Love, Love, Love

There's nothing you can do that can't be done.
Nothing you can sing that can't be sung.
Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game
It's easy.
There's nothing you can make that can't be made.
No one you can save that can't be saved.
Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be in time
It's easy.
All you need is love
There's nothing you can know that isn't known.
Nothing you can see that isn't shown.
Nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be.
It's easy.
All you need is love

The Beatles (John Lennon/Paul McCartney), from All You Need is Love (edited)

As much as I love this song, I’m not sure that any of us who have had any kind of life experience would agree with the simplicity of its message. Sure we want relationships to be that easy. “Love” just may not be as easy as singers, songwriters, and screenwriters have claimed it is!

For example, in the movie Adaptation, Nicolas Cage plays two characters, twin brothers Charlie and Donald Kaufman. Charlie is a confused but successful LA screenwriter overwhelmed by feelings of inadequacy, sexual frustration, self-loathing, and a certain amount of resentment toward his freeloading twin brother, Donald. Whereas Charlie is consistently uptight, cynical, and obsessive, Donald is a free spirit whose lack of fear and resistance to any shame also makes him a very likeable character. One who quickly excels at every level of Charlie’s world. If the movie were simply about Donald’s pressure-free way of experiencing life, the movie could be renamed Attitude is Everything; since it is the difference in attitudes between Donald and Charlie that determine their daily successes.

Even Charlie’s efforts to bring the flighty Donald back down to earth have little effect in altering his philosophy. Donald finally reveals to Charlie that, while in high school, he had overheard a girl who Charlie adored laughing at him behind his back. At this, Donald just smiles at his brother and replies with this profoundly moving statement about his philosophy of love:

You are what you love, not what loves you.

Where do our philosophies for living come from?
A comedy with a very funny premise, Malibu’s Most Wanted, tells the story of B-Rad (aka Brad, the son of a wealthy politician), a white rapper from The Bu who is just trying to be heard. Ending up in a gang war in South Central, the “real” gangstas are initially offended by B-Rad’s color and mannerisms, believing him to be mocking their culture and colorful hip-hop neologisms. But in a flashback scene of young Brad’s childhood, we see that B-Rad wasn’t mocking hip-hop nor faking his “gangsta” persona. Rather, it was the influence of one of his three maids growing-up whose hip hop-blaring Walkman™ and daily nurturing actually developed Brad’s personality into the young adult, B-rad. Brad had changed into his, rather, his maid’s songs.

Moving from movies to real life, namely my own, I grew up listening to a lot of music, much of which was not from my generation. It was a mix of Classical, Sinatra, Original Broadway Soundtracks, Disney’s Jungle Book and Winnie the Pooh - after all, my name was Tiger- with a dash of songs by Bread, the Carpenters, Peter, Paul & Mary, and Queen. But I still can “bust-a-rhyme” if I have to.

Such reviews of my childhood have helped me to better understand more about the roots to my philosophies on life and more specifically, how my definitions of love were shaped through the songs that I learned during my formative years. For instance, I still find myself influenced by the two male leads from the Original Broadway Soundtrack of Camelot. For those unfamiliar with this musical, Richard Burton played the noble King Arthur whose dramatic need was how to manage both his kingdom and his wife. A young Robert Goulet played the arrogant, nay, confident, Lancelot - the unbeatable knight and veritable Godsend to the king, but who ultimately brings shame upon the kingdom by his affair with the fickle Queen Guinevere.

In trying to win back the affection of the Queen, King Arthur begs his mentor for advice about women in the beautiful song, How To Handle A Woman:

How to handle a woman,
There’s a way said a wise old man,
A way known by every woman,
Since the whole rigmarole began.

Do I flatter her, I begged him answer,
Do I threaten or cajole or plead,
Do I brood or play the gay romancer?
Said he, smiling, "No, indeed."

"How to handle a woman,
Mark me well, I will tell you sir!
The way to handle a woman,
Is to love her, simply love her,
Merely love her, love her, love her"
From the 1960 Broadway musical "Camelot"
Music by Frederick Loewe and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner
Chappell & Co., Inc. ASCAP

Love her. Simply love her. I have to tell you, I have not found anything about love to be simple.

Back to me: An impressionable young man ventures out from his birthplace of Las Vegas, Nevada, into the wide, wide world to find true, true love- as if it were to be some great discovery tantamount to discovering the Galapagos Islands. Armed only with a few heroic and romantic songs to guide me, as well as the mental training videos from a dad with way too many girlfriends, ex-wives, and concubines, I embark. If this was an episode of a TV-series like Desperate Housewives, how do you think this one is gonna turn out?

Well, twenty-five years later, with my own trail of wives and girlfriends, I have come to grips with at least one truth about love: although I am still a firm believer in love, I realize there is more to life than love as I have known it. I do believe that when it comes to women, “simply love her” is good and loving advice. To be in a loving relationship, however, more is still required. Of course, my track record alone disqualifies me from teaching anyone about love, at least from the standpoint of a high success rate! Thus, I will share with you only what I have picked up along the way and let you decide if these tidbits hold any relevance in your own life.

Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction. ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery

If our goal was to learn about the history of romantic love -and boy, do I wish I had taken classes on the subject as early as 7th grade- we might best learn from an authority on both history and mythology, someone like the now-legendary Joseph Campbell. In an interview with Bill Moyers in the 1980’s, Joseph Campbell traces romantic love- or person-to-person love- back to the troubadours of the 12th Century. He describes romantic love as, “The seizure that comes when recognizing your soul’s counterpart in another person.” I’m not sure about you, but when love is compared to a seizure, be prepared for a lot of work. And therapy. And meds.

Religious forms of love like Christianity’s agape love are not romantic at all, but are typified by such ideas as “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” This is the “giving” kind of love and is not relational at all. It is sometimes a sacrifice, like helping those who cannot help themselves, or perhaps a generosity toward others that comes through being grateful for that which one already possesses.

Still further are love relationships, an interaction between two people and something not experienced between animals, or between people and their animals, or between people and their accountants. This is the type of connection that Martin Buber referred to as the I-Thou relationship: “In the I-Thou relationship, human beings are aware of each other as having a unity of being. In the I-Thou relationship, human beings do not perceive each other as consisting of specific, isolated qualities, but engage in a dialogue involving each other's whole being.” This was practically defined by my Psychology mentor, Ray, as a series of benchmarks that include communication, understanding, respect, equality and trust, each functioning on a continuum. Each party in a Love relationship is responsible for maintaining this dynamic with the other by communicating, not just talking; understanding, not just trying to be understood; respecting, not judging the other party or taking them for granted; creating an environment of equality, not trying to compete; and trusting, not always testing the other’s trust. When each party to the relationship develops these areas in the interests of the other, a love relationship is born.

Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.
~ Aristotle

But like most things in life, getting something is much easier than keeping it. Money is a good example:

In my 11-plus years as an instructor and motivator to the homeless, I have taken some goofy surveys and received some astounding responses. Whether “Were you raised Christian?” to “What city are you from?” to “Why did you lose your last job?”, the answers are as entertaining as they are insightful. But when I asked during a memory exercise “How much money have you already gone through during your time on planet Earth?”, I was not prepared for the answer. In the last 3 years, and with over 5000 homeless men, the average amount of money they have each gone through is over $600,000! What could I say to these men except, “Great!" You guys are really good at getting money!” After which, I reply, “You’re just not very good at keeping it.” Think about your own finances. It takes much more education to keep and grow the income we receive than it does just to get it. Well, love and relationships are no different.

This is my commandment, that ye love one another.
~ Jesus, In John 15:12

I did promise not to impersonate an expert here, didn’t I? If there is a lesson I have learned, it is that if I ever expect to experience the joy, peace, support, and everything else that is produced exclusively through a love relationship, I will have to become both a student of love AND a practitioner of what I am being taught. Let me share some pretty solid practical tips with you now:

Let’s take the high road here and assume that you’ve been fortunate enough (read “lucky enough”) to be in a “love relationship”, what do you do once you’re involved? Recap: Boy likes girl. Girl likes boy. Boy works all day at Purrfect Auto and spends his money on girl. Girl buys boy all kinds of trinkets with her money from her grooming job at Petco. They are in love. And according to a pretty-famous proverb, their hearts are now in each other:

“For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” Matthew 6

Their treasures are in each other, so their hearts are in each other. Even if her girlfriends tell her daily what a loser her boyfriend is, while her treasure is in him- and subsequently, her heart- she cannot stop loving him.

But let’s suppose he is a great guy- perfect for her. Dating eventually becomes more serious (you MUST read “The Difference Between Men and Women” on the www.HeroSchool.us web site under “Inspirations”) and it potentially escalates into marriage. If they’re a young couple, parents and in-laws will guide our lovebirds into the norms of married life, ultimately helping them purchase their new home. It is here, however, that the marriage can begin to deteriorate. Over a house? Not necessarily. Rather, over the direction of their treasures, like where is his and hers directed?

My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me.
~ Winston Churchill

So our couple gets the new house, and he comes home after a hard day’s work and yells, “Honey, I’m home!” To his astonishment, instead of the lovely creature he recently married greeting him in one of his shirts and nothing else, he hears a monstrous voice that faintly resembles his bride yelling back, “YOU'D BETTER NOT HAVE YOUR SHOES ON MY NEW CARPET!!!” Wow. He’s thinking, “She loves her new carpet more than me.”

A few days later, he’s just finished the last coat of wax on his new Mustang GT when his smiling bride wistfully saunters into the garage, this time wearing one of his shirts and nothing else. As she leans across the car to touch him he goes ballistic, exclaiming, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING??? I JUST WAXED THAT!!! GEEZ!!!”

What just happened, besides the first steps toward divorce and the dissolution of a love relationship? Ah, once this couple started directing their treasures into their house, their treasures were no longer directed toward each other and hence, their hearts were no longer “in” each other.

“Isn’t there something we can do?” Yes, and I’m glad you asked. It would be patently foolish to expect them not to buy a house or furnishings for their home. That’s not where the trouble lies. The trouble is that each member of the relationship began buying things only for themselves again, like they did before they were dating. If the proverb is true, then if she begins understanding what it is that interests her husband and begins buying those things for him, and he begins again to discover what she wants, likes, and needs, and begins putting his treasure into those things for her, their hearts will be diverted back into one another and the relationship will be stronger than ever. And if you think this is way too simple, try it for a while with the one you love and see for yourself how well it works.

“Relationships are active. In order to have one, each party must relate to each other and be active in that relating.” - Tiger Todd

Syntax Error

I don’t use White-Out® much anymore, but I really wish someone would make a product called “Word-Out™”, something that could erase or at least cover up all of the mistakes I make in public speaking (I call my spoken mistakes “Word-O’s”). Yes, and also to erase some of the words that have slipped out of my mouth in relationships!

Sometimes we mess-up potentially great relationships, not because we do any wrong, but because we simply do things out of order. A couple of years ago, a friend of mine gave me some old cassettes, which included a gem from Anthony Robbins performed in the early 1990’s. I turned the tape into a CD and began playing it at the gym while doing my cardio (yuck). In his message, Mr. Robbins explained that two sentences may contain the exact same words, but if those words are not in the same order or syntax, the derived meaning could be something entirely different from that which was intended. Yes, in Love Relationship communication, order and sequence can make all the difference. Enjoy these examples from Anthony Robbins:
The dog bit Johnny.
Johnny bit the dog.
Same words, but a HUGE difference in meaning, especially if you’re Johnny!

In his video, “You’re Mythic Journey”, philosopher and Harvard professor Sam Keen discusses what he calls, “Men’s Unconscious Story”, that underlying script of collected ideas about women and love that undermines so many love relationships. He says that without guidance, men go out looking for love, yet mix up the order of two essential questions, “Where am I going?” and “Who’s going with me?” Look guys, we need to know where we’re going before we try and convince some girl that has more on the ball than we do to go with us! So many times- make that in every case with men- we try to get someone- usually a woman- to go with us before we know where-in-the-hell-it-is that we’re going! Countless parodies have been done, from television commercials to Saturday Night Live skits, on the tendency for men (and boys in man-suits) not to ask for directions. But if Keen’s wisdom is accurate, then it is not pride or arrogance that keeps a guy from asking for directions, but rather that he simply has no idea where he is going himself! Do you want bliss? The Road to Bliss leads to Bliss. Young men, where are you going? If you don’t know, then how will you know when you have “arrived”?

Stability, not Money.

Yes, rich guys have an advantage over poor men in getting houses, cars, airplanes, and women. Like I tell my homeless men, when you’ve got money, you’ve got choices (should be attributed to John Avanzini). If you’ve got $495, it’s the Ritz-Carlton, $44.95 it’s the Motel 6, but if only $4.95, your only choice may be the St. Vincent’s Shelter. And this also appears to be true with the level of women a man can get. Notice I said "get," not keep.

To poor men, women seem to prefer rich guys. Yet, when I ask women what is important to them for a relationship with a man, they tell me stability. When a man has a successful job, business, or practice, and is able to pay his bills, keep the power on, and travel when he needs to, it takes money. To most women, however, he exudes stability. Yes, women deserve stable men, not men who still aren’t sure who they are, what they want, or where they’re going. After explaining this to a classroom of quite contentious homeless men a couple of weeks ago, I added, “Look, what you really want right now in your life is to be stable, and what women really want is men who are stable, so why not put your energy into becoming stable and you’ll not only have the life that you want, but a great woman to go with it?”

Love Will Keep Us Together

Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius.
~ Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

As Joseph Campbell claims, following your bliss will take you to Bliss. And there is no reason we have to go there alone. Sure, training often happens alone. So, before you get involved, get some training. But once you know where you are going and you’re ready to take your journey, it is so much more fulfilling to travel with someone who shares communication, understanding, respect, equality, and trust with you.

Love Relationships are active, and once you’ve decided that the potential is there for such an endeavor with a particular someone, expect to be active. Actively listen, actively learn, actively trust, and actively continue to direct your treasures toward that someone and you will experience what all of the authors, poets, troubadours, and the Captain and Tennille have always known, that this kind of love will keep you together.

Tiger Todd