I always stop and sort through the bargain bins. I¹ve found some cassettes and CDs that I¹ve sought for a while. Others, I¹ve taken a chance on because I liked the name of the group or the cover and I¹ve been pleasantly surprised by the music.
Bargain bins also require patience. You have to be willing to devote some time to reading the labels of the all the music. Sometimes, the bins are really disorganized, and it can take even longer to find anything in them. I don¹t mind. Most people I know don¹t go near the bargain bins. They¹re afraid it makes them look cheap, or are sure that they¹ll never find anything worth looking at or buying. They often feel like I¹m wasting their time while sorting through the bargain bins. Often, I end up going into music stores myself so that no one is rushing me. That way, I get to take my time while I sift through the bargain bins.
I feel that I spend enough of my life rushing around. I join the rat race in work and school, always doing whatever I can to be more quick and efficient. Looking through bargain bins has always been one (and at points the only) time that I would slow down, relax, and take some time out from the hustle and bustle of daily life and do something that brings me pleasure.
For example, last summer, I went to Harvard Square in Cambridge, MA, strictly to go into one particular music store and peruse the dozen or so bargain bins of compact discs in the store. It took me well over an hour to go through all the bins, but I ended up finding several discs that I wanted, including a couple I¹d been seeking for quite a while, and that had been discontinued by their recording companies.
One of my favorite songs of all time is on a tape I picked up in a bargain bin. The song is ³Heartland² by a band called Silent Running. I¹d never heard of them before I bought the cassette. Cost me two bucks. I consider those among the best-invested dollars spent in acquiring my music collection. Since then, I¹ve played that tape for a lot of people. The result: four more copies of that cassette were retrieved from music store bargain bins. Of course, when we discovered that the same group had another album out, everyone joined me in my digging through bargain bins. (I did manage to get a hold of their other cassette, though no one else I know has been as lucky.) I now have 4 people that don¹t mind music shopping with me. I think they¹ve learned, as I have, that it¹s OK to relax and slow down, and devote some time to doing something carefully.
Maybe I¹m onto something. I¹m not really sure.
I have another story about that particular bargain bin that prompted me to write this chapter. It¹s a story about a song on a cassette that I found in that bargain bin. You¹ll see what I mean. ..
Yes, this is the story about the song on the cassette that I found in the bargain bin in the music store (in the town of Dedham, in the state [Commonwealth, if you want to get picky] of Massachusetts, in the United States of America, on the planet Earth, in the Milky Way galaxy...). Well, now that we¹ve pinpointed the precise geographical location of my discovery, I suppose I can tell you about it.
The song that I¹ve made such a big deal about is called ³I¹ve Got a Lot to Learn About Love². That title really got me to thinking, so I bought the cassette and brought it home, all the while thinking about that song title. There was only one thing on my mind the whole time, I just kept repeating the same thought, asking myself the same question,
³OK, so you¹ve got a lot to learn about love. So do I.²
³Wouldn¹t it be awfully hard to find too many people that don¹t?²
Now, I know there are some people that seem to have figured love out, or they think they¹ve figured out love, but in actuality, I¹m sure most of us have at least a few more things to learn about love.
Now, let me clarify one thing here before I continue. I am talking about being in love, not just loving someone. There is a big difference between the two. You love the person(s) that you¹re in love with, but you love other people as well. For example, chances are that if you have a pet (or many pets), that you love your pet(s). However, it is significantly more unlikely that you¹re in love with your pet(s).
Being in love is special. It¹s an altogether different feeling from love.
My realistic side puts it like this: love is caring about someone or something. You can love a flavor of ice cream, or you can love your brother (if you have one, and even then, that might be open to argument). However, being in love is another emotion. It¹s stronger than love in some ways, weaker in others. It¹s by being in love that we choose who we want to have an intimate relationship with. Being in love with someone is the selection of the one person (or, perhaps several people) that we feel is a perfect match for us‹that ³perfect someone².
This is not an easy subject to explain. I¹m trying to go slowly, so that I don¹t lose you, or get lost myself, because this is really complicated at times‹I have a hard enough time making sense of it myself that it¹s no easy task to present my arguments to anyone else.
Hopefully, I¹ve managed to establish the difference between loving someone and being in love with someone. If not, the remainder of this chapter probably won¹t make much sense.
But if I have, then I can elaborate on being in love, and learning about being in love.
Being in love is definitely a learning experience. If you¹ve ever been in love, then I¹m sure you¹ll agree that nothing¹s ever been so wonderful and so terrible at the same time. There¹s almost nothing harder than some parts of being in love.
One of those is being in love with someone that isn¹t in love with you. It¹s frustrating and it¹s painful‹I¹m speaking from experience here. And sometimes, not even the realization of the fact is enough to make you stop feeling the way you do. In fact, sometimes, that only makes you more in love with that person, you want them even more because you can¹t have them.
Another difficulty that you can encounter is the realization that just because you¹re in love with someone, and he/she is in love with you, it doesn¹t mean that the two of you are going to go through life together without any problems. Love is strong, but it is not a cure-all. Like everything else man has in this world, love is not perfect. There is still conflict, and still misunderstanding. The trick to dealing with that is that it¹s important to understand from the beginning that love is usually not a solution to a problem. What it is, more often than not, is a reason to search for the solutions to problems. Love is a glue that can hold things together. Love is a cause, and like all other causes, if it¹s important enough to you, you¹re willing to face problems, and deal with things‹find your way around, or even through obstacles.
Now, don¹t think that I hate the idea of love. I¹m just presenting a realistic approach to it. I think love is one of the greatest things in this world, without question, and I can¹t imagine living in a world without any people that I love.
One thing that I¹ve noticed in my lifetime is that there are a lot of people that don¹t even believe in love anymore, and that love is not real. I remember a time when I felt that way. I was sure that love didn¹t exist, or that if it did, it wasn¹t worth having. All I heard were stories of pain, and how lonely and miserable I¹d be if I ever let love happen to me. Love disgusted me, and I shunned all notions of falling in love, and finding someone, and being happy.
This is NOT a romance story, though, and I¹m not gong to make you miserable with all sorts of details of my relationship. Suffice to say, I decided to give love a chance, and I did find someone for a time, and fell in love, and it was wonderful.
Then it ended. And not the way, or at the time that I wanted it to.
All those stories were right to some extent; it hurt, and I was miserable for a while, and lonely, and all the other things that I was warned would happen did happen.
But they were wrong about one thing‹it WAS worth it, that time that I had was worth every single second of anguish and pain that I went through afterwards. I can¹t say I particularly enjoyed rebounding, but if I could go back and change everything, I wouldn¹t.
After a little while, the pain subsided, and the loneliness went away, and I rebounded and recovered. One thing that I definitely learned in my lifetime was that there¹s no use spending all your time wallowing in self-pity because something¹s happened to you. Sure, go ahead and hurt and be unhappy for a while‹you¹re entitled. But don¹t let that be your way of life, get on with things and keep moving. Time didn¹t freeze at that moment when you were hurt, and your life should move along with time.
Another thing I learned at that point is that there were people that cared about me, and stood behind me, and saw me through some rough times. Those are people I¹m proud to call my friends, and I¹ve mentioned some of their names in previous chapters, and will mention in future chapters.
Love happened to go wrong for me that one time. That doesn¹t mean it will always go wrong for me, or for you. A lot of love is made up of determination‹you have to want it enough to be willing to do what it takes to find it. It may take a day, or it may take eighty years, that¹s not something anyone can ever be sure of, but if you give up hope, chances are that you¹ll never find it. You don¹t have to go out desperately in search of it, but you have to at least be willing to think that the right love is out there.
I guess what I¹ve done here is to incorporate that song. I¹m telling you what I¹ve learned about love, not that it¹s by any means a great volume of information. We¹ve all got to learn from each other in this world, and I figure that if I can share what I¹ve learned, then maybe someone else will take that knowledge and apply it, and maybe even learn more and further someone else¹s knowledge. That¹s what life is‹one big learning experience.
Do I still think that ³I¹ve Got a Lot to Learn About Love²?
You bet I do. And I¹m going to keep learning and making mistakes until I finally get it right, no matter how long it takes me, or how many times I have to rebound and deal with things. I know that I need love, and I¹m not going to stop until I find it.
Love can be painful sometimes, but there¹s nothing quite like it. It¹s magical, and beautiful, and it¹s worth every trial and tribulation you have to face in order to get it.
That¹s something I learned about love. And I¹ve got a lot more to learn.
(P.S. The song "I've Got a Lot to Learn About Love² is performed by a band called The Storm, on their debut album "The Storm", @1991 Interscope Records, just in case you were curious.)