#on commitment

[tamsoj]

Albert Camus, from Notebooks 1935-1942; tr. by Philip Thody

[stealthknights]

An open letter to my girlfriend

I want to tell you that I love you. You already know this, but in your words, you said: "it doesn't hurt to hear it again and again." I tell you each day, not out of obligation or duty, but just because I think of you. When I think of you, I feel a very particular way. A way in which I had not experienced before: genuine, sincere, heartfelt, generous, and kind.

You don't have to call this a love letter. We don't have to throw everything into boxes of categories and shapes and whatnots. This isn't hand-written, but it is typed by hand. From my mind to you. Maybe it's a message on love. On my or our definition of love. Just us two.

Not all of us fit into the boxes that the world which we call society has made for us. Our life purposes and direction are much bigger than the small, petty categories society tries to stuff us into. Just because I have generalized-anxiety doesn't mean that I am broken or timid. Because you have anxiety attacks, it doesn't mean you're unstable or unlovable. I know that you are worried and anxious of recent transpirings.

I always, in any situation, place you before my very own self. I think of you before myself. I think of your needs or wants. Things that you like or enjoy (good food, video games, space and time to relax especially after work hours). You're the most important person to me, and that doesn't just come with my promises. It comes with my support. We have supported a long-distance relationship for 1 year and 2 months now. I am proud of us, yes, but I am proud of you for taking steps forward whether at work or when it comes to anxiety. I love every part of your body, every inch, crevice and curve. I love every angle and thought in your mind, on every and any topic. I love your commitment and your support. I love you as an individual and as my best friend. I'm right here, and you aren't walking this road alone.

The road might be curved and winding. Sometimes it'll rain. Maybe it'll get muddy too. But there's always the chance to pounce on the puddles like children or to go off onto the grass and take a breath. We are together. I am yours. You won't ever lose me, no matter where this road takes us, and that is what I promise and will show for the remainder of my life and beyond, if we become reborn again.

I love you, ma vhenan.

Yours dearly,

Brandon E. M.

[sp9ceg1rl]

I don’t really know how to make commitment look louder than the choices I’ve already made, or how to translate big decisions into something that can’t get lost in smaller details.

[mattnben-bennmatt]

Arching his back and waving languidly toward a waitress, Mr. Affleck exposes a smeary splotch on his right shoulder. ''I was 16,'' he says, blushing. ''I got a fake ID, went out and got a tattoo of barbed wire. Then I decided I didn't like the tattoo.'' He had roses etched over the barbed wire. ''I decided I didn't like the roses, either.'' Hence, the splotch. ''You get to be my age, there's real pressure—family pressure, peer pressure—to start thinking about marriage, kids and all that stuff,'' he says. ''I want to make sure I take that decision very seriously, and not before I'm ready. Whenever I think something's not to be taken lightly, I just look down at my arm and remember how different my frame of mind was when I got the tattoo.''

— From Ben Affleck’s interview with The New York Times (10 September 2000).

[packing-bags]

Some of you are afraid of the thought of marriage. some of you are afraid of committing to things - friendships, jobs. You are afraid because you see the challenge and the difficulty in them, and ultimately what that fear is is it's a fear of submitting our wills.  In doing that, you may seem you are expanding your options, but what you are really doing is sitting in front of the poke machine and cutting yourself off from the possibility of growth. ... Do not fear difficulty, do not fear challenge. To do so is to choose not to grow. Do not buy into the cultural narrative that life was meant to be easy.

Mark Sayers, (x)

[packing-bags]

“The failure of an urban promise: That promise concerned human persons who could lead detached, unrooted lives of endless choice and no commitment was glamorized around the virtues of mobility and anonymity that seemed so full of promise for freedom and self-actualization. But it has failed …It is now clear that a sense of place is a human hunger that urban promise has not met … It is rootlessness and not meaninglessness that characterizes the current crisis.”

Walter Brueggemann

[packing-bags]

You know, I do think the learning is important. You have to know with intentionality - like forgiveness, you have to have some thoughts about what forgiveness is - but just knowing it is not enough. We all know what to do a lot of the time, but that I [actually do] it. It has to be followed up with two other faculties: one is loving it enough to actually do it, to be motivated to do it; and then having a sort of moral yearning that even if it's not pleasant, you're still going to do the thing, because you believe that it's right. Learning that depth of love and that depth of passion is what we need to really propel us and motivate us to do good.

David Brooks