Love & War

Why do we like pain?

Why do we pursue what confuses and makes us angry?

Why is it so exhilarating and thrilling when we are confused and momentarily set back?

I think it is our instinct to be enchanted with the stories of humanity; it is inbred in us to be heroes and victorious, to hope when we see no hope; to thrill when we are in a fight. I don't understand it in other people -- I don't understand my dad and Little Sister, who sometimes make eachother crazy and who consistently find the optimism to try again without any diminishment in the reckless fondness they possess for one another whenever they are not squabbling. I do not understand it, because I am nothing like that: my relationships are tepid and cautious, non-confrontational, mildly sentimental, and reasonably formal. I never fight with anybody, and I never fight with myself about anybody. I do not at all understand my boss who, in all of his marriages, has been with the same person: critical, unimpressed, combative, querulous, and strictly out of love except for in brief, petulant moments of hopeless, irresistible, crazy, affection. I am mild you know: I don't torment folks, and I don't like people who torment me; I am baffled by anger and I try consistently to either defer or give the benefit of the doubt, until it is almost impossible to make me lash out about anything to anyone. I don't understand witchy women at work, who are forward and ugly, who take liberties and boss folks around and criticize them unabashedly to promote themselves so shamelessly that they cannot be liked by anyone, but are slowly given greater positions and coddled by managers who love that security is as easy as hiring an insufferable secretary. I am a model employee: I never question the wrong decisions; I support my boss by quietly suggesting alternatives when I must; I smile, and take wrongs; I am sweet--I am so incredibly sweet--and I choose humility. I have as many opinions as anybody, but absolute control over them.

I hate all of these things in everybody, and I hate all of these things in myself. I see how being a good girl is never as rewarding as being a prodigal; and I see how the goodish boys always fall in love with the girls who they can hate as often as they can love; I can see that conflict is so much more exciting than peace, and yet I cannot seem to stop being given to peace. Lately, I have broken my rules about all of this. I have written to my lifelong guy friend, although I keep disapproving of him more and more as he continues to hurt me more and more. Every time I hear from him I think, he is the worst! I am never talking to him again!--and every time I am five minutes off, I think, If I try a little bit harder, I can fix this. It seems like each time I am defeated I am more disgusted with myself, but each attempt, however futile, keeps me alive, until I am actually convinced that I can change things. That if I try, if I keep trying and hoping, things will be better. After all of those years of friendship I finally hate him as often as I am glad to know him, and it is awful, and terrible, and lovely, and exhilarating. I am the same way with everything that I cannot understand. I love my horrible former boss the longer she resists God, because I am convinced that it will work someday. I am exhausted with people whom I do not understand, and I claim to be so aloof and impervious to the wild joys of untamed people, but eventually, I am just like them. I love the chase and the story; I love the chance that I will be new and different, that I will change somebody. Do you suppose that, after all, the story is behind everything?

Why, again, do we love pain? Why do we find conflict so exciting and dashed dreams so exhilarating? I think that it is within us to be more enchanted with stories than anything else: to thrill at the struggle and to rejoice in the fights because ultimately we love battles (however so awful) better than we like endings (however so happy).