I’m on a quasi News Fast at the moment. Mostly cause I’m actually ker-razy busy with a bunch of stuff, but also cause it’s something I do every now and then as a kind of media detox. (Yes, I have heard that Obama is President now. I’m not that far off the grid.) I just feel happier, calmer, saner, when I tune out The News for a few weeks. Until I start to feel guilty about allowing myself not to care about what’s going on in the world, and tune back in, and then the whole damn thing starts again.  Ahem.

But I accidentally read something today which reminded me why I’m on a quasi News Fast. There’s some new self-help book just published called Changing Relationships by a Dr Malcolm Brynn. (No, you google it, I honestly can’t be arsed.) In the review-posing-as-news-story, Dr Brynn has the following to words of wisdom to impart:

If you had a very passionate first relationship and allow that feeling to become your benchmark for a relationship dynamic, it becomes inevitable that future, more adult partnerships will seem … a disappointment. The solution is clear: if you can protect yourself from intense passion in your first relationship, you will be happier in your later relationships.

Now, maybe he’s being misquoted out of context, or whatever. My leftist sensibilities insist on giving benefit of doubt here, but really, what I want to say is: Fuck you, Dr Brynn, fuck you very much.

Protect ourselves from intense passion? Protect ourselves? So, what, we can better put up with being bereft of intense passion for the rest of our lives? What you and your ilk really mean is, put up with being bereft of intense passion in all aspects of our lives, right? Put up with putting up, because that’s what happiness is all about. Being content. Not rocking the boat. Being grateful for what we have. Excising the desire for social change. Excising desire for personal change. Excising desire, full stop. Except, of course, for the desire to buy that massive plasma screen television with the surround sound home theatre system and latest must-have game console, which will make us so very, very happy.

Protect myself from intense passion?

Really. Truly. Fuck you very much.

Obviously, I need to maintain my fast just a wee bit longer.