Valentine's day is big business in America but you've heard all this before; 17 billion in sales collectively, approximately 140 dollars per person etc. etc....
So of course, in the Corporate States of America, there is a huge stake in promoting the holiday as the duty of all lovers to engage, whether they like it or not. There is also a vast advertising budget attached to Valentine's day, one that employs a form of Sublimal Seduction, broadcasting a message of fear and loathing into our lower selves that says we are unloving, uncaring and selfish soulmates should we fail to respond properly, lavishly, and as expensively as possible on our partners.
And for significantly single folks like me, not necessarily jumping over the moon about our singletude (sic) but neither wandering through our days in a state of unloved desperation with a mixed message of love and fear raising our anxiety levels three notches on the Richter scale of personal earthquake assessment. Or maybe it's just capitalism at its best or worst depending on how you see it?
Love is a business and its a great business, both in a pragmatic and metaphorical
sense. I can think of a lot of worse ways to make a living than to sell love, as long as we are doing it for the absolute joy one gets from giving it, receiving it, selling it or sewing it. That's positive promotion of an authentic way of living, at least to these optimistically engaged eyes. So bully you folks engaged in that and keep up the good work. However, if you are using a fear and protection based approach like the love insurance man, telling me I need to buy a chocolate bunny and shove it down the throat of some unsuspectingly vulnerable mate, suggesting it will somehow protect me from the vicissitudes of living and dying alone, forget it.
So make of it what you will, it really is your choice in the end. Focus on what you think it should be, what you want it to be and the rest may just tend to fall away.
And finally, as I am prone to do these days, a song from my recording artist days, surprisingly enough called Valentine's Day. ENJOY!!!
Dr. Robert Lusson is a licensed clinical psychologist currently living and working in Los Angeles, California.