The Passions of Roberto

The Passions of Roberto

You share with Bertrand Russell's two of three passions: "Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: longing for love, love of knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind." You used to have much pity for the suffering for mankind, but not much anymore. These days you are struggling against the impulse of striking against human scumbags and assholes, against the temptation to give in to a dark view of humanity.You do know that it takes strength of character to open one's heart to compassion while keeping cynicism and nihilism at bay. It is futile to decry darkness. It is better to accept it as part of life, and not to be overwhelmed by it. To be overwhelmed and traumatized by darkness is a sign of weakness of character. 

You keep thinking the reason you are so dead set against scumbags and assholes is that you are afraid you would end up like one of them if you are not careful, if you are careless of not taking care of your conscience,  your sense of outrage, your understanding and hence respect of fairness and justice. In short, you feel you cannot afford to be a hypocrite. If you think you are not only intellectually, but also morally superior, you must walk the walk. When you were young, you didn't know much about the power of conscience and self-respect. But as time came and went, you realized for you personally, you couldn't live with a lie, a pretense, of who you were not. Others could, but not you, not any longer. 

You said earlier that one of your passions was longing for love. Many years ago, you watched a movie titled "The Contender". A line about love was spoken and you thought the line was great. You kept referring to it in your stories,  thinking it was good. Little did you know that it was corny as hell. It said, "Love is an involuntary reflex and I felt victim to it." Now, you are finally free and untethered with the past, you are saying that love is never an involuntary reflex. Love  is a choice. You are free not to fall in love. Nobody is putting a gun to your head and tell you that you must fall in love with a certain person. You fall in love because of the delusions and illusions created by you or your beloved, but you still have a choice to walk away before you become stupid and get hurt. Love, deep down and of the true kind, is never about you. It is always about the beloved. And if you insist on dragging your own "little"ego into the Love Equation, you will get disappointed and hurt. So if you only think of your beloved and never about yourself, then love is really an involuntary reflex. Then love will enrich and empower you. And you keep on loving your beloved as long as he is what you think he is and worthy of your love. So love is a perceptual, phenomenological process.