Zombie Tattoo

I’ve been thinking all evening of Leo Buscaglia.

He was an odd man, a man of unusual principles, a man uncommonly ridiculed for his simplistic, aphoristic views on life and love. Intellectuals scorned him because his wisdom was humble, available to anyone who took a moment to grasp it; others sneered and derided him because he wasn’t oblique enough, studied enough, or complex enough. “Life is more difficult than Mr. Buscaglia would have us believe,” some said.

I saw Buscaglia once in person. He hugged me after his lecture. I felt enfolded in a warmth seldom equaled. Maybe I had swallowed his Kool-Aid, but for a good month afterward I heard his words in my head and I was gladdened by them.

My memories of Buscaglia have been stirred  by a couple of things. First, by a series of conversations I had this weekend and then by white-hot hatred.

I can’t remember ever truly hating anyone in my life, not as I define hate, not the sort of hate that revels in another’s misery, wishes them harm and celebrates when harm befalls them.

Trouble is, genuine hatred harms the hater as much or more as his object of scorn. That’s the reason you have to rid your system of it as quickly as possible. But how? Buscaglia offers a clue: “Don’t brood. Get on with living and loving. You don’t have forever.” He might have said, don’t hate. Don’t be angry. You’ll die soon enough. You don’t have time for it.

Buscaglia also said, “Love is always bestowed as a gift — freely, willingly and without expectation. We don’t love to be loved; we love to love.” It reminded me of Hermann Hesse’s Demian: “Love must not entreat, nor demand. Love must have the power to find its own way to certainty. Then it ceases merely to be attracted and begins to attract.” Buscaglia would have agreed: “Don’t smother each other. No one can grow in the shade.”

I realized this evening that if I let another drive me to hate, then they win. Not only will they sow in me seeds of suspicion and discord, but they will rush me into self-destruction, they will succeed in smothering me. I can’t let that happen. Life is short enough as it is.

This weekend I reveled in old and new friendships and in sharing what is most precious to me with those who are most precious to me. That might seem like a commonplace thing to some, but not to me. To me it is extraordinary. If those moments of laughter and sweetness are all I ever get from a newfound relationship, they’re more than enough to make up for all the time invested in it.

If I let anything rob me of the joy I felt in those moments, I’m all the poorer for it.

I can’t let that happen. Life is too, too short.