Valentines

Yesterday we celebrated Valentine's day, an event that has somewhat occult roots in ancient Roman and early Christian traditions having little to do with our contemporary customs. Those find their origins in Victorian England but mass commercialization is almost entirely an American invention, one that is propelled by nearly 30 billion dollars in annual sales of cards, flowers and candy--along with other baubles that are intended as a pledge of life long love.

I am hardly opposed to pledging one's romantic feelings, although I prefer to pen my own words rather than the saccharine sentiments offered by Hallmark and its brethren, and flowers are a lovely way to express appreciation of another any time of the year. Still, I find myself just a tad bit grumpy about the mercantile calculus behind it all. It all seemed so much sweeter when we were in grade school and cut out paper hearts to send to our first crush. And it was indeed innocent and charming in its own way unless you happened to be the one child that did not receive a card, or any other expression of inclusion. Worse yet as we advanced in years was the competition among the boys and girls in our junior high school class to acquire the greatest number of Valentines.

To be fair many of us likely participated to some degree in this popularity contest but I want to suggest that this emotionally immature behavior is still reflected in some people's adult lives, and little of it concerns the mawkish actions of pre-teens. I have written before about those fraught years in middle school when we learn pretty much all we'll ever know about dating and relationships. Those are the years where we suffer the fears of rejection should we cross the school gym floor and ask someone to dance, or worse, stand alone never asked. These days the who likes who game is played online in the form of social media gossip, and boys and girls both count coup numbering their lengthy lists of potential paramours.

If we are so fortunate as to escape this sophomoric approach to our love life we may still be scarred by the recollection of our seeming victories or losses in the popularity game and it does affect how we behave in our adult lives. Emotional injuries in our pre-teen years hurt, and the hurt does not necessarily go away it only submerges itself to reappear later. It lies behind the need we humans have to curry favor, too choose people for all the wrong reasons whether in our personal or public lives. Most of us learned rejection or the addiction of attention in those years and we carry it forward even now. Our compulsion to divide the world into winners and losers, to view each other as desirable partners, colleagues, or leaders has its seeds in so many of our social interactions in these impressionable years.

This Valentine's day is past, but I want to issue a challenge for the next, and for every day of the year. Let's stop choosing--we are all in this together, and as George Carlin observed, none of us are getting out of it alive. So, let's stop feeling as if there are winners and losers, as if popularity is a grace conferred except by us and next year, send a Valentine to someone just because. Each day let's try to make someone's day by choosing them for no good reason except they are fellow travellers in life.