Forks and Other Things

More than 48 hours have past and I feel like I've experienced a crash. I suppose the initial fervour was always going to have to dampen, but the reasoning for this is more of an existential crossroad than anything else. Real Love poses a massive question to me in as much as: Is it what I want? 

What do I mean 'what do I want?'

The picture of Real Love that I paint in my head at the utterance of those two powerful words is also twofold. In one of those pictures, this journey leads me to a wiser understanding of love, commitment, intimacy and the finding of this in the arms of my one future beholden. I may or may not have met this person already but I hope that what I make of my life and the emotional and spiritual development promised by the nature of this undertaking will count me ready when it comes to making that Real Love connection.

In the second instant, and the one that leans more to a version of the me I know, I hear Real Love and see social progress. 

I'm happiest when the people around me are happy and so maybe Real Love is not truly altruistic as I have an ulterior motive of reaching as many people, getting as many smiles, supporters, believers or whatever you want to call anyone who shares my overly optimistic enthusiasm for living a richer life. Is it a bad thing that I want to stop and talk, find out how you are doing, try and figure how things could be better?

I was reminded recently by my mother that some people are born to be servants of the people, in much the way a priest, imam or rabbi is. That there is a ministry to share with your congregation to enrich not just their lives but their legacies. This relates to a greater pastoral love that is not common in our daily reality but is nevertheless necessary for cultural evolution.

I think underneath everything this is what I would ultimately want from Real Love. A tidal wave of positive feeling expressed through every medium I can imagine. I want to champion real human connections, scratching away at our consumer surfaces and really getting to know people. I know, beyond reasonable doubt, that the happier you are the less likely you are to be ill. I know that stress is the primary catalyst for heart attacks and I know people who have suffered severely at the expense of stress.

I want to be part of a team who share my values and remember what it means to be human. It often pains me to think that we cry along with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall at the fate of cooped up chickens and their monotonously singular function lives whilst co-existing under much the same relative circumstance. Would an extra-terrestrial being objectively value that the fate of the chicken was worse than that of ours?

We have been ushered into this new digital era so rapidly that life is happening whilst we're busy watching the commercials. Feature presentations have come and gone much as they have in all eras; just now the time between them is the more precious commodity. The speed of life is so fast and I intend for Real Love to be a sanctuary in the middle of it. Come and slow down racer!

There is a Grand Prix analogy to come of this, be sure of it...

The Abyss

All the build up to the launch served as more of a distraction than a focus on Real Love. Burying myself in emails, designs, re-writes and spidergrams drew my attention to the, albeit necessary, logistics of any project but, in the melee, I almost forgot why I thought it necessary to embark on this audacious mission in the first place.

I have so many people pulling on my heart strings for different purposes and with wide-ranging agendas at present. This is a large part of why this project is necessary to me because I need to find out who here are passengers, who are frauds and who are here for me. Isn’t the famous adage ‘Learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all?’ Is it therefore not most important to serve my own interests before those around me? Or have I learned to look after everyone else first and serve myself last?

Conflicting ideologies in my understanding of love and personal relationships now reflect in my indecision at the first major crossroad now this project is under way. Which way do we go? I know what I want to see, I know what I’ve heard is good but I also know that the beauty of Real Love is that no two journeys are the same.  Everyone else on the team will probably have a similar monologue running through their minds and have their own ideas as to the objective of a Real Love adventure.

What goes on in all of our personal lives will have a major bearing on how we perceive love and, considering our largely singleton female team, there is even more of a skew on the universal love-o-meter. Women are far more inclined to see love (and all that comes with it) through rosier Ray-Bans than a man. In fact, women are much more inclined to see love full stop.

I have already been faced with a lot of male scepticism about this project because, like I mentioned in the premise of Real Love, many see it as something that does not exist – merely a platitude to keep people happy. Upon broaching the subject, most of the men I asked immediately wondered if there was a financial loophole they were missing. Why would doing something like this be of any relevance to my hunting and gathering? Am I OK? Has something happened to me?

Before we can even start properly, there has to be a moment of clarity.

The next 48 hours will be critical on the path of Real Love.

Crazy Little Thing

I suppose everything about the nature of this project should have suggested to me that this would happen. All the best laid plans, the emails, the calls, the research, the list goes on and yet fate has conspired to start us off late.

But then maybe this is what real love is about?

Expect the unexpected. Finally I think we're ready to go!

What is Love?

(via Grant Snider - incidental comics.com)

Happy Valentine's Day!

With only 30 minutes to go until Real Love is meant to have its online launch, one might think it late in the day to be writing the maiden post. However, much like love itself, the journey to this point has been unpredictable and still manages to shock me as the final minutes ebb away.

This whole idea is less than a month old and was not even remotely on my radar as I toasted the turn of 2013. Admittedly, as I clinked glasses with two of my good friends on New Year's Eve, I thought forward to their impending summer nuptials and as I looked around at the room of our peers, I felt a fuzzy sense of belonging - but Real Love was not on my mind.

Fast forward a mere 45 days and I am now part of a team of like-minded, enthusiastic individuals all with different reasons to go on the same quest - stop me if this sounds like the plot from the Hobbit! Our journey is such that even as we take our first foraging steps outward, there is no right or wrong direction - all that matters is that we keep moving and keep our heart rates up!

As I read back, I recognise the theme of time; 30 minutes, a month, 2013, 45 days...time dictates our lives in a way that I'm not sure we fully appreciate. In the last week building up to this point, time has been at such a premium that social engagements I would usually honour have slipped my mind and hours I would usually sleep have been spent burning the midnight oil. This unexpected time deficit has been costly to my love life too as I haven't even had time to reschedule a date I was excited to go on!

Well before I rattle on too much (there's still so much to do!) let me take this moment to thank you for visiting our Real Love blog and leave you with a great little video that shows how our relationship with time affects our well-being.

Happy Valentine's Day and welcome to the first day of the rest of Real Love!