I'm pretty sure tomorrow will be a tough day for me. In fact, I'm pretty sure tomorrow's post will be difficult to write. It's one that's been forming in my mind for awhile now. Actually, it has been forming for almost a year now. And a warning, it will probably be sad. But I hope it's not depressing.
I've been turning over this phrase I read in a Stephen King short story called, Quitters, Inc. The character, Dick Morrison, has resolved to quit smoking. A friend passed a card to him about a company called Quitters, Inc. He guaranteed he would be able to quit with their help. Well, as Morrison finds out, their methods, while pragmatic and effective, are cruel, cold, and highly invasive. There is always someone watching him. If he slips once, his wife is kidnapped and placed in a room where Dick watches as she is shocked for 30 seconds. If he slips again, he is then in the room. And the punishments get more severe, including beating his mentally retarded child in front of him.
At one point in the story Morrison visits his son at school. He hugs him tightly.
Hugging his son tightly, realizing what Donatti and his colleagues had so cynically realized before him: love is the most pernicious drug of all. Let the romantics debate its existence. Pragmatists accept it and use it.The phrase, "love is the most pernicious drug of all" really caught me off guard. I'm still processing it. I'm not sure why it stuck out to me, but I think it's because I believe love is always good. Love is not something that should be used or abused. Love comes from God, which is undefinable and unconditional. There is the love between human beings, but that is a different kind of love. As someone who has experienced and experiences this love, it's not necessarily appropriate to say it's a "conditional love. I think it's just human love. It's messy. It's broken. It ties us to one another.
