Tuesday, May 12, 2020

The Final Solution: Love Story


“Love means never having to say you’re sorry” was the mantra of Erich Segal’s Love Story (1970). You may not be saying you’re sorry, but you may be getting used to saying “no,” both to yourself and others in this era of social distancing. "No!" is a sentence is another common saw of the #MeToo culture, but the problem with saying "no" too much can be that the shoe starts to fit the foot. You feel comfortable. It’s easier to decline something than to involve yourself in the often conflicted process of seeking pleasure. You may have noticed that with sex. You stop doing it and the ability literally atrophies. It’s a little like what has happened with cursive writing which many in this age of keyboards have literally forgotten how to do. So reentry into normal social relationships once the CDC guidelines have been lifted may be easier said than done. You may ask yourself “do I really need to see them?” “is it really that much fun? It’s going to be work to resume the old routines and relationships. One of the few silver linings of the pandemic was to put many of the superficial indignities one faces in going out in the world on the back burner. There was a détente between you and the life of rejection or dejection. The self-protective cocoon you created to fight the disease turned out to be mildly liberating. When the number of new cases goes down and businesses start to open up, you’re also going to have to face the Monday morning blues. Will you be like one of those space capsules that burns up when it re-enters into the atmosphere?

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