Who's it All About?

Sometimes I think this blogging thing is all about me - my opportunity to let my youngest child egotism thing run rampant, in a way that I really can't in my "regular life" with its responsibilities and complications and humdrum realities. And then every now and then there's a reminder that life's about a hell of a lot more than me, like when J.R. posted the lyrics to "Divorce Song" by Liz Phair. I'm not a Liz Phair fan. I'm not even sure if I'd know any of her music if I heard it. But the lyrics to this song are, well, here they are:

And when I asked for a separate room
It was late at night
And we'd been driving since noon
But if I'd known
How that would sound to you
I would have stayed in your bed
For the rest of my life
Just to prove I was right
That it's harder to be friends than lovers
And you shouldn't try to mix the two
Cause if you do it and you're still unhappy
Then you know that the problem is you
And it's true that I stole your lighter
And it's also true that I lost the map
But when you said that I wasn't worth talking to
I had to take your word on that
But if you'd known
How that would sound to me
You would have taken it back
And boxed it up and buried it in the ground
Boxed it up and buried it in the ground
Boxed it up and buried it in the ground
Burned it up and thrown it away
You put in my hands a loaded gun
And then told me not to fire it
When you did the things you said were up to me
And then accused me of trying to fuck it up
But you've never been a waste of my time
It's never been a drag
So take a deep breath and count back from ten
And maybe you'll be alright
And the license said
You had to stick around until I was dead
But if you're tired of looking at my face I guess I already am
But you've never been a waste of my time
It's never been a drag
So take a deep breath and count back from ten
And maybe you'll be alright

I have to be grateful that I've never been to that point, literally. And envious, that I haven't written anything like that. Where feelings are so clearly conveyed through words.

I've been trying to read Judith Kitchen's The House on Eccles Road. It's a 'good book', for what it's worth, but it's hard for me to read. It's almost as if I think I could have written it. Not "I could have written this better", but I can imagine myself having written this book. Like these lines: “Nothing in his life was quite the way he’d planned it, if wanting could be called a plan. He supposed it couldn’t, because you’d have to decide how to go about getting what you wanted, and he hadn’t really figured out how to do that.”

I used to believe, or at least say, that "love is all there is." If we don't just dump our affection on other people (relatively indiscriminately), then we as humans are weakened and lose the sense of what separates us from non-humans. But maybe that's not really so true. Obviously, there's some value to withholding affection. Perhaps it's the ability to feel a pull toward someone and to intentionally pull away that marks us as an advanced consciousness. If the decision isn't easy, but we make it anyway, then it's in our benefit and to our credit to have made it.

Or, this could be as much delusion as the old conception. It probably doesn't matter anyway.