Aaaaah yeah

I am done pretending, even for a minute, that human beings aren't total animals. We are driven by instinct and survival, the rest (like writing, music, technology) is just a thin cover that barely conceals our horns and tails. We tried, with various gigantic religious texts and talk about sin and hell and enlightenment, to deny the beast within because it's embarrassing, especially to the intellectual set. But in the end, we are all, in some way, cave men.

Here's how I know.

Last week, I went to a dignified theater because of my dignified appreciation for world music. I wore make-up and heels and sat in a plush velvet seat and tapped my foot and snapped my fingers to the music. But then, about 15 minutes into the show, my intellect crumbled like the Soviet bloc. Why, you ask? What was it that snapped the Yale graduate and compelled her to jump on stage with a bunch of other women and to dance in front of the WHOLE audience, including her son's pediatrician?

Hips, people, hips. And not just any hips but the mad, gyrating, dancing hips of a lean Cuban singer who must have known, very early in life, that it's pointless to fight against the animal, against lust. The back of his blue shirt was dark with sweat and every woman dancing on the stage was watching the slight movement of muscle under the drenched material, as well as the way his pants stretched, ever so slightly, revealing an ass that was as close to perfect as I've ever seen.

So, yeah, you think you're smart, but lust is smarter, I assure you. Even my most professional, intelligent moments, where I am deep in thought and writing/contemplating are easily broken by lust and its design. There is fire everywhere! Look around you!

Not too long ago my "gentleman friend" as my therapist calls him, looked at me through very sleepy eyes and just shook his head, I couldn't tell if it was disbelief or disgust.
"What," I said, defensive, "Do I scare you?"
"No, you don't scare me," he said. "But that look does. That's the look of a wolf right before it sinks its teeth in."

We cannot rationalize it, we cannot give in fully to it, so, we call it love, which it is. And love, contrary to popular belief, is not civil, nor is it patient, nor is it kind. At least not the love of animals. I was watching "Closer" the other day and Jude Law, who plays Dan, an overly intellectual writer is trying to explain that Larry, a brutish doctor, knows nothing about love. "You don't understand the heart," he says to the doctor.
"Have you ever seen a human heart?" Larry roars. "It looks like a human fist wrapped in blood."

There you have it. We're not fooling anyone.