1984

:: 1984 ::

George Orwell's 1984. Winston Smith was the protagonist, and Winston Smith was in love with a woman named Julia. It was an unerring love; it was pure, it was loyal, it was unconditional. Even when faced with his own death, he chose to honour his love and refused to denounce this woman. But when the authorities tortured him by caging his face with four live rats, he caved in. As it turns out, death was not his fear - rats were. The prospect of the beady-eyed, yellowed-teeth creatures gnawing at his eyes destroyed all romantic nobility. He denouned Julia. The oldest calling of life - love - could not compete with the strongest one - fear. But fear does not stem from irrationality. Fear comes from a instrinsic core within each of us - the self-serving, interest-seeking person. We're selfish and egoistical, and evolution - of the society, of the individuals, of the physical body - has only strengthened that into an inevitability.

We're all selfish. Love is not altruistic. It's not beatific. It exists because it serves our interests. We are enslaved to it, we're rejected by it, we're chained to its whims and facies - but only because it suits us.

(I'm embarrassed that the only reference I'm making to one of the best literary works - its premise is on totalitarian control of the state - of the last millenium is about love. How disgustingly typical.)

***
To my fellow urban poet,

I have almost forgotten what it was like to really laugh, really laugh, until last Friday. It was the best nightI had in a long time, where conversations had no beginning or end, function or meaning - we talked because we wanted to, and the result was the exhausting fulfillment of cartharsis.

Kiss time and it'll make up, because there's no other way.