Dr. Dasse on LOVE
The humbled pediatrician vagabond shares scattershot thoughts on today's most important topic
Can I tell you something, a story from when I was sane, indulging in manity (mass sanity) as prescribed by the United States of America, the caucazoid club, and whichever other groups I identified with, which identified me as one of their own, for tax purposes and other tallies?
Was in a bank, doing a deposit of the capitalist calories into my account, when I look over, and I see him. A man humble, with a funny face, funny expression on his face, soft cotton clothes. Not only did he seem sweet to me, like just a sweet guy from the way he was talking to the clerk with a slightly squeaky voice and a kind demeanor, I felt more than that. I felt love. I looked at him and I loved him. And prescribing to manity (mass sanity), I recoiled at the thought. The base of my brain, the bit that holds the soul, screamed, LOVE, and then the brain cap—where the super cool, hip, silver spray-painted ego resides—it squeezes tight right down and says, no, not love. That's weird, that's gross. I recoiled at the very notion of loving this stranger, this strange man.
Now, let's flip the scenario, let's be two dudes walking in the mall, sunglasses, baseball caps, what have you. Or we're artists in tight painty jeans, or businessmen, or any other cheap designation you like to layer on your brother based on skin color, hobby, profession or style of dress.
Let's just jump back some, less specificity, and just go with dudes. Okay, so we're two dudes just walking through the mall. And I see some terrible woman up ahead, her face taut from the surgeon's blade, her voice yelling, her body half-a-bottle-of-perfume-drenched so as to assualt even your most intimate sense. And I look at you. You're chewing on a piece of pineapple flavored beef jerky, sucking on an Orange Juilius—half-off with a coupon you printed from the internet, so why not? And I say to you, dude, I say, "Man, I sure hate that lady."
And you go, "Yeah." You just croak it out without a thought, like a frog at midnight, you just go, yeah. And now let me ask you, look, that's normal? In our society right now, it's totally normal to say that, in this collection of people on this spot of Earth, with Rio river down south, it's fine and okay to hate. What? Why? That's not what Jesus said. That's not what Ghandi said, or Dr. Martin Luther King, or any of the others who we know as fine, fine men.
But what if we're two dudes and I see a humble shopkeep struggling to get a sign up outside his lingerie shop and I say, "Look at that guy. I love that guy." You would zip those sunglasses right off your face and give me a look like, hard-boiled-egg eyes, like, what? And who are you? You'd get hit in the chest with so much weird fear. Lots of this is probably gay fear, being a male in a male dominated society so afraid of our own perverted sexuality that we wage war against it when we feel it's being directed back at us, but there's more to it than that. There's the fact that you think I might have listened to Jesus. That if we get mugged, I'm going to be chasing the cat down, saying, "Wait, take my shirt too, take my jacket." And if I was feeling courageous I would do that, or at least I hope I would.
Now back to love. If we're going to love our brothers and our sisters we've got to get accustomed to the word, to the notion. Let Love become a trend, not just for restaurants, but for humans, and it will, man. It will. It's so easy and it feels so good. And I'm not just talking about loving that sweet dude at the bank and the humble shopkeep, that's easy, I'm talking about the rich woman who carved her face to try and be pretty. You don't have to endorse that behavior to love her, and in fact, if you were to love her and love the gray hair at her ears and the wrinkles on her face, then she wouldn't feel that stupid need to get so many God forsaken surgeries. And you gotta love those rotten professionals too, the face carvers who pull taut a wizened mask that implies character, the deodorant hawkers who deny us the sweet, acquired-taste smell of our sister's and brother's natural, strong bodies. The smell of muscle and vitality and action covered up with laboratory flower smells and spicy things for men. Old spices. Factories shut down. Yeah. That's what I'm talking about. Factories dying and men living. Cause you don't have to love factories, you don't have to love Corporations. Those are safe to hate. Those are good places to deposit your bile, so long as you can love the stockholders, and even the CEO. Love the fat cats, just don't love what they do. I'm saying what Jesus said, I know, but in a world where it's still okay to hate, to hate anyone, it's not redundant. We have to say it over and over and over again, not just on Sunday, not just on Monday, not just on stinkin' Taco Tuesday neither. With every breath, with every thought. Love all! All one! You are bees, you are trees, and you are mees! Don't mind the fleas...please. ;)
Too right. You can love somebody and your wiener isn't involved at all! We need to do that kind of love to every stranger we meet.
(and we can probably fix up those corporations, too. Like, we could show them on a chart how much more money they made back when they showed a little love and decency to their customers. They LIKE money, so that should be an easy sell.)
Thanks doc 🥲