TheoryOfLove in action:
We all need someone to love — to feel our humanity align with; to help us remember we are not alone in the world.
Within the Western world, we often forget to slow down and remember the real ‘point’ of life — connection. Human connection, and Love.
Truly, the malevolent architects of this modern age, that is the disruption of the humanitarian continuum, should be commended — it is not easy to completely turn the fibers that make up our society, on some twisted, reversal of an angle; to change the way humans understand how we should operate. It is not easy to convince people that money and luxurious lifestyles trump human connection by itself, and that this new way of human connection is, for some reason, better. That, even though there are starving people out in the world, the Western world of riches matters more. It is not easy to make people lose sight of the fact that loneliness is not something we all innately feel, but is a disease to which the elite cannot suffer (or be caught suffering); that there is some hierarchical barrier between different people.
Further, in order to forget this basic element that truly binds humanity — that is the heart-pumping vessel of homo sapiens — we need to be in a position to do so. We need to be told that a better life is waiting for us, and we need to be in a place in our social lives that allows for us to embrace this new realm of our realities.
However, let’s not get this wrong: it is the same kind of recognition we seek to earn now, as we have always sought to earn: we still search for people’s approval, we still seek to climb to the top of the social ladder, we still seek to be loved. However, now we, the top percent, do so through money and wealth.
No trade show can last forever in a single place, no matter how popular it is year after year — eventually, there will always be something else that comes along, that may seem better. It seems as though spectators have gathered for the gun show — of who has the biggest guns — replacing the free and public heart show — of who has the biggest heart — somewhere along the way in human history. Although these shows are similar, and even the theme of recognition the same, we are skewing the focus irreparably.
Each year, more and more spectators gather around the fringes of the gun show to watch from the side-lines, in awe, and perhaps dismay, at what the conglomerate corporations have done to what was once their beloved free performance of Life and Freedom — where inner beauty and poetry are replaced with extrinsic signs of wealth and value; where real, true, raw, intrinsic power of the soul fueled by passion is now a cold, hard pistol fueled by gun powder and machine-made force.
We value who can operate and manipulate extrinsic power the best — and somehow that translates to being intrinsically powerful; when, really, the intrinsically powerful are the ones who truly understand the intricacies of our world and know how to navigate them; to slip through the folds where the barrels of guns and powerful weapons cannot fit.
Little is it spoken of the fact that we are all intrinsically-powerful, if only we stop chasing dreams of El Dorado. If we do so, we will understand, truly, that riches of connection and of creating a world where all live in harmonic symbiosis, vastly outweighs the triumphs of crowning ourselves king atop a mountain of golden jewels.
Miriam and David are two of those side-line gun show spectators — two of the intrinsically powerful, who already know this, and who aren’t afraid of shouting it from their own, grassy mountain-top:
It was a Friday night. I had just finished work. It was one of the first really Winter’ry days this Winter — my hands and face were getting cold. I decided to go into the Tim Hortons I was just about to pass.
I ordered a hot chocolate and a sandwich. I sat down at a table close to the window. Beside me, a man and a woman were laughing and giggling, huddled close to one another from across the table, heads together whispering excitedly in hushed voices, like kids under a blanket fort.
They appeared to be Indigenous. They had coats on, but seemed like they might be homeless; the garbage bag David had with him, holding all their blankets — carrying their life with them — was on the floor beside the table.
Taking a sip of my hot chocolate — reminding myself of the kind of life I had — I began talking with them.
On the street, in this environment, Miriam and David can truly be themselves. There is no need for hiding their personalities and true desires. There is simply no place for them to hide, no real way for them to be concealed — for the price of concealer is high right now: a job, being in the top percent. Miriam and David together were living on the streets with not much money, much less a ticket into the life that offers the ‘luxury’ of humanity concealment.
Why do we lie to people we care about?
Why do we hide our feelings?
What is the point? Vanity? Preservation of this new gun show, where money and wealth replace love and human connection?; Replaces inner human Truth?
Is it worth it?
Rubbing her hands together so as to warm them up before going back out into reality — her reality — Miriam began to tell her story:
Miriam grew up in an unhealthy home; she didn’t get along with her parents and she ran away when she was young. Miriam said her grandpa came multiple times to come and get her off the streets, but that she didn’t go with him; she loved David, and he was on the streets. She didn’t want to go back to her life.
“Have you ever loved someone so much that you would do anything for them?”, Miriam asked.
We all need someone to love. The premise of TheoryOfLove, is simple: we all need someone to connect to — to feel human with — against — together with. Unfailingly, Miriam and David are this support for each other, and have been for years. They choose to sleep outside instead of seeking out a bed in a shelter, because they don’t want to be apart. Together, they battle the harshness of the elements, with 8-10 blankets and many layers of clothing. But together, they are stronger.
“I will never leave you”, says Miriam to David.
David’s story:
David grew up in Nunavut. His turning point in life came when, at the age of almost 14, his brother, Little Kelly (rest in peace), never came back from a dog sled expedition. It was only when the police exhausted their resources that David went with the search and rescue team to look for his brother. David and the team did find Little Kelly, but tragically it was too late: Little Kelly had frozen to death.
In the north David’s people are still suffering. David explained to me in detail how he wants “you people,” meaning universities — making a distinction between himself and the other half of the world; how the other half lives — to invent a pill for his people: a pill that revives those who are starving, freezing or have died by starvation or hypothermia. David suggests that the pill should be able to revive someone one week after they die.
Even by this simple request, it is yet more proof that love and connection are everything in this world.
Humans are social creatures.
We need love and connection like we need oxygen.
So why aren’t we acting like it when it comes to saving other people’s lives? This should be our top priority above anything and everything else in this world.
Many of us, in the top percent, are focused on maintaining our own social status, by the Westernized ways embedded in our current culture — that of money and “success,” whatever your definition of that may be.
This is evident both locally and globally — how we spend money on the wrong things, and disregard human and non-human life when it suits our purposes — such as allowing people to sleep in slums because they have five children to feed (exhibit a: life on the poverty line – slums stacked next to mansions); or abolishing rainforests for mining operations, to fund Westernized marriages with fancy diamond rings (exhibit b: rainforest concern – why are they being destroyed?).
What really constitutes happiness, underneath all of this social construction?
As we 3 sit there, Miriam and David talk about the future. David wants to go back to school. Miriam says she’ll be at home waiting for him to come home. As Miriam encourages David, who says “I’ll never be able to get back to school,” the two gaze at each other, lost in thought and in the world that is purely their own;
I could feel the love and care, the affection, radiating off their smiles and in between the crinkles beside their eyes.
This is what life is about.
How have we let ourselves forget this? Not be true and human with one another? With all of us? With our world and planet Earth?
By withholding our true feelings and emotions, and by curving to the peer-pressurized handcuffs of social constraints which many of us live by in Western society, we can devastatingly impact the lives of our fellow humans. We need to be straight and honest about how we feel so we can all feel included, valued and purposeful in this world, and we can truly feel connected to others. We need to share our vulnerabilities and what truly makes us, each, human.
We all have our stories. It doesn’t matter who we are, we all have stories of love and emotion — stories which immediately speak to our humanity. We need to embrace them and this compassion-fueled and filled aspect of our lives, completely: we need to continue to share them and to be honest about our connectivity as humans, by not being ashamed of what makes us vulnerable, emotion-filled, passionate, and, as such, at times impulsive. No one is perfect, and at some points we often drive with our hearts than our socially-molded hands. We need to let our hearts do the driving more often. We are all human, so we need to act like it.
Share your humanity on social media by using the hashtags #IamReal and #TheoryOfLove.
If we dig deep enough, we can all find it in each other and support each other to carry our burdens back to base. Start digging; take the time to care. ❤
With 7 billion people in this world, no one should feel alone and isolated.
TheoryOfLove 
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