The Write Thing

I find myself writing on this blog instead. I have been so disconnected from writing this past month…although it is not really the case, as I usually spend most of my time writing for my work. I should probably blame it on the time of the year, or on the fact that November brought her back to me for a brief period of time.

She was here again, in my house and in my bed. She came, she saw, she won. She did all that without my noticing, once more breaking down the barriers I initially lifted between us over a year ago with serene firmness. Now she belongs, and she is perhaps more afraid of that than I could ever be. November is a good month, preceding closure and consolidating the ten months that went before. Whatever it is that you did not do in November, you may not do in December, choosing instead to postpone it for the year ahead. November is like a corner turning around the end to find a new beginning. And now I know there may not be another November in Buenos Aires for me in the shorter term…well, do I?

All of my life I will probably feel at odds with the part of the world where I was born and raised, but I will always defend the logic of its seasons, perfectly in tune with a year that begins and ends in a promising cycle. Yes, a year undoubtedly must end in summer — no, winter is not natural, it just doesn’t feel right. You need the lighter and sunnier days at the end of your year, because endings need to have some form of hope embedded in them. By the same token, a summer in the middle of the year is unacceptable…it is cheating. Europe and America do indeed cheat, so it is the South that makes the promise abide by the rules.

The South therefore received her with open arms in early November, after tsunamis had taken her to mysterious and faraway lands. Once the initial confusion of airport gates had passed and I saw her natural stride take over the arrival hall while she headed for the liberating doors, there was some form of restoration. A few well-built figures had to be dodged before we could get lost in our first embrace and then merge in a soft, tender first kiss. It is indeed in that kiss that all the past vanishes. It is that touch and the complexity of the feelings it conveys that makes the wait that has preceded it and that will follow it worthwhile. It is her hands on my face, her homely kiss, the image that my eyes confirm before them that finally bring a sense, a purpose. Her memory and her miracle converge and she takes shape as a reality, as my reality, and I know I do not want to measure my love or my words like an insulin dose. We will both have to put up with that, with who we are and what we create together. I know I am ready for the road ahead, no matter how many suitcases it entails. I hope she is as well.

I have recently started to read Thomas Sowell’s Basic Economics, an interesting view of the science (is it?) of Economics. The book starts with the following definition:

Economics is the study of the use of scarce resources, which have alternative uses

As I started going over Sowell’s examples of the efficient use of scarce resources, I thought how they would apply to love. Yes, I know that trying to equate economics with the way emotions work is a long shot. However, economics involves decision-making. Aren’t we always at least a little bit emotional in whatever decision we make? And isn’t the emotional factor at times fundamental to make the right decision? Or shall I say inevitable? Well…on that assumption, we should perhaps face the fact that even love can abide by the rules of economics.

Let me take the following example from Sowell’s book to illustrate this further:

When a military medical team arrives on a battlefield where soldiers have a variety of
wounds, they are confronted with the classic economic problem of allocating scarce
resources, which have alternative uses. Unless their time and medications are allocated
efficiently, some wounded will die needlessly.

How do we apply this to love, you might wonder? First you would have to bear with me, and think that love is indeed a scarce resource…or at least good love is. So, why not allocating love efficiently? Let me put it this way. We grow and are educated to let the love variable justify some of our wildest actions (like taking a plane on a whim to spend a year abroad with the guy you happened to meet when traveling as a backpacker). Is that an efficient use of your time or your scarce resources, be it love, money or anything else? There is no way of knowing, unless you try. Yet the effort of trying here will be less perceived as an inefficient allocation of the scarce resource of your life than a bad financial investment would.

The question is that love, and its erratic nature, is factored in as a “good” in our society. Even in its most nonsensical expression, love can eventually be validated by marriage. That is where economics enters the picture, efficiency being measured by how well you married — did you pick the affluent guy with a promising career, or were you inefficient enough to take a lazy bum as a husband and surrender to a life with a string of debts and kids? However, I would argue that is the efficient allocation of marriage, not love.

Let us leave marriage aside for a moment now. What about that phone call you are making? Wouldn’t you rather be in bed reading, or moving forward with your thesis, due in two weeks? Instead, you choose to have a lengthy conversation with her in which you exchange soft, loving words with a permanent smile on your face. And yes, you know tomorrow morning waking up will be a major challenge. Is that an efficient or inefficient use of love? Oh, well, I am sure we would have countering opinions here. Is it efficient, because after that one-hour talk you have more energy to resume your writing and finish on time? Or is it inefficient because the rope is now around your neck and you know you won’t have enough time to meet your deadline?

You see? That is the problem. The alternative uses of love — or the time you spend growing it — can be potentially determined by selfishness. Paradoxically, the very essence of good love starts with you, and is only possible when you are fully you. But being aware of your “self” is quite different from being simply “selfish”. Alas, yet for most the line is oftentimes blurred… and then love can be tainted by selfish insecurity, and hence reduced to a question of control. But it is not the control of scarce resources that is efficient, but their good allocation. Control is a misuse of power that has little to do with the efficient management of your time, your life, your love.

Is that the reason why good love — or efficient love, in economic terms — is so hard to find? Is it because our concept of love is easily distorted by our need for control that it sometimes flounders, becoming a sad addiction? Is that why love, unless we are reminded of its cost and the daily efforts it requires becomes a subsidy we take for granted every month until it stops and we are forced to get out there and start anew?

What do I understand by the efficiency of love? I think that efficiency is a consequence of value, and you value what you have struggled to get, or what you know you would regret to lose. People are not easy, so how could love be? Yet we seem to assume that once we get butterflies in our stomach, everything will be all right and nothing else needs to be done. On the contrary, those signs are just the beginning of your knowledge of the grand autre, the stranger who, as she unravels, will push you into a permanent decision-making process…stay or let go. Nothing holds in life, so why should love?

Love is what we feel, but also what we make of it… a scarce, unique resource. Its efficiency depends on the parties involved. If calling her tonight is a sacrifice of your time, and you are giving up on what you really want for yourself that very minute, then you are allocating your scarce resource inefficiently, and it will have a cost. Me? I root for choice instead of sacrifice as the starting point for the economics of good love.

August is a month of renewal in my personal calendar. It may be because the end of the month signals a new year of my life, a sort of willing or unwilling rebirth that will hopefully come full circle in the next 12 moons.

Virgo, an earth sign. Supposedly, natives are known for their perfectionism and meticulousness, as well as their ability to keep their feet on the ground. An acid and sharp critic tends to reside in those born under the influence of Mercury. Interestingly, the four elements mark astrological signs in sets of three. In a single human being, diverse combinations of these elements often reside, but…can they co-exist?

Logic would indicate that they can and they do. Earth and water, for example, would make a good combination, as long as water is not overdone and a marsh suddenly traps the feet of the intrepid wanderer. Air and fire are trickier, although a soft breeze is always welcome to calm a unwilling spontaneous combustion. Fire is a challenge, indeed. Once, while I was indulging in a stalwart defense of my fire friends Aries, Leo and Sagittarius, somebody just shared a good word of wisdom with me…

“Honey, fire signs can light a fire, but they have no idea how to keep it going…”

Poor little fire creatures, I thought. They are really so much fun to be around though…Earth-based creatures like me tend to function relatively well with fire-born people, impatient and quick-tempered, yet as transparent as cellophane in so many ways. Actually, most of my friends are either Aries, Leo or Sagittarius, and love itself has knocked on my door carrying a torch a couple of times as well. I think I have a right to say something in that department, and it would be all positive….well, or at least I’d like to remember the good times.

However, my root element is earth, mutable and yet unmovable. Earth supports the beings that grow on it, hiding part of them underneath, providing the nutrients for life to exist, grow and, sometimes, persist. In a curious way, earth both reveals and it covers, and sometimes it is difficult to tell. Its changes can be imperceptible, requiring patient observation before transformation becomes visible. Earth is normally ready to work and be worked on. However, its inherent lack of mobility leaves it more vulnerable to the other three elements. After all, a fire, a drought or flooding can all result in death.

It must be the reason why when earth meets its equal, there is a mutual, unspoken understanding. There is some degree of patience, enough to dwell on the gradual possibility of growth rather than a quick idealistic flight of fancy. And yet, passion is there, deep, intense, vital…because all the elements are about life and death, but your element is  your equal and you know it.

I have found you, my equal and my love. I am in my element.