If you don't remember or had a deprived childhood there was a main path that lead a winding and colorful road to the finish line. But if you drew special cards or landed on the right spaces you could take shortcuts. The shortcuts sped the game up and allowed the player to skip out of the rigmarole of some of the candy cane curves.
"What we say about love and what we do about love are generally two very different things." (So reads a favorite quotation of the always sage-like Sierra.)
Whence arises this discrepancy? "The Game" may be the cause. We all say we want undying affection, but we aren't willing to pay the price. (Myself included.) We say we can fall in love and that we want to. But we always have a tailor-made excuse ready as to why we don't date as much as we should. Why we don't open our hearts more. Why we don't let people in.
But I believe that this is mostly because we get caught playing the game in a never-ending cycle. Too often we see the mini-heartbreaks turn into massive ones. And it becomes easier and easier to stay in the cycle. The game then becomes a lifestyle. A safe place. A sanctuary from real commitment. We make a home in the molasses swamp. It becomes easier to say we want commitment and affection, that we wish for eternal marriage, that we desire undying love, all while we thwart any attempts with our static behavior. And our words become half-hearted coinage thrown into an empty well. An atheists faith.
Like Professor Young, we find it easier make our own worst fears come to pass rather than work actively and have our efforts disappointed.
All too often the game becomes life, rather than an event in it. It's easier to be pessimistic about love because we will either see our ideas continually validated or be pleasantly surprised. We can easily fulfill our own dark prophecies about never finding Mr. or Mrs. Right. And if we let the game rule us at least we can always say, "I told you so."
Remember when I said there is more than one path to true love? What I left out is that there are also more preferable paths to true love. Shortcut paths. Gumdrop Passes and Rainbow Trails. The best being the destiny path. This has only recently been drawn to my attention with the recent marriages of my best mission friend and my brother and the engagement of my sister. They have all told me that it "just worked out." God put someone in their path and once the ball got rolling it never stopped. The love took root and has grown everyday. I still will never think it is in any way easy.
I think this is because it hurts. Barring the worst case scenario of a breakup, heartache can never truly be avoided, even when destiny uses its wild-card. It hurts immensely to let someone into our two-sizes-too-small hearts. There is an awful sort of realization that happens after we commit to someone; we must now share everything about us. Even the secret corners that we have gone to such lengths to disguise. But in this process of opening and being vulnerable and progressing, we grow. The tandem upward growth trajectory is true love.
A general authority said recently "True love necessarily includes some degree of permanence." And, "[Love] is actively seeking someone else's happiness." Herein lies "The Game's" biggest flaw. And not only because it incorporates neither of those things. Love looks out to others and is always constant, whereas "The Game" consistently looks inward and is ever-changing. It is selfish. It always asks, "How will this make me look?" Whereas love asks, "How will this make someone else feel?"
I've said this before, the very name is at once a perfect definition and a misnomer. It's just a game. While it may be useful sometimes, it will usually never end well, or at least where and when we want it to end. At its best it is a tool, and at its worst a nefarious ruse meant to trap the weak willed and poison them with virus-like commitment issues. It can be exciting sometimes, but I would rather take the short-cut route through candy land. Wouldn't you?
[Keep following, hilarity will ensue.]
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