body. Two or three different exercises for each muscle group; it requires no more than five to ten minutes top at a time, and you spread it throughout the course of a day in some eight sets or more, no less. For instance, drop to the floor and do as many push-ups as you can in under a minute, then repeat twice more; later on, or at that very moment, if you have the time and will to, you'll do the same for your legs. Sedentary moments, like sitting in front of a computer or a smart TV, you can do sit-ups for the duration of commercials.

I had more than one orgasm in me. She had plenty more than in just one, for starters. She was the shy kind, sweet and quiet so I was kind fucking her brains out. We didn't come from the same worlds; she belonged to a breed of highly independent women, owned her place in a condo upper east side, and was in the best shape of her life. That's what most attracted me to her; there was like a hot teacher quality look to her wit and switching like a knob light gradually from lights on to lights out.


Retreat from who you are at this moment in time and take a look at how seriously you take your role. You may have places to go to, people to see, but that which makes little sense which is awe-striking and makes you wanderlust when you have a fear of heights, is the only foolproof subterfuge. The only escape sometimes is to come to a complete standstill and surrender all your forces. When you confront your fears, look dead into its eyes. Be prepared: the enemy will only seek out your weak spots. How do you get from being afraid of flying (only in the initial moments after departures, ten minutes later in the air I'm at ease) and turn it into part of the adventure of a trip? Well, you have to want things more than you fear them. Even at that, I'd seat myself on a plane, meditate and conquer. Don't listen to your fear; and certainly don't listen to your proverbial heart. The pleasure voice is a repressed child that always wants to have its way and do as it pleases, regardless of ethics, rid of sentiment; cruelty devoid of logic. 

You can to become a source of joy, so be joyous. But how? Happiness isn't assured; on the contrary, you can't fall asleep on one's laurels; nothing should make us more enlivened than waking up with a purpose, have a to-do list for that day; mandatory among activities meditation and exercise. And nothing makes us happy for long with the same intensity, passion may mutate into comfort and trust, from passionate love to the compassionate kind. You should avoid marrying someone you're madly in love with, at least not for the time being. Consider romantic love as a bug that partially robs you of the ability to logically discern, your brain can feel as elated and high as is under cocaine.
Often we're lured into loving another after having fallen in love first, and that rarely is a good idea. Under the effect of an unrivaled feeling, the chemical agents that induce that deplorable state of being known as "in love", you're prone to make mistakes but never like when you're in love. 

Picture your lust for life as a beast you have to learn to deal with. It's not a domestic animal, so it can't be given the privileges of pets. It's more like a vermin, you have to keep your distance from and not toy around with. The more serene your approach towards the opposite sex, the more that this approach creates a sense of acceptance, let everything and everyone around you infect you with their hilarity; relaxed yet tense discomfort, do not let them get too comfortable around you, let them dazzle you with their wit, and deploy your very own charismatic arsenal so that you can inflict some damage on an intersocial level. 

Women and men alike will only respect your strength (physicality, vigor) and fortitude (mental or emotional fitness, strength of the mind)... so be fit and be smart, read, cultivate, grow, fall madly in love, you only regret things left undone. 

These experiences we face daily should be encouraging and amenable, the world we inhabit comes to us through the gates of our mind, the concept we devise before making a projection. Everything from within; nothing without. Just as we should choose our battles carefully, do so with your lovers. They'll know you're a special club when you never go back to what's dead, if it's dead bury it; no need to let it rot. If its suffering is greater than whatever joy might be left and the end is inevitable, then be done with it. You may not agree, but I wouldn't spend another sentence trying to persuade you otherwise. Already, I said, that the writer sometimes works under the illusion that its words are being read (and, no doubt, most will eventually be read) but by whom? And to what conclusions? Who will personify our angst? Who will incarnate and resurrect what's left, and to what end or else to what extent am I deluded? Voiced-in entities surface and if you aren't vigilant they might get to you. It's not hard to overreact when hardwired emotions such as lust, fear or anger often override logic, bypass reason, rule with impunity. These state-of-minds run rampant in our mind; you evolve from a wooden vessel loose canons no longer represent a threat to a smartship. For that you first must engineer a path and the tools that you'll need to deploy and the people that will meet such demand will augment. Such endeavor requires detailed and in-depth planning, however, the more textures and intricate simplicity, tacit in its complexity, the more depth and structure affixed. You get to train your inner dragon and domesticate it enough to have it pass off as civil and yet strike a venomous blow, stick your reptilian-brain pangs into your prey and slowly devour it; midway raw and well-done, just right. 

The reason I look for allusions is that these are entities we can recognize easily in others yet fail to see in ourselves. Emotions that evoke an immediate reaction should be subject. Best to adapt our response to having little, if any, reaction. We can't control others, let alone determine their wicked ways; we can only deter such abuse by being indifferent to nonsense, composed in times of crisis, coolly responsive and collected but vigorously involved in a situation that may deem a more aggressive approach. Even at that, the key issue is self-restraint, learning to extract yourself from the situation and see things objectively, impersonally, keep to yourself. 

Of course, that's not to say that you can't enjoy the company of others. All things in moderation, sometimes to the point of excess, let us indulge in pagan and selfish endeavors, cheat on death, borrow ideas and awaken the lulled senses, inspire awe, bordering on insanity and downright recklessness. Others will challenge you even when they lead unexamined lives, they'll have something to contribute and if they've fallen asleep, a thunderous light will brighten their grayish existences. If only for a while, you can give of yourself to others, the very best in the briefest of ways. They'll see how you have higher standards, do first put them in place, dress neatly, take charge, don't be afraid to be human. 

And so, the faster we learn to tame the beast of our desire, sometimes, like an indestructible villain coming in and out of existence, we get to kill it. Except perhaps it isn't like a beast; it's more like weed. Just gotta weed them out every so often, tend to your garden, plant the seed, lay it on a fertile ground, satiate its thirst, expose to plenty of sunlight and it'll flourish. Unlike trees, our evolutionary cousins, we migrate, annihilate one another, create chaos out of thin air for the lightest slight. Here are some ground rules: tame your ego and you shall be free. The ego is not all bad, such thing as a healthy ego, you may have heard. And as a writer, who can hear if not one of the voices inside, the one reserved for posterity, or is it the one that believes that there will be someone else reading this? There's also the voice that knows that, as of now, I am only deluding myself: no one hears other than the tapping of the keys on this affordable 13-inch full HD Asus Chromebook. 

Now pay closer attention and unto a platform of possibilities sit the posit that all you see is nothing but a mere fraction of a whole that composes yourself and that that self, in and of itself, is only a fragment of an evolving link that lace one moment after the other, in a momentary lapse of incidences, a psyche mimicry that animates the delusion of a continuum when the de facto mechanism in place often manifests as a force of habit, the illusion that in going from what we once were and into who we now are somehow took one giant quantum leap. It took more than what it takes; it is taking as it took and it will take as it has taken, in all forms and directions, as we are, we once were, and we will always be in flux. No past, no present, no future, a whole of sorts all collapsed and merged unto a singularity of events that make things either interesting or nay, allotted memories, or out of chance perhaps. Nothing is coincidental; what's more, we cannot always read in between the strings, so thread mindfully. 

These candid thoughts may not constitute light but fear no darkness either. Let's be fat and lazy, says no one, suits most souls. We all know what steps to take in order to make it out of this mess; those who don't, wouldn't go on reading, wouldn't have made it thus far in these writings and if by chance they happen to stumble upon this sentence, the very next moment they'll revert to their decadent ways: sloth and ignorance.