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Often during long poses, I zone out. I go into a trance-like state that, rather has be go limp, locks my muscles and joints while my brain goes nearly to sleep. I enjoy these in an after the fact way. For those all too brief few minutes, there are no voices in my head telling stories about how the universe is out to get me. :)
Other times, I use any pose over 5 minutes to construct philosophical essays. It's a mental game I like better than all other games, be they mental or not. This morning's job as a bit of both.
The philosophical inquiry was, as it often is, about the nature of love and my relationship to it.
I love being in love. I feel great when I'm in love. Life is beautiful. Even the orchestra is beautiful. But what is it that has that be? I used to think I didn't really fall in love with people. What was happening for me was something else entirely. I thought that because I am susceptible to cultural influence.
Most of my thoughts about love have been relatively unchanged for a very long time. But that's not where I get reached by cultural pressure. I saw that this morning as I reviewed my cultural history -- the music I listened to when I was young, the movies I liked and the TV.
And I realized that I feel great when I'm in love because being in love includes a happy ending. There is security and certainty built right in. All one needs is a bit of prudence and one can live happily ever after. Oh, sure, one can be recklessly insecure or irresponsibly uncertain so that even love can't win. But playing by the rules (more or less) means a happy ever after life.
And that is why I have a huge price to pay every single time I fall in love. I fall in love with an illusion. Oh, I really do love the person I fall in love with. And I do want to get cuddly-cozy with everyone I fall in love with. But, the "in love" stuff is just a cocktail of fantasy and illusion mixed and indulged in individually. What's in my cocktail is different than anyone else's. But it's an illusion all all sides.
Until I fully realized that, each time the in love feelings died, I blamed it on a failing in me -- another example of how I was incomplete as a human being. Usually, I would blame it on my low sex drive and all the related sexuality stuff. I see though, that the in love feelings have no chance of lasting. Familiarity whittles away at the fantasy.
Further, I see that "in love" is aways, for me, a wish fulfillment fantasy. It is always living in the hope of future happiness. What I end up with is not real happiness in the moment, but more the happiness of anticipation of happiness realized. It is a losing game. The price for believing is always greater that the transient happiness.
It is not "love" that is the problem here, for me. It is the expectation of future happiness based on the illusion that at any given moment, I'll begin having my happy ever after. That is not how life is.
In the past, when I flirted with this notion, I would spin off into a depression -- or, at least, a mild mental recession. :) I just didn't take the train to the next station. I kept jumping off and getting emotionally scarred up.
Without a doubt, I will experience the in love feelings again. I think it biological. :) I intend, however, to put out the caution flag at the first signs. Then I'll enjoy the feeling for an hour or so. Then I intend to distinguish the event from the story.
I'm not willing to pay the price. And I'm not willing to bill anyone else, either.
So, love there is. Love there will be.
Illusion, distortion and fantasy there will not be.
...Exactly as they are; exactly as they are not.
"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." M.K. Gandhi.
Other times, I use any pose over 5 minutes to construct philosophical essays. It's a mental game I like better than all other games, be they mental or not. This morning's job as a bit of both.
The philosophical inquiry was, as it often is, about the nature of love and my relationship to it.
I love being in love. I feel great when I'm in love. Life is beautiful. Even the orchestra is beautiful. But what is it that has that be? I used to think I didn't really fall in love with people. What was happening for me was something else entirely. I thought that because I am susceptible to cultural influence.
Most of my thoughts about love have been relatively unchanged for a very long time. But that's not where I get reached by cultural pressure. I saw that this morning as I reviewed my cultural history -- the music I listened to when I was young, the movies I liked and the TV.
And I realized that I feel great when I'm in love because being in love includes a happy ending. There is security and certainty built right in. All one needs is a bit of prudence and one can live happily ever after. Oh, sure, one can be recklessly insecure or irresponsibly uncertain so that even love can't win. But playing by the rules (more or less) means a happy ever after life.
And that is why I have a huge price to pay every single time I fall in love. I fall in love with an illusion. Oh, I really do love the person I fall in love with. And I do want to get cuddly-cozy with everyone I fall in love with. But, the "in love" stuff is just a cocktail of fantasy and illusion mixed and indulged in individually. What's in my cocktail is different than anyone else's. But it's an illusion all all sides.
Until I fully realized that, each time the in love feelings died, I blamed it on a failing in me -- another example of how I was incomplete as a human being. Usually, I would blame it on my low sex drive and all the related sexuality stuff. I see though, that the in love feelings have no chance of lasting. Familiarity whittles away at the fantasy.
Further, I see that "in love" is aways, for me, a wish fulfillment fantasy. It is always living in the hope of future happiness. What I end up with is not real happiness in the moment, but more the happiness of anticipation of happiness realized. It is a losing game. The price for believing is always greater that the transient happiness.
It is not "love" that is the problem here, for me. It is the expectation of future happiness based on the illusion that at any given moment, I'll begin having my happy ever after. That is not how life is.
In the past, when I flirted with this notion, I would spin off into a depression -- or, at least, a mild mental recession. :) I just didn't take the train to the next station. I kept jumping off and getting emotionally scarred up.
Without a doubt, I will experience the in love feelings again. I think it biological. :) I intend, however, to put out the caution flag at the first signs. Then I'll enjoy the feeling for an hour or so. Then I intend to distinguish the event from the story.
I'm not willing to pay the price. And I'm not willing to bill anyone else, either.
So, love there is. Love there will be.
Illusion, distortion and fantasy there will not be.
...Exactly as they are; exactly as they are not.
"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." M.K. Gandhi.
Re: A morning's noodling
however, there are "in love" feelings that don't fade, or rather, they can take over from the above, or can come on their own, and familiarity does not whittle away at them, but it makes them stronger. i feel those sorts of feelings for my long-term loves, and they're not about fantasy and illusion, they're about tiny little bits of specific goodness unique to those people. they are more quiet than the roller-coastery early ones, but as i've paid more and more attention to them they have become stronger, and that has taken some of the power away from the early ones, and made them less demanding.
very interesting book: molecules of emotion by candace b. pert.
one of the most empowering realizations of my life: biology is not necessarily imperative. it might be harder to change, but lots of things can be changed anyway, and it's often worth to try and isolate them from the cultural baggage any of them will have acquired.
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Also what