wilbjammin

I've been thinking about this a lot since my girlfriend broke up with me claiming that she cannot handle any sort of commitment at all...

Questioning why I like her and love her so much, I came upon focusing on the connections between me and her. What strikes me is that all of these connections are self-contained. While, in fact, she has done things that help me create these connections, they are all my own. In this sense, love is then internal and much more of a choice than I previously gave it credit for.

Meaning is formed by us placing our metaphysical energy into something encountered in the physical world. This is because our thoughts are based in language and imagery, so we rely entirely on metaphors. Metaphors, when broken down, need some concrete image or action to work with... something tangible.

As I poet I knew this when I wrote poems about her comparing the freckles on her body to the constellations in the sky. But... I simultaneously knew that she was still just a woman.

I have this strong need for creativity, and I wonder if that is what makes these connections I make so important - particularly with the desire of having a <i>meaningful</i> relationship with a woman.

So, now I've been sort of stuck in this contemplation of the limits of my own ability to create connections within myself, and how much I need outside influence to create meaning in my life. I know that I have a a strong desire to be with someone, but is it for the right reasons? Will the connections I make with the next woman (granting that I don't stay single forever) create a positive link in my life, or will I turn to using her for her creative inspiration too much and unduely? And is that ok if I do? I imagine that I can exist within my solitude and be creative in my solitude, but it doesn't have that affective quality and burning passion like I had when in a relationship. Perhaps it is that tension between wanting unity between myself and the Other and the realization that the unity will never be absolute that creates the mountain of creative energy for me. Now I am looking to find as much unity within myself as I can and finding plenty of tension there to feed my poetry. I am afraid that I have become greedy with what I want in relationships, that my drive towards creativity abstracts the person too much. I know that I'm not going to be ready any time soon to enter a relationship, but I wonder what you all think -

Where should the limit be on abstraction? How should I approach relationships to optimize my creativity and yet maintain humanity? And what can I do to foster these creative impulses into a lasting relationship that doesn't burn out too quickly, and that doesn't alienate the woman?

Alright, there's the end to my first new thread... maybe you'll have some insight into helping me out.

Mantus

You must ask yourself is this: Did the connections you made with her in you mind come before or after you had lust for her?

Were you really creating those connections out of nothing or were you creating those connections to justify that part of you that your mind has no control over?

wilbjammin

Don't I know it!

That's what getting me... the whole "what is real?" thing. I know that we did make real connections at points when she let her guard down and when I let my guard down and we talked about our pasts, fears, etc. However, what I don't know is how much the sexual stuff has been made into more than it was in my mind. When I look back I think about the sexual stuff and those sharing moments equally. I know, looking back, that I wanted desperately for the sexual stuff to be meaningful, so I made efforts to make is special every time. I think that it was for her, she definitely had "that look in her eye" when she looked at me afterwards... thought I think that kind of intimacy is also what finally scared her into leaving. Too intimate for safety's sake. So... for me, I know that a lot of the connections came after intimacy on a sharing level... but I certainly let myself get swept away from the beginning.

"that part of you that your mind has no control over"... I'm searching for my limits... I'm simultaneously trying to expand myself to feel the heights of all emotions and to completely surrender to all of existence while trying to determine exactly what I have control of cognitively. It is a struggle.

Somewhere stuck between being a control freak and lost in the insanity of emotive abstractions. I think I'm like a pendulum and I swing into each category at times as much as I try to maintain balance. I know that I have my head together enough now not to drive lightly into anything... I've certainly learned my lesson to move <i>slower</i>. That is a start to figuring how to progress...

Maybe I just picked the absolutely wrong person for me... when I think back I made a lot of efforts to communicate with her that didn't work out well. Maybe I should look for someone with a passion for creativity that has tapped into the metaphorical nature of connections... if I can find someone that understands my push to create and shares it that might ease the stress of determining what value of the relationship's authenticity and we could focus more on our creative impulses... I'm not sure how I feel about that though. I need to think on this further...

Mantus

I am too in the process of thinking about relationships, love and sex.

Though the post is coming along slowly. Here are some general points I am working on.

- You spoke about the connection being mostly self-contained. The Jungians came up with a concept of the human mind projecting pre-determined images on people we meet. So if one meets a potential mate you will immediately envelop them in your pre-determined idea of what a your mate should be. All their actions will be in context of your image of a perfect mate. Our common problem is that we tend to envelop people we know in one kind of image. For example: we look at our mothers in the image of what a mother should be. We forget that our mother is also plays a role of a lover, a friend and many other roles. The same can happen in the case of our lover. The Jungian concept defiantly holds some truths, yet I feel that it is missing something.

- A human being is controlled by instincts, habits and the consciousness. Instincts are programmed. Habits are like learned instincts. If you do something often enough and manage to survive, then it must be good for you – thefore your instinctive brain encurages it - of course since it can be wrong. The consciousness is the newest kid on the block, the least developed but has the most potential. It can override both instinct and habit, but this skill (willpower) takes practice to develop.

- Emotions are a bridge and a safety between instincts and the consciousness. They are there for two reasons. 1) To give the mind a false illusion of being in control. Can you imagine how terrifying it would be to lose control of your body, while all you can do is watch? This is exactly what happens when instincts take over. 2) To allow instinctive behavior to adapt and grow. All instincts are very base, by justifying themselves to the mind as an emotion they are able to hijack its processing power to adapt to complex situations.

- Emotions are necessary, we are not ready to let go of them. Yet they can be dangerous as they are much too basic to guide us though our evolved society.

- Love – is when a person makes a conscious effort to develop a cerebral attraction to their partner. It is far from natural and far from everlasting. Love requires a constant effort. The idea is to gain control of your instinctive reproductive drive and master its energy.

- Both people have to be aware of this and be workign towards the same goal. True growth in love can only happen when both partners are fuel and sustaining each other. If one tried to develop love by oneself then a love/hate feeling begins to develop for the person of affection. The hate comes from constant feeling of incompleteness, hollowness, futility and most importantly distance.

- Most people attempt to bury the hate. It eventually surfaces.

There is allot more, but those are some ideas I am working on.

wilbjammin

Hmm... I guess one thing about that, which I relate specifically to this girlfriend I just had is that I didn't think she was the perfect mate. Well, at least, I have no idea what the perfect mate is. I am familiar Jung somewhat, but I think it sort of fails the same way that Hegelianism fails - it ignores individuality. That was what drew me to that girlfriend, she stood out to me as being different. Before I even thought of going after her or even felt sexually attracted to her I just found her to be interesting. Archetypal thinking provides insights into patterns, I found that more than evident in my past, but I've made attempts over the past 5 years to catch on and look for something different. This was different.

You seem to be focusing on this issue in a much more Joseph Conrad - Heart of Darkness kind of way than I have been. It is interesting for me to reasses my approach. I don't know if I have been too focused on the impetus on choice from reading lots of existential texts and have been ignoring too much other angles at looking at humanity.

Hmm... I guess that I understand emotions as an adaptive trait... but I don't really feel like that is too helpful for me now as a conscious agent capable of choice and manipulating myself (that sounds bad somehow, doesn't it?). One thing that has been challenging to me is that my instincts about relationships up until I turned about 20 was to flee or essentially put myself in a situation that left me unattainable. Since then I gone through a transformation towards action and making tangible decisions towards real goals. My difficulty now is to figure out what I want my goals to be. Additionally though, that instinctive urge towards wanting sex does seem to get in my way, even now. I find myself at times entertaining the most ridiculous thoughts of sex and then having to stop myself because of all the emotional damage it would cause me to put myself in these contrive situations I imagine. I do my best not to fight against my instincts, but to have them help me, and lately they haven't been of much help.

I can't imagine an existence that isn't affective. Without emotions, the fundamental question of suicide would have been a moot point. I'm a firm testament towards living in rebellion to the absurdity of existence. Before ever touching Camus way back in 7th grade, the weight of meaninglessness hit me with a crushing blow that I resisted and kept from destroying me. I've been thinking a lot about how our culture has adopted a dualistic view of being, that of mind and body. In many ways they are one and the same, though not to contradict what I said in earlier posts. There are certain feelings I need to feel and certain mindsets I need to be in to be fully in a creative mode. Hmm... and how evolved is our society really?

Agreed that love takes constant effort. I've taken a broader definition of love for myself though. I really have tried to come to live my whole life with love. This works well when I am alone and when those around me are receptive. In fact, my girlfriend was receptive until she got spooked. I know that I have the energy and patience to maintain the needed effort to make love lasting and passionate. It is interesting that you say the idea is to gain control of that instinctive reproductive drive and to master its energy... I think that there is something to that, and maybe what I've been hung up on is the absolute unwillingness to objectify others. In this case, the only way for me to really harness this energy is to find a <i>subject</i> to focus my energy towards. This might be the a missing link that I didn't think about enough, what solitude lacks is a means towards focusing that energy in a creative way that doesn't objectify something. My failure in high school was that I was addicted to courtly love. I filled pages and pages of poetry towards my object of desire. And that worked out then, but now I really need that to be a subject and I need it to be teamed with personal action.

Hate is a choice... I know that impulse can be put away. But it takes a lot of effort to overcome it, esp. if you get caught up in the situation. I found my way out of that tendency was to focus on understanding the other person. If I could understand, then I could endure anything without any malice. But, you're absolutely right, there's a wall that will be hit if the other person doesn't put out the effort to grow and foster those mutual connections. It is interesting... I don't know if this is actually helping me decide my approach and what my next phase of action will be, but it is helping me isolate the issues a little.

I think one thing is to identify your limits and clearly and directly share them with the other. My rocky relationship could have continued longer if I hadn't brought up that I thought she was intentionally focusing on things that weren't really problems because she was looking for a way to justify getting out of the relationship. By calling her on it instead of letting it sit inside I was free of it, and it became her burden... which she then used to immediately jump out of the relationship with. It has been difficult, but I'm glad that I went through all of it if I can learn from it.

And I'm sure there is a lot more, but that is enough for now.

wilbjammin

I have decided to revive this thread because I've entered into a new relationship, and I am much, much more hopeful about everything. Everything feels right, and I've realized some things that I was missing in the previous relationship that I'm getting now.

Without attempting to fall into a new relationship again, I have. This is because when we encountered each other this intimacy born of mutually sharing each other really did connect us. That distance that I was so sure I would continue to encounter in every relationship went away.

<small>Justification as to why I'm continuing this thread in philosophy:</small>

I was so concerned about finding meaning in relationships because I felt that all of the connections I made in my previous relationships were generated by myself. What is happening now is different. There is a vibrancy from both of our creative energies mixing. Music, art, and poetry really flow out of us. We have started to share a journal, I would have never thought of this idea before I met this girl. Now her creative ideas I will use to fuel my writing (and visa versa).

I had written earlier that I was looking for something different. What I found was someone who is very much like me. Instead of stifling the connections, it strengthened them and created many more. The connections aren't entirely self-contained when you allow the other person to contribute to them. I feel this relationship has meaning because of this. Maybe this isn't "safe" because I am relying on the other person for meaning more than I had in other relationships. But, at the same time, I feel more secure in the relationship because of it. I don't feel dependent either, or maybe (to quote the Cocteau Twins) this is a "healthy dependency"?

Perhaps here is a good time to question - how do the rest of you who have been in relationships judge what gives your relationship meaning? Where does the meaning come from? What are your limits? What concerns do you have when it comes to having meaning in your life and going beyond solitude into a relationship?

__________________
Innominate.

:::OshnSoul:::

The thing is I think you know the answer- read these again:

You are really saying that you are the creator of your life- others come along to "help" you create your life. You hold unity of all things within yourself, you do not need to rely on a SO for that. I am a poet as well, and there were times where I would focus on the other person as a means of inspiration for writing, but most of my words came from the inspiration flowing inside of me, seeming to be coming from the middle of nowhere. What you can try to do is go to a public place- coffee shop, park, street corner- and be inspired from the observation of strangers close-by and at a distance. It is always fun, because there is an imaginitive, endless burst of inspiration out there just by observing nature or other people. That won't hinder the other person and it won't seem selfish.
Know that the inspiration is within EVERYTHING and EVERYONE- don't limit yourself.