["We learn to love by loving. We practice with each other, on ourselves, in all kinds of relationships. And right now we need to be in rigorous practice, because we can no longer afford to love people the way we’ve been loving them.
Who have we been loving?
the people who cross our physical or virtual paths, spark the flame of our interest, earn our devotion and respect and protection
our own family, because blood
people we are committed to but don’t like anymore
How have we been loving?
defining love by obligation
celebrating love on externally marked holidays
keeping the realities of love behind closed doors
framing love as a fairy tale on social media
framing love as a product we give each other
framing love as a limited resource that gets swallowed and used up, tied in plastic when we’re done and piled up out of sight
prioritizing romantic love over self, comrade, and friend love
This kind of love is not sufficient, even if it is the greatest love of our lives. The kind of love that we will be forced to celebrate or escape on Valentine’s Day is too small.
We’re all going to die if we keep loving this way, die from isolation, loneliness, depression, abandoning each other to oppression, from lack of touch, from forgetting we are precious. We can no longer love as a secret or a presentation, as something we prioritize, hoard for the people we know. Prioritizing ourselves in love is political strategy, is survival.
From religious spaces to school to television shows to courts of law, we are socialized to seek and perpetuate private, even corporate, love. Your love is for one person, forever. You celebrate it with dying flowers and diamonds. The largest celebration of your life is committing to that person. Your family and friends celebrate you with dishes and a juicer. You need an income to love. If something doesn’t work out with your love, you pay a lot of money to divide your lives, generally not telling people much unless it’s a soap opera dramatic ending. This way of approaching love strangles all the good out of it.
What we need right now is a radical, global love that grows from deep within us to encompass all life."]
adrienne maree brown, from Love As Political Resistance, from Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good, written and gathered by adrienne maree brown, AK Press, 2019
