Thoughts on Temporal LOVE: The Life Force
The way to love
anything is to realize that it might be lost. (G.K.
Chesterton – “Everlasting Man”)
Adam knew
that he had been deeply wounded. It seemed as though a major part of him had been
ripped away. Over a year and a half ago, he had lost his beloved mate of 53
years, to Death. It had not been sudden, since she had become afflicted with
terminal lung cancer, after which – with the assistance of the local Hospice
volunteers and in-house nursing visitations – he’d cared for her almost to the
end. [That story was recorded in “And Then There’ll Be One”
– a paean written to his
“Eve” midway through her dying time, with a later concluding addendum] For several months afterwards Adam had been disconsolate, pushing
himself to handle deferred maintenance around the old home, and also trying to
get back into shape after his role of primary care-given was over. Then he
attended Hospice bereavement group sessions and took Mindfully Based Stress
Reduction courses, and as well he deeply studied into Love and her twin Grief,
as he tried to heal from the loss of his wife. While he didn’t consider himself
as ‘depressed’, he certainly was often very sad, but his studies confirmed that
this state was quite natural under the circumstances, and not to be
pharmaceutically adjusted. Adam knew from long experience that
if he was feeling sad, then it was OK to feel it ... to really feel it,
allowing its full expression. That he should be in the moment with the pain of
sadness, and allow it to come and pass, as all things do. But
to not hold onto sadness longer than necessary, nor discard it too soon ... but
to simply abide with it.
Adam now felt very much alone,
and he missed his woman in all ways – for that matter he came to miss having a
help-mate woman in his life. He’d been used to loving another, and being loved
by her in return. He missed the feeling of being part of a couple, and
co-caring for each other’s wellbeing. Lady, his faithful old black and tan
hound, had had to be euthanized just prior to his wife’s death, so except for
Remedy the old cat, the house was very quiet. He came to realize his dilemma –
the existential problem faced by the ‘survivor’ of a long-standing
relationship, for having loved (invested in) another deeply, it is as though
the beloved becomes part of ones very own central nervous system, and when she
dies, so much goes with her. When his Eve had died, with her had departed his
most treasured memories, the sense of identity, structure, future, co-adventure
and mutual support, and his sense of YOUTH. While she had been with him, the
dream had continued – when she left, he sensed the loss of so much of himself.
In passing certain places on their trails having significance, or where her
ashes had fallen through his fingers in accordance with her wishes and their
mapping, there was no way of evading his sense of loss – the loss of the best years
of his life.
The people we most love do become a physical part of us,
ingrained in our synapses, in the pathways where memories are created. (Meghan O’Rourke - “The Long
Goodbye”)
Then after a time, Adam came to see that when any relationship ends, notwithstanding one’s desire and efforts for
it to continue, one may then have to realize just how impermanent life really
is, and how the belief that it could have been otherwise had been a myth. For
even if the precious relationship were to have continued longer, it would have
been subject to change, for change is the rule in all things. Thus in a sense
his relationship with Eve would have ceased to be what he had been so attached
to, with some of his attachment being to an unknown – but imagined – future.
This realization helped soften the blow Adam had to face in relation to what
he’d wanted, but now would no longer have. Thus in time he could see that his
loss had not been as great as initially imagined. Of course he still had feelings
of sadness, and these had to felt and experienced. But appreciating
impermanence allowed him to look at the situation in a pragmatic light, and
thereby begin his healing process. When he truly understood at a gut feeling
level that everything in life is fragile and impermanent, his appreciation of
the present was enhanced. Acceptance of the reality of impermanence led him to
an existence with less suffering, and helped him avoid unrealistic expectations
that something would stay the same or last beyond its time.
Several
years earlier, when they were both still very healthy, one day they had
performed an experiment. With separate clipboards on which to write, they had
put to paper their individual advice to each other as to what the ‘survivor’
should do should the other die first. Their responses when compared later were
virtually the same: that if their love had been strong, in time the survivor
should carry that love on to a new mate. The world needed all the love that
could be manifested.
So after a
while Adam had tentatively started looking for a new mate. People counseled him
”not to compare” new prospects with his Eve – but he quickly saw that advice as
shallow, for Eve was part of himself – his eyes were lensed by memories of her,
his ears conditioned to her sounds. She was a part of him – how could he not
“compare”. And he knew himself sufficiently to recognize that he was still not
whole, so he was hesitant to deepen any nascent relationships, for – although
the experiences were welcome distractions from the ongoing pain of grief – he
just didn’t yet feel right. Further, even in his damaged state he could
appreciate that – while it might be sometimes awful being alone, it might well
be God-awful to be tethered to the wrong mate.
So Adam hiked,
and biked, and studied … and wondered about what he should do about the rest of
his life, being still physically healthy and gradually healing from his loss.
This,
then, is what he discovered as he penetrated the mists of male-female
attraction.
In the phenomenon of
Light energetically evolving into Life, there has been a mystery which has
fascinated humans for eons. This is the mystery involving the progression
between man and woman of attraction,
desire, anticipation, infatuation, soul-mates, lust/consummation, and the
feeling of being-in-love ... all of which (and yes, perhaps Life itself)
commences and is realized within the mind. But then he noted that – after their
primal interlude – either party might realize that they were in a troubling intellectual/spiritual
mismatch – for one person may be a perennial ‘quester’, full of a natural
curiosity and wonder about all things, in effect a life-long natural student –
whereas the other may be more vegetative, only interested in creature comforts
and being “happy”. Such a couple may struggle to find a common path for some
time, yet eventually decide to part, and neither may be able to articulate
where the problem was. So let’s try to penetrate through the fog of
relationship, by looking at the dynamic in an objective and detached way,
thereby breaking down the whole issue into the various components of the
male-female enigma.
[And along the way
we’ll invite others to comment through their writings]
ATTRACTION
The positive and negative elements,
in the form known as masculinity and femininity, two aspects of a single
manifestation, are in a state of imbalance in male and female respectively,
each manifesting an excess of one element.
The association of male and female
has the apparent effect of restoring this double imbalance to a state of
equilibrium. Since the attainment of equilibrium is constantly and
automatically sought throughout manifestation, the mutual attraction of male
and female and the mutual need of one another thereby becomes
comprehensible.
But it is a need that can never
attain fulfillment during life, nor anything but a
simulation thereof. From this, there results all
sexual performances on the one hand, and all specific conflict between the
sexes on the other. (Wei Wu
Wei)
As a normal man and
woman physically mature into being potential units of reproduction, they are
continually scanning their environment, looking for a person of the opposite
sex whom they find attractive. Each feels to some extent being incomplete, only
a half of the whole. Attraction to another is ones initial impression of the
other’s vitality and reproductive fitness, in line with Darwin’s theory of
Natural Selection. The sex
drive is more in control of our actions and behavior than we’d like to admit.
The drive to survive, to continue the species, and specifically, our gene pool, may be at
the root of nearly all decisions. In that sexual
attraction is the key to a species survival, one can see why Mother Nature has
built into all mortal creatures the natural Addiction of Attraction.
What the world generally refers to as love is an intense emotionality
combining physical attraction, possessiveness, control, addiction, eroticism,
and novelty. (David R.
Hawkins - Power Vs
Force)
DESIRE
In all species, nature
works to renew itself as it works to nourish itself, and to protect itself from
danger, each by its kind and for its kind, in the great work of continuation
that is evolution. In humankind the work of renewal lies in the work of
affection, the bond of one to another made by desire. (AC
Grayling - The Good Book: A Humanist Bible)
Many societies tend to condemn desire, on the theory that desire can translate into greed and hyper-competitiveness whereby inequalities accumulate and many fall through the cracks. Admittedly, preoccupation with material possessions to the neglect of the deeper aspects of life can be harmful. Yet across all species, competition occurs in the selection process whereby the gene pools of species are enriched and the collective advances, in that the more intelligent and fitter members tend to have a greater influence upon genetic outcomes. And likewise – in the mating games of humans – adults of either gender usually seek out the best available life-partners for themselves, hence a desire for quality and fitness in prospective mates is always in mind.
The energy called
desire has been condemned for centuries. Almost all the so-called saints have
been against it because desire is life and they were all life-negative.
Desire is the very source of all that you see, and the ‘saints’ were against
all that which is visible. They wanted to sacrifice the visible at the feet of
the invisible; they wanted to cut the roots of desire so there would no longer
be any possibility of life… I have a totally different concept of desire.
First: desire itself is God. Desire
without any object, desire without being goal-oriented, unmotivated desire,
pure desire, is God. The energy called desire is the same energy as God. Desire
has not to be destroyed; it has to be purified. Desire has not to be dropped;
it has to be transformed. Your very being is desire; to be against it is to be
against yourself and against all. To be against it is to be against the flowers
and the birds and the sun and the moon… Your desire is as big as the sky - even
the sky is not the limit to it…
The intelligent person stops
desiring objects… he starts living his desire in its purity, moment to moment.
He is full of desire, full of overflowing energy. His ordinary life becomes so
intense, so passionate, that whatsoever he touches will be transformed. (OSHO Rajneesh)
In effect, desire is the Will to Be, and it is embedded within every cell of every life form. And yes, when a person is so fortunate as
to be conjoined with another who similarly wills, hungers and desires to be
worthy of the gift of life, in some ways they both share the power of ten.
The supreme state of
human love is the unity of one soul in two bodies. (Sri Aurobindo – “Synthesis
of Yoga”)
ANTICIPATION-FRIENDSHIP
Are the lovers also friends? Would they seek each other
out if they should cease to be primary partners? (Stanton Peele - Love and Addiction)
We all wonder, and dream, and have
aspirations about our possible mates and the fruition of union with them. And
often as the couple try to get to know each other, their relationship goes
through the Friendship phase, during which their mutual affinities and common
interests and goals can be explored. In the fullness of time, bit by bit, their
relationship can ripen.
We ask everything of love. We ask it to
be anarchic. We ask it to be the glue that holds the family together, that
allows society to be orderly and allows all kinds of material processes to be
transmitted from one generation to another. But I think that the connection
between love and sex is very mysterious. Part of the modern ideology of love is
to assume that love and sex always go together. They can, I suppose, but I
think rather to the detriment of either one or the other. And probably the
greatest problem for human beings is that they just don’t. And why do
people want to be in love? That’s really interesting. Partly, they want
to be in love the way you want to go on a roller coaster
again – even knowing you’re going to have your heart broken. What
fascinates me about love is what it has to do with all the cultural
expectations and the values that have been put into it. I’ve always been amazed
by the people who say, “I fell in love, I was madly, passionately in love, and
I had this affair.” And then a lot of stuff is described and you ask, “How long
did it last?” And the person will say, “A week, I just couldn’t stand him or
her." (Susan
Sontag: The Complete Rolling Stone Interview)
And do all
cross-gender friendships automatically progress to consummation? Of course not,
but still, some do, and these relationships may be relatively more stable.
I have loved people
passionately whom I wouldn’t have slept with for anything, but I think that’s
something else. That’s friendship-love, which can be a tremendously passionate
emotion, and it can be tender and involve a desire to hug or whatever. But it
certainly doesn’t mean you want to take off your clothes with that person. But
certain friendships can be erotic. Oh, I think friendship is very erotic, but
it isn’t necessarily sexual. I think all my relationships are erotic: I can’t
imagine being fond of somebody I don’t want to touch or hug, so therefore
there’s always an erotic aspect to some extent. (Susan
Sontag: The Complete Rolling Stone Interview)
SOUL MATES
Sometimes it feels as though we have
found our missing half – analogous to the way a key fits a lock, the couple’s
energies and communication processes meld together. The romantic “glance across
a room” may lock the two into temporary or even life-long union. It feels as
though we have found a part of ourselves from an earlier time, and the feeling
may cement the two together for this current life-passage. Yet such a feeling
of instant rapport may not last permanently, but rather only bring the two
together so that necessary things can be realized within the mind of one (or
both), and then each can go forward to the next step of their destiny. Yet
without their time together, neither of them might have been prepared for the
coming challenge.
I’m not laughing.” I was
actually crying. “And please don’t laugh at me now, but I think the reason it’s
so hard for me to get over this guy is because I seriously believed David was
my soul mate. “He probably was. Your problem is you don’t understand what that
word means. People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that’s what
everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows
you everything that’s holding you back, the person who brings you to your own
attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most
important person you’ll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack
you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to
reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then they leave. And thank God for
it. Your problem is, you just can’t let this one go.
It’s over. David’s purpose was to shake you up, drive you out of your marriage
that you needed to leave, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your
obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light could get in, make
you so desperate and out of control that you had to transform your life, then
introduce you to your spiritual master and beat it. That was his job, and he
did great, but now it’s over. Problem is, you can’t
accept that his relationship had a real short shelf life. You’re like a dog at
the dump, baby – you’re just lickin’ at the empty tin
can, trying to get more nutrition out of it. And if you’re not careful, that can’s gonna get stuck on your
snout forever and make your life miserable. So drop it.” “But I love him.” “So love him.” “But I miss him.” “So
miss him. Send him some love and light every time you think about him, then drop it. You’re just afraid to let go of the last bits of
David because then you’ll be really alone, and Liz Gilbert is scared to death
of what will happen if she’s really alone. But here’s what you gotta understand: If you clear out all that space in your
mind that you’re using right now to obsess about this guy, you’ll have a vacuum
there, an open spot – a doorway. And guess what the universe will do with the
doorway? It will rush in – God will rush in – and fill you with more love than
you ever dreamed. So stop using David to block that door. Let it go.” (Elizabeth Gilbert –Eat, Pray, Love)
The temporary
‘soul-mate’ relationship can feel so real … and without that feeling of
reality, the necessary work couldn’t be accomplished.
And, since again each has become invested in the other, if/when it comes time
for the two to part, partition can be very painful.
INFATUATION
Infatuation is Mother Nature’s double-edged ‘gift’ to mortals, and a very
welcome and beautiful experience it is for a mate-hungry man and woman. The
gift of infatuation may be so powerful that when honored through sexual fusion
while both are fertile and Mother Nature’s plan can be fulfilled, a new
generation may come into being. But infatuation is very powerful, and can be so
tricky. When in infatuation, one’s cognitive acuity and normal critical
faculties may become drugged by the genetic drives to reproduce, and
subsequently life for the individuals can be messy – old Ma Nature doesn’t
overly concern herself with matters other than reproduction – so it’s left to
the individuals themselves to take care of their futures.
Love
is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and
then subsides. And when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have to
work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable
that you should ever part. Because this is what love is.
Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of
promises of eternal passion, it is not the desire to mate every second minute
of the day, it is not lying awake at night imagining
that he is kissing every cranny of your body. No, don’t blush, I am telling you
some truths. That is just being “in love”, which any fool can do. Love itself
is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an
art and a fortunate accident. (Louis
de Bernières)
For the two, surfing Ma Nature’s frequencies of infatuation can be very
thrilling, yet at root it is very serious stuff. For this is the soil within which
life-long commitments can be cemented and new life can root … and for the
individuals themselves, perhaps the essential difference between mere existence
and meaningful life.
Unfortunately,
either or both participants can be in the 'game' for egoistic reasons, for
example only to elevate personal self-esteem … and then there are those who are
on a seduction 'score' count (and yes, females are as inclined to that
process as are males). And so, Gentle Readers, it is necessary to be cautious,
or at least awake and prudent.
LUST/CONSUMMATION
“Between the desire
and the spasm” – each of us owes his being to the fact that at some moment a
man and a woman leapt the gap. (Quote by T S Eliot,
commentary by Rollo May)
It has to be recognized that without the
platform of coital union, none of us would be here, unless via
‘immaculate conception’ as declared in the fables re Jesus, Krishna, Buddha,
Zoroaster, Horus, Melchizedek, Lao-Tzu, Quetzalcoatl et al, by the priests for
the mystification of their flocks.
What
is this world? I wondered. What is its aim and in what way can we help to
attain it during our ephemeral lives? The aim of man and matter is to create
joy, according to Zorba – others would say “to create spirit”, but that comes
to the same thing on another plane. But why? With what object? And when the body dissolves, does anything
at all remain of what we have called the soul? Or does nothing remain, and does
our unquenchable desire for immortality spring, not from the fact that we are
immortal, but from the fact that during the short span of our life we are in
the service of something immortal? (Nikos
Kazantzakis - Zorba The Greek)
Sometimes in the throes of passion, one almost feels – that through their
own mortal bodies – it is the gods themselves who are mating. And the euphoria that accompanies the lovers when
they make love and attain orgasm, combined with being together in the moment, can
lead them to the feeling that they are deeply connected with the universe, and its Source.
However, the question
may arise: do we have to be merely puppets on another’s stage, even Mother
Nature’s? And if the idea of being a puppet doesn't appeal, then perhaps the
various elements of the “attraction/ infatuation, etc
process” might be ever more critically examined, tested and better understood.
Take the initial “attraction” – both male and female “poles” may present
themselves as being fully discrete, yet both deeply sense that each is
incomplete, two halves yearning for unification – yin and yang each searching
for, and wanting to adhere and meld with to its counterpart. But as in any
other somatic addiction, reason may be drowned out by the physical cravings,
leading the individuals into blind alleys, mismatches and suffering.
We often say ‘love’ when we really mean, and are acting out, an addiction
… a sterile, ingrown dependency relationship, with another person serving as
the object of our need for security.” (Stanton
Peele - Love and Addiction)
See, it is one thing to be an agent on the stage of another's design, yet
better to be the principal steering one’s own destiny. One can – to some extent
- become the principal when one steps aside from any component of the process
and ‘sees’ what is going on dynamically and then adopts measures to influence
events – and subsequently step-by-step apply that same detachment to each of
the other components in the sequence. For instance, one who has had a long
relationship with a fellow-quester but later becomes bereft, may in time
re-stabilize and realize the
type of mate necessary to be around ... someone who has dug into life and seen
a good bit and who has continued to upgrade personal skills and can weigh
matters and speak cogently, constructively and deeply to the other.
It also has to be
noted that there is a ‘shadow’ side involved in the mating game. The forces for
fusion are strong but blind, and have to be guided.
I greatly admire your passion to ascertain the truth – a
passion that has come to dominate all else in your thinking. You have shown
with irresistible lucidity how inseparably the aggressive and destructive instincts
are bound up in the human psyche with those of love and the lust for life. (Einstein
to Freud – correspondence)
Some
people liken the mating game to “The dance of the chase”, and many ladies like the man to lead in that dance. Both
parties may come to feel that "The thrill is in the chase" ... that
peace comes with "the catch" … and love develops "in the
journey". It can also be seen that the aggressive and consuming instincts are inseparably
bound up in the human psyche with those of sexual lust and the love of life.
Every moment death
was dying and being reborn, just like life. For thousands of years young girls
and boys have danced beneath the tender foliage of the trees in spring –
beneath the poplars, firs, oaks, planes and slender palms – and they will go on
dancing for thousands more years, their faces consumed with desire. Faces
change, crumble, return to earth; but others rise to take their place. There is
only one dancer, but he has a thousand masks. He is always twenty. He is immortal. (Nikos
Kazantzakis – Zorba The Greek)
THE FEELING OF BEING-IN-LOVE
Despite what the romantic addicts allege, enduring Love itself seems to
be a slower developing, deeper realization that comes about between the two
over time-space as they explore all the aspects of each other’s whole
beings - each other’s minds, emotions, bodies and souls … and it (Love) softly
emerges almost out of sight, and grows until they both realize that to be with each
other is where they were destined to be, and where they want to be, and must
be, as they engage in the sacrament of “Two as One ... for better or worse, in
sickness and health, until Death do part”.
Love is our true destiny. We
do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone - we find it with another. (Thomas
Merton)
AND THEN …
And THEN, after some time in
sadness and in searching and research and forest-reverie, Adam saw what had been
missing – that which had once been in his life, but had been overlooked in his
search. He’d been trying to respond to others’ cues, instead of forming his own
standards as to the type of person who would be acceptable to himself in his
own realm over the long run. That is why he’d had such difficulty in trying to
select an appropriate mate from the pool of women who – alike their
conventional friends – doted on their circles and clubs and material
possessions and grandkids, but who had seldom looked into anything
mind-challenging since graduation. Adam had been a life-long quester, as had
been his Eve. He wouldn’t for long be satisfied being around a ‘conventional’.
Despite his naturalist bent, sometimes Adam recalled a strange incident that had occurred mid-way through his Eve’s ten month dying time. A snow storm had rolled in, and he and she had been picking up supplies in town, and an old stranger had started up a conversation with him. The old chap had professed having esoteric knowledge about life and death issues, and Adam had mentioned his wife’s circumstances. Then as they’d parted, the stranger mentioned not having a strong plastic bag in which to convey his purchases home on his ATV, and Adam had offered him one that he had in his car trunk. The stranger asked if that was Adam’s wife sitting in the car (it was) and then he asked if he could pray for Eve. Adam said that would be up to Eve, and he asked her. She surprised him by acceding, and so her car door was opened, and right there in the slush and ice of the parking lot the stranger had went to his knees and prayed for her for several minutes, raising the eyebrows of passers-by. Afterwards Adam had walked back to the stranger’s ATV with him, and the stranger said “You know, she’s going to die”. Adam said “Of course”. The stranger said “But that’s not the end, for one day you and she will meet each other again”. Adam rolled his eyes skyward and said “Oh yeah, on Cloud Nine”. The stranger then said “No – in this life. One day, on this plane, you’ll encounter each other again, and in the moment recognize each other by spiritual vision”. Then the stranger had climbed onto his ATV and rode off into the storm, and Adam never saw him again. Yet months later he’s remembered, and wondered … perhaps just around the next corner … then he’d catch himself – for such a thing was impossible, wasn’t it??
Love does not begin and end the way
we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing
up.
(James Baldwin)
A couple who remains together, tests each other on
an ongoing basis. The role of the egos often gets a bad
rap. In day to day life, a person’s ego is essential to survival, and serves
the purpose of helping him or her function in reality. Our egos exist to
protect us from pain, and defense mechanisms and other cognitive processes of the ego help us sustain our equilibrium.
And when it comes to falling in love, we rely on our egos to help us negotiate
the terrain.
A lady poet of Adam’s acquaintance had said of Love “A person feels ‘in love’ when his or her own ego feels loved. Love is
entirely subjective”. It would follow that one may project ‘love’ to another,
so as to evoke from the other person that feeling toward oneself of being
loved. On that perspective, love transactions can be seen as a bit
self-serving, if not manipulative, for if one knows how much another loves
(needs) them, then the one may exercise a measure of domination and control
over the other.
I
met an old lady once, almost a hundred years old, and she told me, 'There are
only two questions that human beings have ever fought over, all through
history. “How much do you love me?” And “Who's in charge?”
Everything else is
somehow manageable. But these two questions of love and control undo us all,
trip us up and cause war, grief, and suffering.’ (Elizabeth Gilbert
–Eat, Pray, Love)
In the better relationships, though, each person
tries to come to an understanding of self and mate, so that the needs and
motivations and capabilities of both may meld. True
sustaining passion between a couple is not about wild, crazy infatuation or hot
sex, but about the subtle intimacies that
the two share – the words unspoken, the needs understood, their delicate
understandings ... and yes, the silence.
It is in the understanding of each other that true love
is born and nurtures and lives. For that is the secret of a lasting love, the
one word: understanding. Only when there is this understanding, this common
sympathy for each other, can true love function. … So it can be seen that the
love which grows out of a long friendship is more desired than the love which
is generated suddenly at first sight. If, after the sudden burst of first love,
the lovers realize that they must learn to know each other thoroughly and they
go about learning each other, then their love will be lasting. But, experience
has proven that, usually, those lovers who are catapulted into a love affair at
first sight are usually those who are quick-tempered. A hair-trigger emotion
such as love at first sight can only be possessed by people with hair-trigger
temperaments. (Pietro Ramirez Sr. – How To Make Love)
Normally, a man and woman only become
carnally involved if the bio-chemistry of attraction is already present between
them. Later, after the post-coital glow recedes, either may awaken and wonder
if there is any real spiritual/intellectual depth present in the other … or
whether
there is actually much present in the ‘other’ beyond what nature had originally
implanted. For gender polarity and coital proclivity is generally present to
some degree in all creatures, but what human wants to stay with another who
hasn’t built upon the earlier genetic base, nor even seen the need to. If there
is little present, one may decide to move on – and in ending the
relationship perhaps not even be able to explain the “why” to the other in
words that the other would understand.
Yet if soul-building is an ongoing
quest for both lovers, then each is always new to the other, and hence
an unfinished wonder that continues to unfold so long as the two endure as one.
A thought transfixed me – for the
first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set down by so many poets,
proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth – that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man
can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry
and human thought and belief have to impart. The salvation of man is through
love, and in love. (Viktor
Frankl)
THE LATE-STAGE
RELATIONSHIP
In later life, a man and a woman who had lost their former mates, yet who
themselves are still bio-vital – may feel a strong physical attraction to each
other. The old, instinctual genetic mating impulses linger. Their natural physical
attraction to each other – when boosted by memories of earlier coital joys –
may result in a very intense emotional infatuation between themselves. As
anticipation builds within the couples’ minds, they may feel certain that they
are again in love. The human functional mind, metaphorically, is like a double
organ: one part is called “PAST”, and we reach into our past memories (as
Borges wrote, “We are our memories”)
– and then we review the relevant past memories within our “Theater of The
Mind”; the most likely options to deal with the challenge at hand are then
projected into the second mind organ, named “FUTURE” – a part of which is the cognitive
system that anticipates and reflects, and tests models to address the future
challenge, and thereby a best path forward may be determined
and engaged using the energies of the secondary FUTURE phase, namely the Will.
Individuals can will themselves into
believing that they are again in love.
A couple’s decision to proceed in a late-stage relationship may at the
time seem to be very rational, but the union may only be a transient
infatuation. For soon they may realize that they are mismatched, that both are
rather set in their ways, that they individually have lots of life-style
‘baggage’, and also come to appreciate the problem of surrendering their
individual freedoms and independence. It almost seems that those late-stage
connections which endure better do so because of the individuals’ security
needs – for example that the two could economically live together better under one roof than apart under
two.
When
the satisfaction or the security of another person becomes as significant to
one as is one’s own satisfaction or security, then a
state of love exists. So far as I know, under no other circumstances is a state
of love present, regardless of the popular usage of the word. (Henry Stack Sullivan - The
Human Organism and Its Necessary Environment)
Adam knew that one could
learn a lot from books, but many things can only be really learned the hard way: by directly experiencing life, being
prepared to make mistakes, and sometimes suffering. For it’s through mistakes that we often best learn – suffering from mistakes
‘sears’ our psyches, and prepares us for advancement, step-by-step, along the
path of realization. He also came to appreciate that the best way to avoid anxiety, stress and unhappiness is to
avoid internal contradiction; one shouldn’t think that a certain path is right
yet then do the opposite. One should always listen to the internal guide and
then obey it.
For decades, Adam had “walked
along the paths of the giants” in that he had studied the lives and
philosophies of those who had left their findings for posterity … and now he
recalled the advice of the Roman philosopher Seneca “All those who call you
to themselves draw you away from yourself”. If he were to give himself to
another, it would be necessary to carefully ascertain what reciprocal values
the other would bring into his own life. In time, the combination of critical
study and practical research allowed him to target his mate selection efforts
away from the mundane, toward a very specific type of person. And if she were
never found, at least he would have developed a personal attitude of solitary
self-reliance – again, better alone than with the wrong ‘other’. And of course,
the Spirit of his Eve had been there within, now melded into his own to help
guide him.
Specifically, Adam came to
realize that his search should focus on finding one who – akin to himself –
aspired to be a perennial quester, humbly curious about her world and engaged
in self-development, always looking into nature, psychology, science,
philosophy … and able to build upon earlier findings. Aware of the shortness of
mortal existence, she would aspire to living wide rather than existing long,
would be always evolving as a work in progress and thus an ongoing delight to
her man. She would be one who truly valued her time in life, was
self-disciplined, wasting no precious time in fruitless chatter with idle
people. As well, she would be one who would endeavor to keep herself healthy
and fit by diet and exercise so as to better quest and enjoy the Banquet of
Life with him, as long as possible.
And so Adam continued his solitary life, yet sometimes
recalled the old stranger’s message, and occasionally he wondered if she might be awaiting him, as yet out of
sight … maybe around the next corner …
Life
is eternal, and love is immortal, and death is only a horizon, and a horizon is
nothing save the limit of our sight.
(Rossiter
Worthington Raymond 1840-1910)
Posted Jan 13th, 2015