i’ve told you before, on these pages, that you cannot chase, force, or run from love.

but that wasn’t enough.

you are still doing it, i know.

you’re running from real intimacy.

you are stifling your light.

you’re hiding from the world, because in the past, when you’ve come out in the open you perceived that the world didn’t love you in the ways you wanted it to.

but what if you were chasing? what if you were reaching? what if you, like the rest of us, were trying to create and force and manipulate your way into an artificial type of love?

here’s a truth that is sometimes hard to accept: love is a given, but not in the ways you think.

real, deep, purposeful, meaningful loves are discovered. they are uncovered, not generated or manufactured. they are preexisting, they are permanent, and entering into them makes you feel like you are shifting realities, shifting timelines, so that the rules are slightly different, where you can feel yourself growing from their

presence.

this means that you cannot chase love. you cannot run from love. not the real kind. that kind exists separate from you, it cannot be changed, it will always be

even when you are not.

especially when you are not.

i wrote once that love makes you experience reality as physics has always told us it exists. i was right.

but back to the real focus of this post, chasing.

when we try to chase, create, artificial-ize love, we are always left unsatisfied. there are a few reasons for this. the first is that love exists separate from you. its presence is completely out of your control, so none of your actions will affect its presence. think of all of us as little treasure hunters, sifting through the earth for precious gems. you won’t be able to predict where they are exactly, and you certainly cannot move them to the places you’d like them to be. they are there, they must be, but you can’t find them by digging desperately in the same place. you have to try different tools, (shovels, pans, gloves) you have to search in new places (deeper, in the softer soil, on the underside of rocks) and if you keep at it, you’ll get better. you’ll develop a sense for where the biggest diamonds are, where the fattest rubies reside, you’ll understand, more and more, what you’re looking for as new jewels present themselves.

then, one day, you’ll find a jewel that’s valuable enough, to you, that you’ll stop looking altogether.

you will not get there by chasing. you will not get there by running either. no matter how hard, how ferociously you dig in one area, you cannot will precious gems into existence.

maybe you’ve been looking in the wrong place this entire time.

the other thing this means? when you think you’ve found a gem that’s worthy, leave it alone. stop trying to force it into shapes it won’t work into, stop tossing it aside, stop touting it, and certainly don’t pawn it off because all that you’ll ever feel is

lacking.

you don’t need more time with it. you don’t need less. there is nothing

nothing

you need to do but let it be.

the second reason chasing does not work is, ironically, that sometimes it does work. or at least it appears to.

if you do choose to search and search and date and date and fuck and fuck you’ll find people. you’ll find bodies, loads of them, you’ll find hands to hold, you’ll find piles of people, but each one will leave you feeling even more empty than before.

why is that? we demand to know. well, the answer is in the subtlety.

the sad, but fortunate truth is this. when you chase something and you find something real, you don’t trust it.

remember, when you chase you believe that you are in the driver’s seat. you believe that love will come because you search for it so desperately, you believe that it can be forced and created (which it cannot be) and when you find it you’ll believe it exists because of your actions, not because of you. subconsciously, you’ll think your partner loves you not because of you, but because you forced them to.

and that is a painful thing to believe.

that’s not to say that love does not take work. it does. but it’s a deliberate, careful, mindful kind of work, and love is the predecessor to that work. it is not the consequence.

the final reason chasing doesn’t work?

soulmates are like magnets. the more one of you pushes, the more the other will run away. this is not because there isn’t love. it’s because there is, and the strongest loves are usually the ones that we try to run away from when they start.

when you meet a soulmate, reality shifts. you’ll be proven wrong over and over again, as you must be to get any better as a human.

when you meet a soulmate, you will find that you are incredibly empathetic with one another. when they feel insecure, when they’re in pain, you’ll sense it deeply. you will feel it too. when you feel them chasing, fixing, creating, forcing, you’ll respond immediately and dramatically. and this powerful little painful cycle helps neither of you. how could it?

but, i encourage you not to forget this. the best thing about this sort of deep, transcendental love is that it does not go away. olive branches will always work. you’ll always respond in profoundly positive ways to each other’s love. you’ll want, need each other so bad, that forgiveness will be effortless.

so stop standing in the way, please. keep your mind out of it, it believes falsehoods. follow your heart, and by that i mean listen to the twinges in your chest. pay attention to the people with whom eye contact feels different. pay attention to the people whose compliments mean more. pay attention to the people that you don’t quite understand because they impress you so greatly. pay attention to the art these creators make, because it will affect you so deeply. pay attention. stop blinding yourself. stop crippling your soul.

it deserves to be set free.

true love breaks chains, it doesn’t forge them.

and maybe, just maybe, true love is already right in front of you.

you’ve just been looking in entirely the wrong place.