what love does to people

Why has love made you so bad, my friend?
Why has love taught you to hate? Why did the most beautiful thing in the world make you such a dark person? 
Why has it made you believe that the world is a terrible place? Why, when love is good, love is pure, and it might hurt but it shows you the strength of the human hope? 
Why crush that hope?

I am pushed but not fallen; I am sick but not terminal. My expectations raise my heart sky-high and it has hit the hard ground sore but even so there is beauty in the air that cushions, in the wind that whistles; and even so I continue to hope for a hand to finally catch it where it matters one day. I believe hope is not a delusion, and that there is a lot of beauty in the world, if only we are willing to accept that the hurt of love has charred our flesh a little, made us each a little hardened and bitter. And I hope that you will eventually find the courage in yourself to adopt a little less hopeless a worldview.

I recently came to a philosophy that concluded in necessary selfishness, too. Nothing you do has an outcome equivalent to the amount of effort you put in, so if your sole purpose of practicing for a concert or baking a cake or taking up a shitty job is to make someone else happy, it isn't worth it. Or if you're simply studying for the grade and hating the process, it isn't worth it. You have to enjoy the process in the same amount that you give, because if not your effort is a waste, and life is too short for wasted effort. But I'm not sure if this philosophy is a good one, because there are things that are worth doing even if you don't enjoy it, like travelling long distances to visit a sick friend or buying food for those who need it, and even if the outcome doesn't equal the effort it's something worth doing, right? So I'm trying to refine that, trying to be okay with giving to a seeming void again.

A hardened veteran is blinded to a lot of things. And we aren't hardened veterans. We have our gunshot wounds but we are merely the average civilian; bite it, hold it in, and hold on to the knowledge that home is always in your heart. I have made myself scared to feel, but didn't we make a pact to let go of the apprehensions, accept the pain as part of beauty, and dare? Don't you see, we are both in barren lands, but there are oases for which you dare not hope, and for which I am sick of yearning. And we both try to heal each other because we are at opposite ends of the spectrum. And while you strive to make me better, I hope that through me or otherwise, you will slowly find the courage to let go of your view that the world is inherently a black zero that will only disappoint you. It isn't, it isn't, beauty is everywhere and pain adds depth and colour too. I think, if anything, love should open your eyes to all the beauty and hope in every inch of earth, not cover it all in bleakness.

That is it. Beauty is everywhere.

k