If you see a faded sign by the side of the road...

I started reading Slapstick, by Kurt Vonnegut, last night.

On the second page is written "Love was never at issue... I find it natural to discuss life without ever mentioning love." Naturally this stopped me and made me ponder matters for a while.

There was a time when I might've been able to think the same way... Back in year 10 and 11, although I had my fair share of random infatuations, some fleeting, some abiding, I was nonetheless entirely resigned to - even somehow smugly happy with - the belief that I would never find myself in any kind of mutual loving situation until, I figured... Probably my late 20s. Now obviously at the end of year 11 that belief was thoroughly, and completely unexpectedly blown apart.

Since then the idea of considering life without reference to love has been completely incomprehensible. My mind was always plagued with questions along the lines of whether I was "truly" in love or not, what love really amounts to, whether it could be trusted to last for ever, whether it can survive without continual fortification, whether it would change me, whether I could escape it unscathed (I guess not), whether it is necessarily, or preferably monogamous, what the relationship between love, intimacy and friendship is... Etc, etc.

Now, of course, my mind is still plagued by matters of love, to a much greater degree, though mostly of a different nature... How quickly can love die, how completely can love die, can friendship exist after love, whether a new love can or must replace an old one, whether its possible/unwise to create love through mental effort, whether its possible/unwise to resist an emerging love through mental effort... Etc, etc.

The point is just that I can no longer think of life without love, its absence, or nature, or whatever, playing some role. The character Oliver, in Julian Barnes' fabulous book Talking It Over, divides all people into those who "think that the principal melody of life is love, and that everything else... Is merely an etc," and those "unhappy many" who "believe primarily in the etc of life." I'm somewhat worried, and somewhat pleased, that I might've moved from being among the latter to the former... Unless I've always been here, but used to suppress those feelings. Either way, I certainly find myself unable to now. To quote Robert Palmer, I might as well face it, I'm addicted to love. (Except of course, that song is obviously just about sex.)

Unfortunately, I have to disagree with Oliver's judgement of the latter group as an "unhappy many." I'm not entirely convinced that my old, blissfully ignorant state wasn't the better way to be. Is it really better to have loved and lost?

Of course, these are just the rantings of a 19 year old boy. Perhaps when I'm dignified and old I too won't see the big deal about love. Again, I'm not sure if that would be a good thing or bad. But I somehow don't think it'll ever really happen to a great extent. Vonnegut had a Great Depression, World War, Cold War, and tendency toward mental illness to stifle his instinct for love...

Anyway, to bring this post to a much-needed close, his capacity to start me thinking about things within just a few lines is just one of the many things that make Vonnegut my absolute favourite author. If you haven't read anything by him, I seriously recommend you do. I started with Sirens Of Titan, and it really fabulatorised me.