Though I have spent the past year dedicating 600 to 800 words on a biweekly basis to the subject of romantic love, it seems there is something to be said for the fact that love takes many forms. Love for one’s neighbor. Brotherly/sisterly love. Obsessive stalker love. Loud, drunken professions of love. There are so many ways to love someone that I’m not sure how we don’t, at least a little bit, love everyone. Instead of the world of blissful affection that would seem to come naturally, however, we are in the midst of the biggest hater parade ever. Barack Obama is a terrorist. Tom Cruise is crazy. Al Yankovic is weird. Sarah Palin is ... well ... not even haters can come up with a flaw in Palin, but you get the point. So what’s a little old piece of the world like U.Va. to do in such a time of hater crisis? Luckily I have just the remedy to inject this Academical Village with so much love that even Ty Pennington would blush from the corniness.
The first step is to stop having opinions. If we all just let our ideas and decisions go out the window, none of us would ever have an argument. What’s more, we would also have no grounds for conversation, only enabling everyone to further soak in the presence of all the love that is brewing among us at this very second, being carefully stirred by none other than Chris Long. With all the free time produced by the lack of conversation and opinion-forming, we could also spend our days discovering different ways to put the word “Love” on T-shirts, posters, bumper stickers and bottle openers creatively, which would naturally all be distributed free of charge. The world is looking better already.
The second step in the love saga is to phase out all color patterns slowly save tie-dye. Not only will this bring us together under a common bond of style, but it will also bring us back to a time when fashion was at its peak. Further, the inherent uniqueness of each tie-dyed garment would make it difficult for gangs to develop a uniform code for identifying each other. This is not to say all gangs are bad, but it seems that if we’re going for pure love, we might want to keep as few cliques from forming as possible.
Thirdly, we should destroy all written record of our history. That way, it will be hard to remember if we were mad at each other prior to the love boat’s arrival. Hopefully this will keep past disagreements from coming up into present-day mindsets and ruining our whole gig.
Finally, let’s just stop killing each other. I know that seems hard and you may be like, “Well, if I can’t kill anyone then what am I going to do with all these hours in the day?” Personally, I took up cross-stitching and it has been a blast, as well as a lot less bloody except when I forget that I can’t stitch “Love” into my chest without it hurting a lot. Sleeping is also a great option. Who doesn’t love a good dream? No matter what it is, I hope all of you out there at least try to replace your killing time with some love time.
I’m feeling excited just now. And no, it’s not because it’s 4:19 in the morning, nor is it because I’m listening to “Peace Train” on repeat naked in my living room, though one or both of these may or may not be true. I’m excited because if this whole love gig works out, I might finally be able to stop hating Mariah Carey so much. That one hate alone is really taking up a lot of my time, what with the picketing outside her house and all the extra jobs I have to pick up so that I can keep buying more of her albums and burning them. So yeah, if there’s one thing to be gained from my plan, it’s a greater appreciation for Mariah Carey. See also: fewer murders.
Andy’s column runs biweekly Mondays. He can be reached at a.taylor@cavalierdaily.com.
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