I love what I want

My friend Tom Volkar brought up the issue of love in regards to work. Should we pursue work we love or is it better that we do what we want? To get a deeper understanding of where I am coming from, I suggest you visit Tom's fabulous essay 'Loving Your Work is Overrated.' Now.

Here's my response:

Thank you, Tom, for shamelessly plugging my book! Your kind compliments are making me blush.

Roughly 50% of our marriages end in divorce, and we are falling out of love at an even higher rate. Love has a poor track record, especially as the basis for a flourishing long term business relationship with oneself.

Granted, love doesn't always look like Tom Cruise jumping up and down on Oprah's sofa. But elements of insanity or at least manic behavior are lurking in the shadows of every romance. We love being in love to a level of addiction, and here is the opening to unavoidable pain. Our love for love usually dissolves it ... if we are lucky.

Unless we talk about love for our brats, that is--but that kind of caring is hardwired into our DNA. Any damned ostrich can do that.

Love is a terminal illness. Your love will end or it will end you. Love can literally kill people, and it is healthy to keep in mind that most homicides take place between individuals who once loved each other.

When we are tired of "loving" destruction and self-destruction, we can simply resolve the relationship entirely or we may opt for transmuting this mushy monstrum into something of durable consistency: able partners can transcend seizures of love and derive from it what they WANT!

Decades ago I loved my work. I was on a mission ("They're not gonna catch us. We're on a mission from God." --Blues Brothers), and I didn't believe that this love could end. The stuff we love is fraught with too much meaning. You mentioned 'the horns of angels:' "If the horns of angels and blinding white light don't announce their epiphanies, they often question their discoveries."

Frequent questioning of our discoveries is an integral part of a healthy mental diet. People get heart attacks over the impertinent self-importance that's covered up by their calling. Yep, God's Will can be a severe case of covert hubris. It serves us well to relax and to re-discover the playful character of old fashioned trial and error.

Beginning a new business venture can be fun. What's so wrong with lust? And if it works, why wouldn't you want to continue?

Today, I embrace the fact that I am somewhat detached from my projects. Distance makes the heart grow fonder? It does. Emotional distance supports free choice and thickens your bond with everything you really want.

The next occurrence of love is likely going to be a temporary phenomenon. Worse, our love suspends free will. Freedom of choice is impaired by love, and that can be as sickening as a commitment. Apropos, commitment to psychiatric wards is usually perpetrated by--you guessed correctly--loved ones, in the name of love. Is the sleepiest Saint out there finally snapping to attention?

'Doing what we love' is just another holy cow on the chopping block: ultimately we don't do anything we don't want. Feelings and emotions are always subject to our will. The baby boomers have used their sacred feelings as the most powerful tool to manipulate and to subjugate their environment. The infatuation of a teenager is an intense expression of what she wants.

So is our love and our hatred for our work.

Egbert Sukop


P.S.: Are you twittering yet? Follow me on twitter.com at http://twitter.com/esukop

P.P.S.: And don't forget to visit Amazon to purchase a copy of my book 'How to Better Hate Your Job' at http://tinyurl.com/dyal4y