my toothbrush has your name on it
Why do you think 90% of songs EVERYWHERE are about being in love?
Why do you think the first play ever written is about love, and the last play ever written will be about love?
Can you name five movies that don't have a romantic subplot?
Do you know one person who's life goal includes dying alone?
Over the course of their lives, falling in love becomes part of every single person's "to get" list.
Love is it.
Love is the whole point. The biggest piece of the pie. The reason for all this work and this toil and this art and these lives.
Love is it.
I don't care what you say. I don't care who said what to you. I just don't.
Love is the reason people are alive, and the reason they continue to be alive.
Being in love is the pinnacle of what you can acheive as a human being.
You know, you grow up, you go to school, you get a job and you make money, and you die. That's the blueprint. That's the plan.
But at the same time it means nothing. What does that mean to you day-to-day?
What matters is smiling. What matters is laughing. What matters is being happy, and enjoying your life. What matters is spending time with people you care about, and how happy you can be during those times. How happy you've been during those times.
Life is once. People have to start realizing that. I think it's difficult people have to start understanding that. You're not going to get a second chance. You can't grow up again, you can't plan to NOT be a teenage mother NEXT time around, you can't plan to NOT be a drug addict next time around, or to stay in school next time around, or even just to be an overall good person next time around.
You get this one goddamn shot. People think that every stage of their life is forever, even if it's just tomorrow. People have to start realizing that if you've been out of high school for three years and you're not doing anything besides drinking and working a couple of nights a week, you better get your ass in gear to fucking make a change.
Just because today's okay doesn't mean tomorrow won't fall apart.
I'm getting very off-topic - like I said, life is once. You have one chance to look back on your 18th birthday and answer the question "Was I happy?".
And "Was I happy?" is basically the most important question you can ask yourself about anything.
This life is a compromise. 24/7.
That's what it is. Generations upon generations, molding the workdays, the schooldays, the weekends. Molding what you can and can't do. Millions of people affecting the schedules that run each of our lives. The schedules we're forced to go by. How many of those people will relate to you? How many people care if Lou Perella likes to drink tea at 2 a.m. before an exam the next day? How many people care if Chuck Staton likes to sing by himself for two hours, take a long shower, drink some tea (just like Lou), and relax by watching a movie and having sex, before he goes onstage?
You have to live by these hours and these schedules that will not benefit you.
This life is a compromise, and as we all know, a good compromise leaves everybody mad.
So the question becomes, "how do I stay happy?"
And the absolute truth, is.....people.
It's a connection with other people. The other people who do the things you do. The other people who find the same things important that you do. The other people who like the same music you do. The other people who disagree with everything in the same way that you do.
And, you know, this isn't something that's difficult to agree with. Your friends, your family, the people that surround you, that decides whether your life is an enjoyable one or not. It's hard to fight that notion. Companionship, friendship, is what controls your mood.
But my point has become that love basically just creates the closest friend you can ever have.
And I'm talking true love here. I'm not talking "on and off" shitty dating situations, or casaul sex partners, or even regular relationships that just aren't true love (although I can't stress strongly enough how important all three of those different types of relationships can be at the appropriate points in life). I'm talking true, crazy, cry-because-you're-happy, think-about-the-person-all-the-time, nutty, insane, love.
I mean the love that stems from a mutual attraction that starts silently. One where you and your partner share the same ideals and viewpoints on enough things that being together is extremely comfortable. A relationship where you respect eachother not only as people, but as people growing in the world, continuing their lives with a sense of direction and a shared sense of productivity. This kind of "Set-for-life" love.
If you're really in love with someone, that person is your best friend. And maybe you lie to your other friends, and you say they're still your best friends, but you know that this person you're in love with, is your best friend.
In an odd twist, a plutonic friendship is both much weaker and much stronger than a romantic relationship. Plutonic friendships are stronger because they can fade in and out, and even if there's a fight, there's never a breakup. There aren't any rules. My best friend can be Jordan Furtado, and he can go do the same EXACT things that he does with me, with Alan Sousa, and I can't consider it cheating.
The reason friendships are stronger is because they aren't exclusive.
You can have as many friends as you want. You can treat them all exactly the same, spend the same amount of time with them all, have the same level of closeness to them and that's fine. You can stop talking to someone for a year, and it could even just happen by accident, no fight, no falling out. You could just have different things to do and stop calling eachother as much. They can develop other friendships and so will you. And you can still be friends one day.
Relationships are completely different. Truthfully, they HAVE to be exclusive. Polygamy is a cute idea, and I think it could be fun, but in all honesty, it's just not going to work.
A good relationship, again, IS a friendship. Except it's your best friend that you get to watch movies with, go out to eat with, make fun of people with, experience different growing points in life with, AND you get to have sex with them. And more than that, the exclusiveness to it is what makes the relationship work.
Relationships are just always going to be deeper and more emotional than friendships, and that's why there's this balance of loving one person at a time and having a bunch of friends. Like your family, you have your friends, who you can bullshit with and feel comfortable with and have fun with, a circle of people who depend on eachother.
And you have that one person you're in love with. You have fun with them too, but you know they'll bring their biggest problems to you, and you to them.
And you know, sometimes you CAN bring these kinds of problems to your friends, and it helps.
But there are those problems and those times when only this kind of romantic understanding and consoling can help you out.
There's that one person, where at the end of each day, you always go back to. That one person you always come home to.
That person who, if they had a bad day, you WANT to give them a backrub or get them something they like to eat, or just to cuddle them into feeling better.
And that person who you know wants to do the same for you. And not because of some feeling of responsibilty, just because this one person amazes you so much, interests you so much, or you know DESERVES so much, that you will do everything you can every second of the day to make sure that life treats them right.
And when life doesn't treat them right, you try to make them as happy as you can. You make them forget about life.
"Fuck life!" you might say. Or maybe "Forget life!" for some of you people who don't like to curse.
You say "Fuck life...fuck your job, fuck your school, fuck whatever makes you unhappy - fuck your goddamned stubbed toe if that's the problem. Just come here."
And you hold them.
And you kiss them.
And you tell them that everything is going to be alright, even if it's not.
Because even if you know that their problems won't ever be completely gone, in some way they are.
Because if you can hold them, and you can kiss them, and you can fit together so well that you can make them stop thinking about that problem they have, and make them look back at you and you get that smile. You get that golden smile you were looking for, then the problem IS gone.
For that second, in that moment, the problem doesn't exist.
And the truth is, that's what makes love, love. Those moments.
You can look back on love, and you can recount every second, every act, every word. But it's living those moments. Existing IN those moments. That's love.
You can talk about love.
You can talk about how that beginning awkward stage is like a goddamn fucking work of art. How it's the best part. The thrill. There's the questions and the fright.
That moment of realization. That moment of connection.
That first kiss that you KNEW had that amazing and perfect je ne sais pas, from day one.
You can go through it step by step. Think about the first time you woke up while being with that person, and you realized you were happy. You could wake up happy because you knew you were truly in love.
You can talk about every one of those special things.
You can talk about relationships in general. About how they are extremely important to developing as a person because you expand your limits of trust. Your limits of understanding for some else. Your limits of sympathy or empathy while experiencing the person you're in love with telling you something heartbreaking about themselves. The feeling of happiness that someone feels close enough to you to tell you this, and that amazing sadness that this person has gone through such pain.
You can talk about how being so close to someone teaches you to grow. Teaches you have to different pespectives on life and to experience other ways of living, because you exist so much in this other person's life.
That person can teach you that you CAN make broccoli by yourself, or maybe that it's okay to live with a disease that you're scared of, or even something as simple as teaching you that, in the shower, instead of just washing your stinky parts - like you're used to, you're supposed to wash your WHOLE body (even behind your ears!)
You can talk about how growing sexually with a person can create more of a bond than you ever though possible.
And all this talk is fine.
But it's nothing compared to the moments.
A huge part of love is that it's a feeling that can't be described. It's a combination of so many things, rational and irrational, plutonic and sexual, euphoric, animalistic, unexplainable feelings.
You have to be there.
You have to have it.
Talking about it is fine.
A re-telling of a love story will never mean 1% as much as the actual story did while it was played out.
And you know looking back on it, it won't be perfect. Love's not going to be perfect. Emotions that high have are going to have to give some playing time to emotions that are equally as low. But that's how life is with everything.
You know nothing will ever be perfect. School will never be going 100% perfect. Niether will your job. You'll always have a paper due in two weeks hanging over your head. You'll always have next month's car insurance bill to think about. You'll always have to work on Wednesday from 8 - 12 with that stupid bitch who never stops talking about her foot fungus. These things will always always always be there.
And it's the same with love.
It was amazing all the time, then it wouldn't be amazing. Amazing would become normal. You have to get by the harder parts to get back to the amazing parts.
But it's never going to be 100% perfect. She'll always have those weird matching moles on her knees, he'll always try to touch your vagina under the table at family gatherings, she'll always call you "Betsy Wetsy" from that time you peed your pants at the zoo because a monkey spooked you, he'll always have a goddamn lisp that makes you want to punch through his skull.
But that's what makes it good. That's what makes it great. These inadequacies of the smallest shit that doesn't matter, combined with these amazing moments of emotion that make the fucking world turn day-to-day.
Love can change your life.
Love can make a snowday the most exciting and emotional day you've ever had in your life, and all you need is that one person and a bed.
It's this learning tool, and this means of happiness that is unrivaled by anything else in the world.
That's what it is. That's where it's at!
The best way to look at love isn't in retrospect, or to exist in the future. You have to catch yourself at some point.
You have to catch yourself in the middle of one of the most passionate kisses you've ever had, and you have to stop, and say "My God."
You have to say
"This. This is it."
You have to look her in the eyes.
The world is completely zoned out.
There is only you. And there is only her.
You have to stop the tears for a second.
You have to say
"This is what everyone in the entire world is searching for. This feeling. This second."
You have to stop.
You have to look for the right word.
You have to say
"This connection."
and you have to kiss.
-chuckstaton
ps. Valentine's Day is tomorrow. If you have someone for Valentine's Day, and I don't care if it's not true love. I don't care if it's somone you fucked in a barn by accident. If you have someone this Valentine's Day, then give them a moment. Hold their hand for no reason or do something completely for them, just for a second. I don't care how small it is, just make them smile. Make that one moment about making them truly, ridiculously happy.
And if you love someone this Valentine's Day, and you have them, then make sure they know it. Do something amazing. Blow it out of the fucking water. Make this day harder to live up to then any other day ever. Show them. Show her. Show him. Take this day and you fucking kill it. That's what I'd do.
That's what I've done.......
listen. don't let feelings go unheard. if you have this love, don't you fucking let it go. you fight for it. you do everything you can and you fucking fight your heart out.
I find myself wondering often, what if I had something to say to someone, and they died? They DIED.
Recently I haven't been myself. My brain has been full and my mouth has been shut. And I don't like that.
That's not me.
I wonder if I had something to say to someone, or if I knew I should be spending time with someone, and I just didn't - what would I do if those people all of a sudden were really gone for good? People can be far away from you, or out of your life, and there's still that comfort that they're there. You may have lost this person 4 years ago, but you know they're out there. You could reach them if you had to.
Well what if one day you found out you couldn't.
What if one day I found out I couldn't.
What if these people were really gone. Unreachable.
Untouchable.
And when I think about that, I wonder why I let that chance go by, day after day.
Love is the whole point.
The biggest piece of the pie.
The reason for all this work
and this toil
and this art
and these lives.
Love is it.
Why do you think the first play ever written is about love, and the last play ever written will be about love?
Can you name five movies that don't have a romantic subplot?
Do you know one person who's life goal includes dying alone?
Over the course of their lives, falling in love becomes part of every single person's "to get" list.
Love is it.
Love is the whole point. The biggest piece of the pie. The reason for all this work and this toil and this art and these lives.
Love is it.
I don't care what you say. I don't care who said what to you. I just don't.
Love is the reason people are alive, and the reason they continue to be alive.
Being in love is the pinnacle of what you can acheive as a human being.
You know, you grow up, you go to school, you get a job and you make money, and you die. That's the blueprint. That's the plan.
But at the same time it means nothing. What does that mean to you day-to-day?
What matters is smiling. What matters is laughing. What matters is being happy, and enjoying your life. What matters is spending time with people you care about, and how happy you can be during those times. How happy you've been during those times.
Life is once. People have to start realizing that. I think it's difficult people have to start understanding that. You're not going to get a second chance. You can't grow up again, you can't plan to NOT be a teenage mother NEXT time around, you can't plan to NOT be a drug addict next time around, or to stay in school next time around, or even just to be an overall good person next time around.
You get this one goddamn shot. People think that every stage of their life is forever, even if it's just tomorrow. People have to start realizing that if you've been out of high school for three years and you're not doing anything besides drinking and working a couple of nights a week, you better get your ass in gear to fucking make a change.
Just because today's okay doesn't mean tomorrow won't fall apart.
I'm getting very off-topic - like I said, life is once. You have one chance to look back on your 18th birthday and answer the question "Was I happy?".
And "Was I happy?" is basically the most important question you can ask yourself about anything.
This life is a compromise. 24/7.
That's what it is. Generations upon generations, molding the workdays, the schooldays, the weekends. Molding what you can and can't do. Millions of people affecting the schedules that run each of our lives. The schedules we're forced to go by. How many of those people will relate to you? How many people care if Lou Perella likes to drink tea at 2 a.m. before an exam the next day? How many people care if Chuck Staton likes to sing by himself for two hours, take a long shower, drink some tea (just like Lou), and relax by watching a movie and having sex, before he goes onstage?
You have to live by these hours and these schedules that will not benefit you.
This life is a compromise, and as we all know, a good compromise leaves everybody mad.
So the question becomes, "how do I stay happy?"
And the absolute truth, is.....people.
It's a connection with other people. The other people who do the things you do. The other people who find the same things important that you do. The other people who like the same music you do. The other people who disagree with everything in the same way that you do.
And, you know, this isn't something that's difficult to agree with. Your friends, your family, the people that surround you, that decides whether your life is an enjoyable one or not. It's hard to fight that notion. Companionship, friendship, is what controls your mood.
But my point has become that love basically just creates the closest friend you can ever have.
And I'm talking true love here. I'm not talking "on and off" shitty dating situations, or casaul sex partners, or even regular relationships that just aren't true love (although I can't stress strongly enough how important all three of those different types of relationships can be at the appropriate points in life). I'm talking true, crazy, cry-because-you're-happy, think-about-the-person-all-the-time, nutty, insane, love.
I mean the love that stems from a mutual attraction that starts silently. One where you and your partner share the same ideals and viewpoints on enough things that being together is extremely comfortable. A relationship where you respect eachother not only as people, but as people growing in the world, continuing their lives with a sense of direction and a shared sense of productivity. This kind of "Set-for-life" love.
If you're really in love with someone, that person is your best friend. And maybe you lie to your other friends, and you say they're still your best friends, but you know that this person you're in love with, is your best friend.
In an odd twist, a plutonic friendship is both much weaker and much stronger than a romantic relationship. Plutonic friendships are stronger because they can fade in and out, and even if there's a fight, there's never a breakup. There aren't any rules. My best friend can be Jordan Furtado, and he can go do the same EXACT things that he does with me, with Alan Sousa, and I can't consider it cheating.
The reason friendships are stronger is because they aren't exclusive.
You can have as many friends as you want. You can treat them all exactly the same, spend the same amount of time with them all, have the same level of closeness to them and that's fine. You can stop talking to someone for a year, and it could even just happen by accident, no fight, no falling out. You could just have different things to do and stop calling eachother as much. They can develop other friendships and so will you. And you can still be friends one day.
Relationships are completely different. Truthfully, they HAVE to be exclusive. Polygamy is a cute idea, and I think it could be fun, but in all honesty, it's just not going to work.
A good relationship, again, IS a friendship. Except it's your best friend that you get to watch movies with, go out to eat with, make fun of people with, experience different growing points in life with, AND you get to have sex with them. And more than that, the exclusiveness to it is what makes the relationship work.
Relationships are just always going to be deeper and more emotional than friendships, and that's why there's this balance of loving one person at a time and having a bunch of friends. Like your family, you have your friends, who you can bullshit with and feel comfortable with and have fun with, a circle of people who depend on eachother.
And you have that one person you're in love with. You have fun with them too, but you know they'll bring their biggest problems to you, and you to them.
And you know, sometimes you CAN bring these kinds of problems to your friends, and it helps.
But there are those problems and those times when only this kind of romantic understanding and consoling can help you out.
There's that one person, where at the end of each day, you always go back to. That one person you always come home to.
That person who, if they had a bad day, you WANT to give them a backrub or get them something they like to eat, or just to cuddle them into feeling better.
And that person who you know wants to do the same for you. And not because of some feeling of responsibilty, just because this one person amazes you so much, interests you so much, or you know DESERVES so much, that you will do everything you can every second of the day to make sure that life treats them right.
And when life doesn't treat them right, you try to make them as happy as you can. You make them forget about life.
"Fuck life!" you might say. Or maybe "Forget life!" for some of you people who don't like to curse.
You say "Fuck life...fuck your job, fuck your school, fuck whatever makes you unhappy - fuck your goddamned stubbed toe if that's the problem. Just come here."
And you hold them.
And you kiss them.
And you tell them that everything is going to be alright, even if it's not.
Because even if you know that their problems won't ever be completely gone, in some way they are.
Because if you can hold them, and you can kiss them, and you can fit together so well that you can make them stop thinking about that problem they have, and make them look back at you and you get that smile. You get that golden smile you were looking for, then the problem IS gone.
For that second, in that moment, the problem doesn't exist.
And the truth is, that's what makes love, love. Those moments.
You can look back on love, and you can recount every second, every act, every word. But it's living those moments. Existing IN those moments. That's love.
You can talk about love.
You can talk about how that beginning awkward stage is like a goddamn fucking work of art. How it's the best part. The thrill. There's the questions and the fright.
That moment of realization. That moment of connection.
That first kiss that you KNEW had that amazing and perfect je ne sais pas, from day one.
You can go through it step by step. Think about the first time you woke up while being with that person, and you realized you were happy. You could wake up happy because you knew you were truly in love.
You can talk about every one of those special things.
You can talk about relationships in general. About how they are extremely important to developing as a person because you expand your limits of trust. Your limits of understanding for some else. Your limits of sympathy or empathy while experiencing the person you're in love with telling you something heartbreaking about themselves. The feeling of happiness that someone feels close enough to you to tell you this, and that amazing sadness that this person has gone through such pain.
You can talk about how being so close to someone teaches you to grow. Teaches you have to different pespectives on life and to experience other ways of living, because you exist so much in this other person's life.
That person can teach you that you CAN make broccoli by yourself, or maybe that it's okay to live with a disease that you're scared of, or even something as simple as teaching you that, in the shower, instead of just washing your stinky parts - like you're used to, you're supposed to wash your WHOLE body (even behind your ears!)
You can talk about how growing sexually with a person can create more of a bond than you ever though possible.
And all this talk is fine.
But it's nothing compared to the moments.
A huge part of love is that it's a feeling that can't be described. It's a combination of so many things, rational and irrational, plutonic and sexual, euphoric, animalistic, unexplainable feelings.
You have to be there.
You have to have it.
Talking about it is fine.
A re-telling of a love story will never mean 1% as much as the actual story did while it was played out.
And you know looking back on it, it won't be perfect. Love's not going to be perfect. Emotions that high have are going to have to give some playing time to emotions that are equally as low. But that's how life is with everything.
You know nothing will ever be perfect. School will never be going 100% perfect. Niether will your job. You'll always have a paper due in two weeks hanging over your head. You'll always have next month's car insurance bill to think about. You'll always have to work on Wednesday from 8 - 12 with that stupid bitch who never stops talking about her foot fungus. These things will always always always be there.
And it's the same with love.
It was amazing all the time, then it wouldn't be amazing. Amazing would become normal. You have to get by the harder parts to get back to the amazing parts.
But it's never going to be 100% perfect. She'll always have those weird matching moles on her knees, he'll always try to touch your vagina under the table at family gatherings, she'll always call you "Betsy Wetsy" from that time you peed your pants at the zoo because a monkey spooked you, he'll always have a goddamn lisp that makes you want to punch through his skull.
But that's what makes it good. That's what makes it great. These inadequacies of the smallest shit that doesn't matter, combined with these amazing moments of emotion that make the fucking world turn day-to-day.
Love can change your life.
Love can make a snowday the most exciting and emotional day you've ever had in your life, and all you need is that one person and a bed.
It's this learning tool, and this means of happiness that is unrivaled by anything else in the world.
That's what it is. That's where it's at!
The best way to look at love isn't in retrospect, or to exist in the future. You have to catch yourself at some point.
You have to catch yourself in the middle of one of the most passionate kisses you've ever had, and you have to stop, and say "My God."
You have to say
"This. This is it."
You have to look her in the eyes.
The world is completely zoned out.
There is only you. And there is only her.
You have to stop the tears for a second.
You have to say
"This is what everyone in the entire world is searching for. This feeling. This second."
You have to stop.
You have to look for the right word.
You have to say
"This connection."
and you have to kiss.
-chuckstaton
ps. Valentine's Day is tomorrow. If you have someone for Valentine's Day, and I don't care if it's not true love. I don't care if it's somone you fucked in a barn by accident. If you have someone this Valentine's Day, then give them a moment. Hold their hand for no reason or do something completely for them, just for a second. I don't care how small it is, just make them smile. Make that one moment about making them truly, ridiculously happy.
And if you love someone this Valentine's Day, and you have them, then make sure they know it. Do something amazing. Blow it out of the fucking water. Make this day harder to live up to then any other day ever. Show them. Show her. Show him. Take this day and you fucking kill it. That's what I'd do.
That's what I've done.......
listen. don't let feelings go unheard. if you have this love, don't you fucking let it go. you fight for it. you do everything you can and you fucking fight your heart out.
I find myself wondering often, what if I had something to say to someone, and they died? They DIED.
Recently I haven't been myself. My brain has been full and my mouth has been shut. And I don't like that.
That's not me.
I wonder if I had something to say to someone, or if I knew I should be spending time with someone, and I just didn't - what would I do if those people all of a sudden were really gone for good? People can be far away from you, or out of your life, and there's still that comfort that they're there. You may have lost this person 4 years ago, but you know they're out there. You could reach them if you had to.
Well what if one day you found out you couldn't.
What if one day I found out I couldn't.
What if these people were really gone. Unreachable.
Untouchable.
And when I think about that, I wonder why I let that chance go by, day after day.
Love is the whole point.
The biggest piece of the pie.
The reason for all this work
and this toil
and this art
and these lives.
Love is it.