Love in the time of Oligarchy

"One of the first things we discover in these groups is that personal problems are political problems. There are no personal solutions at this time. There is only collective action for a collective solution". — Carol Hanisch, The Personal Is Political (1969)

Love, for me, has been glorious and terrifying in excess. It’s a pool filled with lilies, and no matter how pretty the water looks, drowning is still drowning when you don’t know how to swim.

I am a romantic, and that’s pathetic. Embarrassing, even. The theatrics of new love make me nauseous — yet you’ll see me dancing in a pink dress. Being seen is even worse. I want to be lost and invisible, but I’d be lying if I said I haven’t prayed to be found.

Love is an act of political warfare. There are manifestos and voting systems where you pick your partners, keep them on a term, and if they don’t wash the dishes well or make you upset, you vote them out. There is a will to protest and the urgency to oppose. It's a neatly woven democratic engine. And above all, love is a choice.

I’m making this sound choice to fall in love again. Again? My third attempt. I wouldn’t count the ones that showed me great times but left my heart unscathed. Let’s just say I wouldn’t count the boring ones. My therapist would argue I find stability dull, to which I’d argue, “It’s not good for my art.”

You are theatrical. Yes, you. Are the dimples there yet? You use your hands to explain something politically complex, and touch as a way to assert your soft presence. You are gentle. Your hands are strong, but they move like feathers. You don’t speak much about your family, but you’re sincere when you do. You lower your tone when you apologise. You speak with your eyebrows. Your eyes have smile lines that mimic the soft ridges of sand dunes. You haven’t cried in front of me. You challenge me — and you’re open to taking a punch. You laugh from your heart, and you observe me like your life depends on it.

The process of falling in love is a performance. You’re up for humiliation or acceptance you’ve never known before. Your heart runs through a confusing spectrum of emotions, and I dare you to name even one of them. I am confused, excited, terrified, happy, angry, upset, elated. Embarrassed.

There’s a letter Charles Darwin sent to Joseph Hooker in January 1862 after receiving a package of orchids. “Good heavens,” Darwin wrote about the Angraecum sesquipedale, an orchid from Madagascar with a nectary as long as his forearm, “what insect can suck it?” He theorised there must exist a moth with a tongue longer than any ever observed — that the moth and the orchid must have evolved in dialogue.

That’s another way I describe love — and the process of arriving at it. It's the evolution of personality because someone, at some point, gives it space to open. And that someone isn’t always one person. They are many. These different people help you unfold. Usually, we are meticulous about choosing who they are — who gets to see our wounds and sit in still waters with us. Who looks at us and decides not to look away.

The day I cried in front of you at the hotel was the day I realised I was beginning to choose you. It was brave of you to sit with me, and even braver to forgive. We evolved in dialogue and gave each other space to unfold.

Why oligarchy? Because we live in times where every emotion is a data point — where feelings are dictated by a few men instead of being felt. I was falling into the trap, trying to keep myself up to date. I had convinced myself that romantic love is for conformists, and that I have a mission to attend to. I must be part of the protests, must rise against authority.

Who knows — I might be right. Who knows, maybe love is for conformists. Maybe it’s silly. Maybe it will one day challenge my purpose.

But who knows, G — maybe your ability to challenge my belief system, and to challenge the very system that built that belief — the one spending trillions of dollars — is what strengthens my purpose. Maybe we do it together: challenge authority, love fearlessly, protest relentlessly. Maybe love itself is the protest.

Or maybe, we are wrong about everything.

The day before you were leaving, you took me to the pool.

“If I drown, I’ll kill you.”

“Just hold me.”

“I’ll fall.”

“Okay, wait — sit on my shoulders.”

“And do what?”

“Let’s take you around.”

“Even when you know I don’t know how to swim?”

“Even when I know you don’t know how to swim.”

love,

k