My Truth About St. Valentine's Day…

So today is St. Valentine's Day. The shops are full of teddies, balloons and big red cards. But do you actually know what it all means? I'll bet you don't. But I bet you still celebrate it, don't you? Thought so.

Now, I don't know what it means, either. I've never been interested enough to find out. In fact, now, I don't even celebrate it. Call me a scrooge, call me unromantic, call me boring - but I don't need a special day in the calendar to tell me when it's time for me to tell a girl how I feel about her. You see, I am spontaneous when it comes to romance.

And it's the little, original things that keep a romantic relationship strong. The little notes left in the lunch box, the dirty little text messgaes, the shirt ironed for you. But consider this loving couple. They both have busy lives. They both work, they both have active social lives. Consequently, they don't spend a lot of time on romance, or passion, or fire. The relationship seems incidental to their lives.

So when the festive holidays or Valentines Day roll around, suddenly they're reminded that they're actually in a romantic relationship with each other. They suddenly remember that there were bigger reasons for their courtship than mere proximity, companionship and business-like sex.

The shops are stocked full of red delights: cards big enough to be cupboard doors, teddies that take up a whole bed, balloons galore - anything you want in any colour you want, as long as it's red. The couple, separately, while walking past a garishly-decorated shop window on their lunch break, think, "Ah! While I'm here, I'll pop in and get a card for my other half." They leave with a bag full of goodies, and their work is done for another year.

That's not love. The couple think, "Oh well, at least they got me a card - they must love me." But love is more than a word, and it's more than a reminder of that word. Love is a doing word. And true love is earned. It's a reward. So it's a trade-off. Someone shows their excellent qualities to you, and you reward them with your love.

And, as a corollary, rewarding someone for their bad behaviour is, obviously, a bad idea. Would you give a dog a bone if it ate a chunk out of your sofa? No, of course you wouldn't, because if you did, he'd think, "Okay, every time I bite the sofa, I get treats!" You'd soon be sofa-less.

So why do people act differently when it concerns humans? Why do people think that love from others is a given? Unconditional? What makes people think that they can be a useless lover/child/parent/sibling/friend, safe in the knowledge that it’ll soon all be forgotten and themselves, forgiven? The answer is prevalent in today's society in many forms: film, music, advertising, shop windows, etc.

The basic message being preached is: treat your loved ones badly - it's okay if you do because they'll forgive you. Because to err is human, to forgive is divine. True love is unconditional, and the forgiving of sins is the demonstration of that.

Excellent. So for how long exactly is it okay for someone to be a rubbish human being and be rewarded for it? "As long as shops are full of big cards and teddies" is their answer. And there lies another example of the sub-human way of living that is being taught to society from birth. And therein lies another example of my reason for this project.

I'll say it again – true love is earned. It's constant. It's shown in how you live, and it's rewarded as such. It's who you are. A big red card once a year is NOT love. That's forgetting what love is, and then remembering that you were supposed to show it, and then stating it in black and white on card as proof of the non existent love in hope that you will be given a year's extension to your contract of love.

No. True love is being proud of who you are, of loving yourself, of respecting yourself, of being a bullet-proof giant who doesn't have time for dishonesty and fake, and whose vivaciousness is repelling to the evil, and attractive to the good.

Love is the rewarding of - and the reward for - being selfish. The man that loves his life enough to fill it with good people, by virtue of him keeping those people in his life, is loving them, and their place in his life is guaranteed by virtue of their loving their own lives.

It sounds complicated, but it's simple, actually. Be selfish. Love yourself. Get yourself a Valentines Card. For every day of the year.

To freedom,

Scotty Stevens