My head is pounding.

I would be severely inauthentic if I did not admit that — like many who celebrated Pride this past weekend — I had just a bit too much to drink, sat out in the gorgeous sunny weather for a tad too long, and put miles on my feet that my calves are still attempting to recover from.

And I find this to be a strangely beautiful thing, undoubtedly sublime in a sense. I have exhausted my body via Dionysian-like carousing that, when it comes to down to it, was nothing shorter than the human spirit coming out to remind us that we are indeed human.

There is a lot one can say about Pride, be it positive or pejorative. And self-admittedly, I am one of those people who have (and continue to) rant about the oft-touted greatness that is this annual celebration of the LGBT community.

It showcases the beauty of diversity (if one eyed the gaggle of onlookers on Ocean Boulevard this past Sunday, one would be amazed at the sheer complexity of folks).

It provides a platform for churches to segregate themselves from anti-gay Christians (many churches were on hand to spread a spiritual message at the festival grounds).

It presents a way for people of different viewpoints to come together (it is a rather gorgeous sight to watch a leather daddy sporting full BDSM gear chatting with a mother while they walk to the festival grounds).

It celebrates love.

And though these messages seem redundant (in a sense, they almost entirely are: asking people if they want to celebrate love is the equivalent of asking politicians if they want power: the questions answer themselves), they do not get old. I am too often misaligned as cynical and bitter when I am truly neither (I assure you: I am not bitter that the world has bad things occuring in it but I will not be naive enough to dismiss those bad things under the guise of delusional comfort, as if they aren’t occuring at all) — and my hangover from Pride is proof of the fact that I am no nihiist.

This is not some strange endorsement of excessively drinking nor is it even a direct endorsement of Long Beach Pride (I am beyond critical of the latter). It is about the macro-arch of the whole concept. It isn’t about sex or sexuality more than it is about moving forward and ending our hatred of one another. And despite one’s personal views of what two people do behind a closed bedroom door, I find it incredibly hard to believe that one can honestly tell me they do not wish to see hate eradicated from this planet. And if you do, I am not frustrated with you nor am I even vitriolic towards you; I simply feel sorry for you.

My sympathy is not because I feel my worldview is superior to yours; rather, my sympathy lies — entirely apolitically, entirely philosophically — in the fact that you are missing out on that which makes consciousness conscious. To have lost myself in the human spirit to the point of intoxication, literally and metaphorically, made me realize two things: how utterly miniscule I really am and how massively large the power of people really is. If one can’t, for just a weekend, momentarily step back from one’s self to engage in this, it is nothing short of an overwhelming loss for that individual. 

So as I nurse myself back to the even-level playing field of normal human operation, leaving behind the reveling and partying that overtook me this weekend, I find comfort in the fact that my spirit — in tandem with the spirits of thousands of others — grew to such a powerful level of energy that it exhausted me.

For me, there is nothing more beautiful than the throbbing pain of so much love in a single place.

Now please, hand me some Advil and a beer.