One Who Acts for the Sake of Love

Amateur

I’m not drawn to amateur porn by the production value. The pixelated picture from a static camera isn’t exactly a recipe for instant arousal.

I can explain the real appeal through the etymology of a word most people only encounter as a thumbnail label on the category page of pornhub: “amateur.”

It comes from the Latin root amare. Like te amo, amorous or what happens when the moon hits your eye. Combined with the French suffix -teur it means “one who acts for the sake of love.”

Yes, you’ll still find the occasional flick of a chick yelping in pseudo-ecstasy as her partner treats her like a cup-passing contraption whose only purpose is to quench thirst, but the odds are better here than anywhere on the internet that you’ll find a pair of people genuinely connecting.

Being honest, nothing gets me in the mood like people treating each other well.

I’ll find myself biting my lip—all flushed and flustered—when I encounter an anonymous stranger complimenting, validating or apologizing to another on the internet.

I have to do the waistband tuck if I see someone buy a homeless guy Quiznos.

If it wasn’t for thinking about baseball, I might pop every time I hear about the neighborly love that washes up in the wake of catastrophes.

Ok, I hear you. I’m being pretty vulgar.

But is it really so wrong that the only thing that gets my body ready to bring a baby into the world is concrete evidence of the mindset that can save it?

It’s clear the world needs to be saved. The net is poisoned with too much invective, too many people are burning in the fire beneath the melting pot, and the frequency of social and environmental catastrophes has slipped the surly bonds of Earth.

We’re like toys sliding down a steep slope of discarded debris. No matter how fast we scramble away from the incinerator individually, we’ll never be saved unless we learn to join hands.

I’ve referenced porn and Pixar’s Toy Story 3 in the same ramble; I feel confident I’ve covered all the bases.

With that authority, I’m going to implore every single person reading to become Amateurs. Not in the porn sense, though—just act for the sake of love.

By Way of Example

Love doesn’t let you abide wasting brain power simply because it resides in a body born in poverty.

We’re all deprived of better lives because some people take the Scrooge McDuck approach to opportunity, swimming in it in secure private vaults guarded by governors, “justices” and cops.

They incarcerate those who use chemicals to escape the resulting despair, who make their own opportunity by selling the chemicals, who try to create their own security because they have no access to vaults, and who are counted as crazy because their minds can’t adapt to a system that’s clearly sick itself.

This system’s flaws can’t absorb one photon of the fluorescent light of logic. Instead, they reflect it so glaringly that prolonged exposure can burn your retinas blind.

Logic says if everyone had the same chance to innovate, there’d be more innovation.

Even those who already make billions would benefit. They’d have fun new inventions like a cure for aging, space tourism and robot butlers.

Come on, who doesn’t want a robot butler?

Don’t get me wrong, though, not all discoveries are frivolous. If we had the best minds from every walk of life competing to end global warming, mark my words: the planet would be stable within a generation.

Our world is heating up and unless we join hands like Woody, Buzz and the gang, we’ll all be incinerated.

This should be obvious to everyone, but again, these problems singe the analyzing eye so thoroughly, we get exhausted just from looking.

Social Warming

Alone, fluorescent lights won’t save us.

Even though they—and the scientific enlightenment that made them possible—can illuminate the world in greater detail, both will always fall short of sharing warmth.

And we need warmth.

Warmth won’t let you look away.

Warmth won’t let you stay idle.

I’m not saying we should throw out our electric bulbs—we’ll need them to light the labs that solve these problems—but I do believe we need a second enlightenment.

Start attending to little hints and overt omens and you’re sure to notice the movement’s moment growing slowly closer as if emboldened by our body language like some young lover with a secret crush. And like a wingman providing a presumptuous nudge, let me pitch a name: “Social Warming.” Giving this embryonic trend a name might just be what manifests a chance to stop destroying the world through apathy and start saving it with compassionate action.

So go forth, Amateur, and warm up the world in a good way for once.

Initiate Yourself into the Creekmasons!

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