ODDY


May 6th 2006

copyright don oddy

~ What’s love got to do with it - Love ~

Players - Boys and Girls

We learn as we grow how to be ourselves. We learn in this oddly skewed world that we can get what we want by fair means or any means. When we are needy for something, its usually got love behind it. Even when we need the simplest of things, it comes from our insides first, our need for self worth. Even when it comes to food on the table, clothes on our back, getting on in life, love lurks. And love will have everything to do with it.

Americans talk of “players”, they have coined a phrase which has very harsh implications, yet the vernacular of being a player has a variety of meanings to different people and different groups who might enjoy notoriety for being a player. Players will generally fuck us over, they will in fact go to the basest of desires and use it to get what they want, they will literally fuck us and walk away with what they want. Players will use our desires, our love and come out of it with a gain they value at our expense. Players feel entitled to be this way because there is often a case for feeling in control and cool when playing someone.

Players get to be players for all the right reasons, they have been disadvantaged, they feel they have lost out, that the world owes them something they have not yet got, that they have a superior take on the situation and that we the played are in some way, well a mark, a John, a Jill, a commodity, usable, bankable and disposable.

Even when we know inside deep down we are being played, we can go along with the least hopeful outcomes because we hope they, the players may change, may see the light and may change their outlook.

The worst of players are those who have got slick at deception, developed their amoral, without conscience behaviour and feel they still have their moral code, their ethics to fleece us, to fuck us up, because we should know better and be more cute with life.

Players are good at manipulation, they know sneaky, their best friend, they know just how much and how they have to go to get their benefit. Players make us feel bad, because we somehow know they are behaving badly. And of course players make us feel so bad because when we go along with them at all, even when our senses take us to dangerous ground, we still give players the benefit of the doubt.

Why? Well there is a good answer. Mostly we get played when we hope and believe all people are good and good conscience will bring them to our point of view. We sometimes give the players our moral code and we feel they will adopt the same outlook as us. We forget players only see us as a mark and not as a human being with feelings. Players get their love of self from their ego, their way of making what they do entirely justified, because we are the weak and gullible.

Players win their case both ways. Players feel satisfied that they are deceptive enough to get away with it, that they are obviously deceptive so its our fault anyway and best of all, they retort, ”well who gives a fuck anyway”. Players rules make players keep on playing. And we keep believing in the best of people so we show up for hostile muggings, w give and have taken, love, our favours, our money, our self esteem and our living if we are so gullible as to believe in the goodness of others. Sad but so often true.

I was recently played. I behaved against my better judgment, and I did it unwillingly. To offer love and friendship and companionship. To have other talents from the experience of life which gave me skills and attributes so useful to the player, they would do much and anything, well nearly, to get my gifts and leave me high and dry. Befriended so, and vulnerable to obvious charms, I saw it and denied it, I saw and did not want to think or feel that I was being played, and I knew it. Being played and being deceived. It made me behave against my good judgment. Well I say there is no fool like an old fool and yet I wanted a good outcome, where right would prevail, that love would blossom and that I was right to keep on giving the benefit of the doubt.

Dubious huh? That a smart guy like me would fall for the ultimate prize, being loved? Hey, I am human too and being loved is everything for when we feel love for another, what richer reward than being told the same back, especially when its been a while and when we are new to our outlook and the player has been around a long time too and gives the appearance of sincerity. They say that the reason why so many people don’t believe in the devil is because no one has seen them and no one wants to believe in them. it’s the same with a player. They can be so squeaky in their decorum, so genuine in their behaviour, we would never expect in a million years that they would play us. The very definition of a successful player.

And all this I have known for many a year, and all this I have denied, because I took on face value the ethics and principles of me living my life, and hoping others felt the same. We forget the perils of living when we forget to trust our own judgment. And we need challenge the judgment of others, even when they are certificated as authentic and genuine. Even with certified credentials, and our sunny outlook we can be duped by our loving nature and our belief in good.

We better take a kinder judgment to ourselves when we are played or we may become bitter. And we may believe we behaved badly as we realise our love has been used and twisted against us.

For in the end, we need forgive ourselves our gullibility, and as we are as hard a critic on ourselves, we need forgive the perp, the player their part too. And never forget them. Forgive yes, and forget? No fuck that, for consequences need to be clear. When players play us, they are forgiven, and if you think I will let them back in? Well maybe one day, maybe never, maybe when they have done playing.

Players do reform, they do get their sense of proportion back, they do return to their good nature, they do realise and work out their doings to themselves and others and they do regret, if they ever have a life long enough to work it out.

What’s love go to do with? Everything of course, because when we learn to love in our most pure sense, we learn to love without prejudice. And wrapped around love is forgiveness of everything, completely and utterly.

Are we hit with revelations and firebrands which turn players into people of substance, are they able to have an epiphany? Are they able to change their spots? Can a player be humanised? Yes of course I urge you to believe.

Anyone can stop being a player when they sort out their love of life. Caution shrieks as you wonder at my boldness and forgiveness of players. I do forgive, I don’t forget. I know we all have a player inside us and we turn to the good when we realise our good conscience. And I forgive completely.

To change may take years and years, for beyond epiphany is redemption, and redemption is equal to effort to become a person of good conscience through behaviour and delivery. And until then, to the players amongst us, fuck you, till you stop fucking me.

People can and do change, they turn to whatever works, and good conscience will always work in the end. Some never learn…


don's daily