A Kind of Prayer

I love you, and so I try to please you.

Or maybe I try to please you, so I love you.

Where does it begin, really? One thing I know: there is love in me, and so I give it to you.

I’m not sure who you are, or what you are, or if you’re anything more than a figment of my imagination. Part of me thinks I keep talking to you just to convince myself someone’s listening. But the more I think of you, the less I’m trapped in myself. The more I try to follow you, the more strength I find in myself. The more I give my love to you, the more I find good things and good people in this world that are worthy of love and service.

For so long I’ve tried only to please myself. And the more I try to please myself, the more my desires grow and the more miserable I feel because of the ever-growing distance between myself and the sum of what I want. I twist my thoughts into horrible shapes, distort the truth, manipulate people, hate myself for what I become, and still desperately cling to anything that gives relief from the pain.

But I stopped drinking. And started writing.

And the more I write, the more clear it becomes to me that I’m split in two. There’s the part of me that wants to be absolute ruler of the whole universe and feels cheated if it has to settle for anything less. Then there’s the part of me that’s eager to serve, happy to please, and doesn’t mind even the cruelest insult.

I can’t formulate anything better than the phrase Milton gives Satan in Paradise Lost to describe the basic attitude of the one half: “Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.” The very idea of service felt (and still feels) like a blow to my ego — but the difference now is that I’ve learned my ego could definitely use a few solid knocks now and again.

And also — an even bigger blow to my ego — I find I enjoy serving. Not in any big, grandiose way. The most I’m talking about (at the moment) is that maybe I should volunteer a little. But more generally, I like having the chance to make people comfortable, make them smile, and make them laugh. More than anything I love to please — which is another blow to my ego because my ego thinks something’s wrong when it’s not getting pleased.

But simply knowing that I can do something or make something that someone else can enjoy or take pleasure in is the most satisfying enjoyment and pleasure I know.

Probably I’m a bit of a performer by nature. I love to please. I want desperately to please.

And that desire to please definitely isn’t the whole of what love means — not the whole of love for an individual, nor for humanity, nor for the divine. Love is a bigger and more complex and overwhelming and terrifying thing than I understand. Maybe more than anyone understands.

But the yearning to please is a part of love. It’s something real and alive in me. For a long time I kept it buried because I was ashamed of it, or because I was afraid of what it would demand of me, or because my ego wants to be loved before it loves.

So I cut myself off from love entirely, because I didn’t want to give what I had.

That’s not any way to live. We all have a kind of love inside us, some little part of our nature we yearn to give away for the ones we love, for the world, for all of humanity. And when I look into myself I find this childlike longing to please, amuse, and delight. It’s a silly little sort of love, but it’s in me, and it may be the highest and best thing I have to give right now.

We have to start from where we are.

I don’t know the future. But I can guess this love will grow into something stronger, deeper, and more mature. Still, I hope it always remains a little childish and so eager to please.