Author Archives: Guy Oliver

I’m selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.

– Marylin Monroe

I find that the longer I live the more I question the nature of our notion of love—but this is really only a small part of the living of life for most of us.  A longer life means greater exposure to things generally, and more exposure produces a more varied existence. The longer you live, for example, the more likely you are to contract an exotic disease such as Alzheimer’s, or cancer, or perhaps to become the victim of a terrorist attack.  You’re simply around longer, and linear mathematics being what it is, the longer you live, the greater your pool of human experience, which is a two-edged sword.

The pool of experiences is likely to be not only greater, but more diverse as well—which means the experiences will no-doubt be much more interesting but will also certainly include both pleasant and unpleasant events.  To wit, the experience of living life is bound to include progressively both more ecstasy and torment, although it often feels to me as though there is much more torment than ecstasy.

And this brings me to the notion of Valentine’s Day.  A day that vexes me like no other—so much so, in fact, that I was unable to write about it at a more appropriate time, like the actual Valentine’s Day rather than today.  I instead stewed at my bar, while my wife prepared dinner.  I refer to Valentine’s Day as a notion because like many notions it’s annoyingly silly.  Most refer to it as a holiday, but this is precisely the problem I have with it.  Holidays are known as such because the word devolved from the term Holy Day.  You know, a day set aside to acknowledge or celebrate Divine intervention.  News Flash.  There’s nothing Holy about Valentine’s Day.

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