Maybe if you ask me nice.

My digital arts teacher asked our class if any of us had been in love. It`s a first year class, full of just out of high school students, so no hands went up, that I can recall. For them it made sense, but for 22 year old me, not as much. I thought about putting my hand up. I remember loving someone before, and him loving me. But he loved someone else too so I don`t define it as real love in the traditional sense. I remember a broken heart but I`m not about to declare I`ve been in love before based on a technicality.

She said one day we would all know love, it`s the greatest thing there is. I believe for some people it can be, but not everyone. It`s just another thing, just like not everyone writes songs or plays basketball. Love is just another hobby. I remember the moment when finding love stopped being a priority. I was in my first year of high school when someone told me to just stop looking for a boyfriend. He said if you stop pining, it'll eventually just happen. So I did. Years went by and nothing happened. But by then I had realized I wanted my dreams and desires to take a front seat. My career has been my priority ever since. I've been spending all my time and energy in building my foundations, my knowledge and skills. I've been creating, I've been making myself into something I want to be forever. I never found the time to look for love. And now I'm in this sad spot of not knowing how to want it enough to start. There is a real fear that one day I'll have the success I wanted but I'll be old and to enthralled with my work to be appealing to any man. I've heard a lot about how the majority of men want someone to care for, not someone who is so independent they wouldn't feel counted on. If I make myself into that, I will have wasted all this time becoming a person who didn't need anyone else. But I guess that's what love might be?

Then my teacher said love drives the world. She asked me if I believed in love, which is such a strange way to phrase the question but it`s how most people do. Of course I believe in love, it`s a very real, indisputable thing. How could I say no honestly? I said I did believe but not that it drives the world. I thought about what I believed drives the world and realized it was sex and money. Prostitution is regarded as the oldest profession in the world, though likely isn't. Nevertheless, it is widely assumed and with good reason. Sex was one of the first things man found he was willing to pay for after maybe food, a vital necessity. Today, people pay out of this word dollar amounts for men, women, even kids to fulfill their most depraved fantasies. Or even just nominal fee for a regular physical experience that most people partake in without any exchange of goods. 

Then there's money. I always hated the stories of people who left all their belonging to live in the woods and off the grid. Their stories were told with a disgusting air of self-righteousness. Fuck, what makes your choice to live in the woods so great? Good for you, you don't have to work, but technology will save your ass one day when you get sick or you'll just die. My life is greatly fulfilled by my access to technology and not because I get to waste hours playing video games or watching cat videos but because I get to communicate with the world, I get to learn about the universe and answer every question I've ever had. Perhaps without the technological advancements within reach, I can understand how living off the grid would be a viable option. It is as liberated as anyone could possibly be. It awed me how so many people suffer through menial work their whole lives. They have to make money. I thought about what kind of work someone might do for free, if there was a job in the world so great anyone would do it for free and I don't think it exists. People say it all the time, but take their paycheque away and they'll be foaming at the mouth, guaranteed. Money is just a chain. It keeps people locked to their shit jobs and even those who have their dream careers. We're chained by items, we work for money to buy things to fill our lives. You can put a price on anything your heart desires. You can buy someone's life, someone's death, sex. You can pay someone to own space on the earth that has existed for billions of years before the first human walked it. It's money and it's sex that drive the world; love is in the backseat.