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Conference quark::human_relations-v1

Title:	What's all this fuss about 'sax and violins'?
Notice:	Archived V1 - Current conference is QUARK::HUMAN_RELATIONS
Moderator:	ELESYS::JASNIEWSKI

Created:	Fri May 09 1986
Last Modified:	Wed Jun 26 1996
Last Successful Update:	Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:	1327
Total number of notes:	28298

751.0. "Love that lasts forever..." by SMAUG::DESMOND () Tue May 02 1989 02:03

     There have been numerous discussions about love and how to obtain true
     lasting love in this notesfile.  No one seems to have a satisfactory
     method for acquiring this much desired state of existence.  Is this
     because we no longer know what it means to love someone?  I don't think
     love is something that needs to be found or stumbled upon.  True love
     is something you decide to give freely.  The text I have entered below
     presents what I think is a different view of love from what is taught
     in our society today.  It is taken (without permission) from _Love and
     Living_ by Thomas Merton.  It is kind of long so I would suggest printing
     it out to read it.  I offer it only as an alternative view of love for all
     of you to reflect and comment on if you desire.  Regardless of whether you
     agree with it, I hope you will find it thought provoking.

							John


		Love and Need:  Is Love a Package or a Message?

     We speak of "falling in love" as though love were something like water
     that collects in pools, lakes, rivers, and oceans.  You can "fall into"
     it or walk around it.  You can sail on it or swim in it, or you can
     just look at it from a safe distance.  This expression seems to be
     peculiar to the English language.  French, for instance, does not speak
     of "tomber en amour" but does mention "falling amorous."  The Italian
     and Spanish say one "enamors oneself."  Latins do not regard love as
     a passive accident.  Our English expression "to fall in love" suggests
     an unforeseen mishap that may or may not be fatal.  You are at a party:
     you have had more drinks than you need.  You decide to take a walk
     around the garden a little.  You don't notice the swimming pool. . .
     all at once you have to swim.  Fortunately they fish you out, and you
     are wet but none the worse for wear.  Love is like that.  If you don't
     look where you are going, you are liable to land in it:  the experience
     will normally be slightly ridiculous.  Your friends will all find it
     funny, and if they happen to be around at the time, they will do their
     best to steer you away from the water and into a nice comfortable chair
     where you can go to sleep.

     Sometimes, of course, the pool is empty.  Then you don't get wet, you
     just crack your skull or break your arm.

     To speak of "falling into" something is to shift responsibility from
     your own will to a cosmic force like gravitation.  You "fall" when you
     are carried off by a power beyond your control.  Once you start you
     can't stop.  You're gone.  You don't know where you may land.  We also
     speak of "falling into a coma" or "falling into disgrace" or "falling
     into bankruptcy."  A thesaurus reminds us one can "fall into decay,"
     "fall on the ear," and even "fall flat on the ear."  A certain rudimentary
     theology regards the whole human race as "fallen" because Even tempted
     Adam to love her.  That is bad theology.  Sex is not original sin.  (A
     better view is that the love of Adam for Eve was originally meant as a
     communion and a diversity-in-oneness which reflected the invisible God
     in visible creation for "God is love.")

     The expression to "fall in love" reflects a peculiar attitude toward
     love and toward life itself -- a mixture of fear, awe, fascination, and
     confusion.  It implies suspicion, doubt, hesitation, in the presence of
     something unavoidable -- yet not fully reliable.  For love takes you out
     of yourself.  You lose control.  You "fall."  You get hurt.  It upsets
     the ordinary routine of life.  You become emotional, imaginative, 
     vulnerable, foolish.  You are no longer content to eat and sleep, make
     money and have fun.  You now have to let yourself be carried away with
     this force that is stronger than reason and more imperious even than
     business!

     Obviously, if you are a cool and self-possessed character, you will take
     care never to 'fall'. ['fall' was italicized in the original text]  You
     will accept the unavoidable power of love as a necessity that can be
     controlled and turned to good account.  You will confine it to the narrow
     category of "fun" and so will not let it get out of hand.  You will have
     fun by making others fall without falling yourself.

     But the question of love is one that cannot be evaded.  Whether or not
     you claim to be interested in it, from the moment you are alive you are
     bound to be concerned with it, because love is not just something that
     happens to you:  'it is a certain special way of being alive.' [italics]

     Love is, in fact, an intensification of life, a completeness, a fullness,
     a wholeness of life.  We do not live merely in order to vegetate through
     our days until we die.  Nor do we live merely in order to take part in
     the routines of work and amusement that go on around us.  We are not just
     machines that have to be cared for and driven carefully until they run
     down.  In other words, life is not a straight horizontal line between
     two points, birth and death.  Life curves upward to a peak of intensity,
     a high point of value and meaning, at which all its latent creative
     possibilities go into action and the person transcends himself or herself
     in encounter, response, and communion with another.  It is for this that
     we came into this world -- this communion and self-transcendence.  We
     do not become fully human until we give ourselves to each other in love.
     And this must not be confined only to sexual fulfillment:  it embraces
     everything in the human person -- the capacity for self-giving, for
     sharing, for creativity, for mutual care, for spiritual concern.

     Love is our ture destiny.  We do not find the meaning of life by 
     ourselves alone -- we find it with another.  We do not discover the
     secret of our lives merely by study and calculation in our own isolated
     meditations.  The meaning of our life is a secret that has to be revealed
     to us in love, 'by the one we love.' [italicized]  And if this love is
     unreal, the secret will not be found, the meaning will never reveal
     itself, the message will never be decoded.  At best, we will receive a
     scrambled and partial message, one that wil deceive and confuse us.
     We will never be fully real until we let ourselves fall in love --
     either with another human person or with God.

     Hence, our attitude toward life is also going to be in one way or another
     an attitude toward love.  Our conception of ourselves is bound to be
     profoundly affected by our conception -- and our experience -- of love.
     And our love, or our lack of it, our willingness to risk it or our
     determination to avoid it, will in the end be an expression of ourselves;
     of who we think we are, of what we want to be, of what we think we are
     here for.

     Nor will this be merely something that goes in our head.  Love affects
     more than our thinking and our behavior toward those we love.  It
     transforms our entire life.  Genuine love is a personal revolution.
     Love takes your ideas, your desires, and your actions and welds them
     together in one experience and one living reality which is a new 'you'.
     You may prefer to keep this from happening.  You may keep your thoughts,
     desires, and acts in separate compartments if you want:  but then you
     will be an artificial and divided person, with three filing cabinets:
     one of ideas, one of decisions, and one of actions and experiences.
     These three compartments may not have much to do with each other.  Such
     a life does not make sense, and is not likely to be happy.  The contents
     of the separate filing cabinets may become increasingly peculiar as life
     goes on.  Or philosophy of life is not something we create all by
     ourselves out of nothing.  Our ways of thinking, even our attitudes
     towards ourselves, are more and more determined from the outside.  Even
     our love tends to fit into ready-made forms.  We consciously or 
     unconsciously tailor our notions of love according to the patterns that
     we are exposed to day after day in advertising, in movies, on TV, and
     in our reading.  One of these prevailing ready-made attitudes toward
     life and love needs to be discussed here.  It is one that is seldom
     consciously spelled out.  It is just "in the air," something that one
     is exposed to without thinking about it.  This idea of love is a
     corollary of the thinking that holds our marketing society together.
     It is what one might call a package concept of love.

     Love is regarded as a deal.  The deal presupposes that we all have needs
     which have to be fulfilled by means of exchange.  In order to make a deal
     you have to market with a worthwhile product, or if the product is
     worthless, you have to dress it up in a good-looking package.  We
     unconsciously think of ourselves as objects for sale on the market.  We
     want to be wanted.  We want to attract customers.  We want to look like
     the kind of product that makes money.  Hence, we waste a great deal of
     time modeling ourselves on the images presented to us by an affluent
     marketing society.

     In doing this we come to consider ourselves and others not as 'persons'
     but as 'products' -- as "goods," in other words, as packages.  We appraise
     one another commercially.  We size each other up and make deals with a
     view to our own profit.  We do not give ourselves in love, we make a
     deal that will enhance our own product, and therefore no deal is final.
     Our eye is always on the next deal -- and this next deal need not 
     necessarily be with the same customer.  Life is more interesting when
     you make a lot of deals with a lot of new customers.

     This view, which equates lovemaking with salesmanship and love with a
     glamorous package, is based on the idea of love as a mechanism of
     instinctive needs.  We are biological machines endowed with certain
     urges that require fulfillment.  If we are smart, we can exploit and
     manipulate these urges in ourselves and in others.  We can turn them
     to our own advantage.  We can cash in on them, using them to satisfy
     and enrich our own ego by profitable deals with other egos.  If the
     partner is not too smart, a little cheating won't hurt, especially if
     it makes everything a little more profitable and more satisfactory for
     me!

     If this process of making deals and satisfying needs begins to speed up,
     life becomes an exciting gambling game.  We meet more and more others
     with the same needs.  We are all spilled out helter-skelter onto a
     routlette wheel hoping to land on a propitious number.  This happens
     over and over again.  "Falling in love" is a droll piece of luck that
     occurs when you end up with another person whose need more or less fits
     in with yours.  You are somehow able to fulfill each other, to complete
     each other.  You have won the sweepstake.  Of course, the prize is good
     only for a couple of years.  You have to get back in the game.  But
     occasionally you win.  Others are not so lucky.  They never meet anyone
     with just the right kind of need to go with their need.  They never find
     anyone with the right combination of qualities, gimmicks, and weaknesses.
     They never seem to buy the right package.  They never land on the right
     number.  They fall into the pool and the pool is empty.

     This concept of love assumes that the machinery of buying and selling
     of needs and fulfillment is what makes everything run.  It regards life
     as a market and love as a variation on free enterprise.  You buy and
     you sell, and to get somewhere in love is to make a good deal with
     whatever you happen to have available.  In business, buyer and seller
     get together in the market with their needs and their products.  And
     they swap.  The swapping is simplified by the use of a happymaking
     convenience called money.  So too in love.  The love relationship is
     a deal that is arrived at for the satisfaction of mutual needs.  If it
     is successful it pays off, not necessarily in money, but in gratification,
     peace of mind, fulfillment.  Yet since the idea of happiness is with us
     inseparable from the idea of prosperity, we must face the fact that a
     love that is not crowned with every material and social benefit seems
     to use to be rather suspect.  Is it really 'blessed?'  Was it really
     a 'deal?'

     The trouble with this commercialized idea of love is that it diverts your
     attention more and more from the essentials to the accessories of love.
     You are no longer able to really love the other person, for you become
     obsessed with the effectiveness of your own package, your own product,
     your own market value.

     At the same time, the transaction itself assumes an exaggerated
     importance.  For many people what matters is the delightful and fleeting
     moment in which the deal is closed.  They give little thought to what 
     the deal itself represents.  That is perhaps why so many marriages do
     not last, and why so many people have to remarry.  They cannot feel real
     if they just make one contract and leave it at that!

     In the past, in a society where people lived on the land, where the
     possession of land represented the permanence and security of one's
     family, there was no problem about marriage for life:  it was perfectly
     natural and it was accepted without even unconscious resistance.  Today,
     one's security and one's identity have to be constantly reaffirmed:
     nothing is permanent, everything is in movement.  You have to be able
     to move with it.  You have to come up with something new each day.
     Every morning you have to be prove that you are still there.  You have
     to keep making deals.

     Each deal needs to have the freshness, the uniqueness, the paradisal
     innocence of closing with a brand-new customer.  Whether we like it or
     not, we are dominated by an "ethic," or perhaps better, a "superstition"
     of quantity.  We do not believe in a single lasting value that is
     established once for all -- a permanent and essential quality that is
     never obsolete or stale.  We are obsessed with what is repeatable.
     Reality does not surrender itself all at once, it has to be caught in
     small snatches, over and over again, in a dynamic flickering like the
     successive frames of a movie film.  Such is our attitude.

     Albert Camus in one of his early books, _The Myth of Sisyphus_, praised
     Don Juan as a hero precisely because of his "quantitative" approach to
     love.  He made as many conquests as he possibly could.  He practiced
     the "ethic of quantity."  But Camus was praising Don Juan as a "hero of
     the absurd" and his ethic of quantity was merely a reflex response to the
     "essential absurdity" of life.  Camus himself later revised his opinion
     on this matter.  The "ethic of quantity" can take effect not only in love
     but in hate.  The Nazi death camps were a perfect example of this ethic
     of quantity, this "heroism of the absurd."  The ethic of quantity leads
     to Auschwitz and to despair.  Camus saw this and there was no further
     mention of the ethic of quantity in his books after World War II.  He
     moved more and more toward the ethic of love, sacrifice, and compassion.

     Anyone who regards love as a deal made on the basis of "needs" is in
     danger of falling into a purely quantitative ethic.  If love is a deal,
     then who is to say that you should not make as many deals as possible?

     From the moment one approaches it in terms of "need" and "fulfillment,"
     love has to be a deal.  And what is worse, since we are constantly
     subjected to the saturated bombing of our senses and imaginations with
     suggestions of impossibly ideal fulfillments, we cannot help revising
     our estimate of the deal we have made.  We cannot help going back on it
     and making a "better" deal with someone who is more satisfying.

     The situation then is this:  we go into love with a sense of immense
     need, with a naive demand for perfect fulfillment.  After all, this is
     what we are daily and hourly told to expect.  The effects of 
     overstimulation by advertising and other media keeps us at the highest
     possible pitch of dissatisfaction with the second rate fulfillment we
     are actually getting and with the deal we have made.  It exacerbates
     our need.  With many people, sexual cravings are kept in a high
     irritation, not by authentic passion, but by the need to prove themselves
     attractive and successful lovers.  They seek security in the repeated
     assurance that they are still marketable, still a worthwhile product.
     The long word for all this is narcissism.  It has disastrous effects,
     for it leads people to manipulate each other for selfish ends.

     When you habitually function like this, you may seem to be living a very
     "full" and happy life.  You may seem to have everything.  You go
     everywhere, you are in the middle of everything, have lots of friends,
     "love" and are "loved."  You seem in fact to be "prefectly adjusted"
     sexually and otherwise with your partner(s).  Yet underneath there may
     be a devouring sense that you have nevertheless been cheated, and that
     the life you are living is not the real thing at all.  That is the 
     tragedy of those who are able to measure up to an advertising image
     which is presented to them on all sides as ideal.  Yet they know by
     experience that there is nothing to it.  The whole thing is hollow.  They
     are perhaps in some ways worse off than those who cannot quite make the
     grade and who therefore think that perhaps there is a complete fulfillment
     which they can yet attain.  These at least still have hope!

     The truth is, however, that this whole concept of life and of love is
     self-defeating.  To consider love merely as a matter of need and
     fulfillment, as something which works itself out in a cool idea, is to
     miss the whole point of love, and of life itself.

     The basic error is to regard love merely as a need, an appetite, a 
     craving, a hunger which calls for satisfaction.  Psychologically, this
     concept reflects an immature and regressive attitude toward life and
     toward other people.

     To begin with, it is negative.  Love is a lack, an emptiness, a
     nothingness.  But it is an emptiness that can be exploited.  Others can
     be drafted into the labor of satisfying this need -- provided we cry out
     loud enough and long enough, and in the most effective way.  Advertising
     begins in the cradle!  Very often it stays there -- and so does love
     along with it.  Psychologists have had some pretty rough things to say
     about the immaturity and narcissism of love in our marketing society, in
     which it is reduced to a purely egotistical need that cries out for
     immediate satisfaction or manipulates others more or less cleverly in
     order to get what it wants.  But the plain truth is this:  love is not
     a matter of getting what you want.  Quite the contrary.  The insistance
     on always having what you want, on always being satisfied, on always
     being fulfilled, makes love impossible.  To love you have to climb out of
     the cradle, where everything is "getting," and grow up to the maturity
     of giving, without concern for getting anything special in return.  Love
     is not a deal, it is a sacrifice.  It is not marketing, it is a form of
     worship.

     In reality, love is a positive force, a transcendent spiritual power.  It
     is, in fact, the deepest creative power in human nature.  Rooted in the
     biological riches of our inheritance, love flowers spiritually as freedom
     and as a creature response to life in a perfect encounter with another
     person.  It is a living appreciation of life as value and as gift.  It
     responds to the full richness, the variety, the fecundity of living
     existence itself:  it "knows" the inner mystery of life.  It enjoys life
     as an inexhaustible fortune.  Love estiamtes this fortune in a way that
     knowledge could never do.  Love has its own wisdom, its own science, its
     own way of exploring the inner depths of life in the mystery of the loved
     person.  Love knows, understands, and meets the demands of life insofar
     as it responds with warmth, abandon, and surrender.

     When people are truly in love, they experience far more than just a mutual
     need for each other's company and consolation.  In their relation with 
     each other they become different people:  they are more than their
     everyday selves, more alive, more understanding, more enduring, and
     seemingly more endowed.  They are made over into new beings.  Ther are
     transformed by the power of their love.

     Love is the revelation of our deepest personal meaning, value, and
     identity.  But this revelation remains impossible as long as we are the
     prisoner of our own egoism.  I cannot find myself in myself, but only in
     another.  My true meaning and worth are shown to me not in my estimate of
     myself, but in the eyes of the one who loves me; and that one must love
     me as I am, with all my faults and limitations, revealing to me the truth
     that these faults and limitations cannot destroy my worth in 'their' eyes;
     and that I am therefore valuable as a person, in spite of my shortcomings,
     in spite of the imperfections of my exterior "package."  The package is
     totally unimportant.  What matters is this infinitely precious message
     which I can discover only in my love for another person.  And this
     message, this secret, is not fully revealed to me unless at the same time
     I am able to see and understand the mysterious and unique worth of the
     one I love.

     This mutual revelation of two persons in their deepest secret is something
     entirely private.  It is their possession, and it cannot be communicated
     to anyone else until it is embodied in the child who becomes, as it were,
     a living word, a physical manifestation of their shared secret.  Yet in
     the person of the child the secret remains a mystery known only to the
     love of the two who participated in the creative surrender which brought
     the child into being.

     Love, then, is the transforming power of almost mystical intensity which
     endows the lovers with qualities and capacities they never dreamed they
     could possess.  Where do these qualities come from?  From the enhancement
     of life itself, deepened, intensified, elevated, strengthened, and
     spiritualized by love.  Love is not only a special way of being alive, it
     is the perfection of life.  He who loves is more alice and more real than
     he was when he did not love.

     That is perhaps one of the reasons why love seems dangerous:  the lover
     finds in himself too many new powers, too many new insights.  Life looks
     completely different to him, and all his values change.  What seemed
     worthwhile before has become trivial:  what seemed impossible has become
     easy.  When a person is undergoing that kind of inner cataclysm, anything
     might happen.  And thank God, it does happen.  The world would not be
     worth much if it didn't.

     The power of genuine love is so deep and so strong that it cannot be
     deflected from its true aim even by the silliest of wrong ideas.  When
     love is alive and mature in a person, it does not matter if he has a false
     idea of himself and of life:  love will guide him according to its own
     inner truth and will correct his ideas in spite of him.  That may be
     dangerous, but the danger is nothing new and the human race has lived with
     it for a million-odd years.  The trouble is, though, that our wrong ideas
     may prevent love from growing and maturing in our lives.  Once we love,
     our love can change our thinking.  But wrong thinking can inhibit love.
     Overemphasis on the aspects of need and fulfillment, and obsessions which
     encourage a self-conscious and narcissistic fixation on one's own 
     pleasure, can easily blight or misdirect the growth of love.  That is why
     the advertising imagery which associates sexual fulfillment with all the
     most trivial forms of satisfaction -- in order to separate the buyer from
     his dollar -- creates a mental and moral climate that is unfavorable to
     genuine love.  Unconsciously the power that should go into creative and
     positive love for the other person is being short-circuited by images of
     infantile oral fulfillment and other narcissistic symbols.  The lover then
     becomes the beautiful glowing icon of self-satisfaction, the desirable,
     slick, and infinitely happy package, rather than the warm presence of one
     who responds totally to the value and being of the beloved.  Even the
     advertising images of those beatified couples, for whom the years of early
     middle age are an unending ball, do not convince us of the reality of
     love:  they merely enshrine the cool and consummated deal that our society
     believes in with superstitous reverence.

     What are we going to do about it?  Well, for one thing, we can be aware of
     theses immature and inadequate ideas.  We do not have to let ourselves be
     dominated by them.  We are free to think in better terms.  Of course, we
     cannot do this all by ourselves.  We need the help of articulate voices,
     themselves taught and inspired by love.  This is the mission of the poet,
     the artist, the prophet.  Unfortunately, the confusion of our world has
     made the message of our poets obscure and our prophets seem to be
     altogether silent -- unless they are devoting their talents to the praise
     of toothpaste.

     Meanwhile, as our media become more sophisticated and more subtle, there
     in no reason why they should not also create for us a better and saner
     climate of thought -- and present us with a less fallacious fantasy world
     of symbolic fulfillments.

     There is no reason except, of course, that it is easier to make money by
     exploiting human weakness!

T.R	Title	User	Personal Name	Date	Lines
751.1	and even more alternatives	SALEM::SAWYER	but....why?	`Tue May 02 1989 17:37`	29
	: There have been numerous discussions about love and how to obtain true : lasting love in this notesfile. some of us have been suggesting that, instead of obtaining "true lasting love" perhaps we would all be happier if we came to the realization that "true lasting love" (with one person) is 1. highly unlikely 2. rather naive 3. extremely unimportant 4. likely to cause neurosis and self pity in most people who want it but don't find it. and, further, that MOST people will probably have a number of "true loves" that don't last forever but are just as wonderful and just as important. : No one seems to have a satisfactory : method for acquiring this much desired state of existence. "desired state"? do we desire it because it's so desireable or because we been conditioned by fairy tales, romance novels, our parents..to desire it? perhaps the most "satisfactory method" is to realize that it (true lasting love) is really not that important nor very likely? : Is this because we no longer know what it means to love someone? no. it's because they is no santa claus..no easter bunny...and "love forever" is mostly mythical, generally neurotic and basically unimportant. I KNOW what it is to love someone! besides my kids i've also loved 4 different women and some friends...
751.2	Some questions about your alternatives.	SMAUG::DESMOND		`Tue May 02 1989 19:41`	45
	RE: .1 You have only addressed the part of the base note that I wrote. Did you even bother to read what followed? > some of us have been suggesting that, instead of obtaining "true lasting > love" perhaps we would all be happier if we came to the realization that > "true lasting love" (with one person) is > 1. highly unlikely Is it highly unlikely because you have been unable to achieve it? > 2. rather naive Is it rather naive because you don't believe it is possible? > 3. extremely unimportant If it is so unimportant, why have you made such a case against it? > 4. likely to cause neurosis and self pity in most people who want > it but don't find it. Do you feel self-pity because you have not found it? Perhaps true lasting love is not something you FIND, but something you create and give away. > and, further, that MOST people will probably have a number of "true loves" > that don't last forever but are just as wonderful and just as important. If you've never had a love that lasts forever, then how do you know temporary loves are just as wonderful and just as important? > perhaps the most "satisfactory method" is to realize that it (true lasting > love) is really not that important nor very likely? See above about importance and likelihood. > no. it's because they is no santa claus..no easter bunny...and "love > forever" is mostly mythical, generally neurotic and basically unimportant. > I KNOW what it is to love someone! > besides my kids i've also loved 4 different women and some friends... Do you think if you were to stop loving your children they would consider the loss of your love unimportant? Do you think it is important to them that you love them now and that you continue to love them?
751.3	what's wrong with even more alternatives?	SALEM::SAWYER	but....why?	`Tue May 02 1989 20:26`	122
	:You have only addressed the part of the base note that I wrote. Did you :even bother to read what followed? guilty as charged! actually, i read excerpts from it.... > some of us have been suggesting that, instead of obtaining "true lasting > love" perhaps we would all be happier if we came to the realization that > "true lasting love" (with one person) is > 1. highly unlikely :Is it highly unlikely because you have been unable to achieve it? no. it's highly unlikely because people are growing and changing faster than ever. as they grow and change....they often grow apart. big deal. so what?....it's life....and there is nothing wrong with having more than 1 "true love" relationship in your lifetime. > 2. rather naive :Is it rather naive because you don't believe it is possible? no. it's rather naive because most people only believe in "one true lasting love forever" because they were taught/conditioned to believe/desire it by fairy tales, their parents (most parents are pretty ignorant), society, churches.... > 3. extremely unimportant :If it is so unimportant, why have you made such a case against it? because so many people i see search for this blue bird of happiness and are so devasted when either they never find it or when they think they've found it but it ends. i believe there would be less need for counseling for adults suffering from relationship loss if we counseled them as children into understanding that love does not generally last forever and it's ok for love to end....and new ones to begin.... > 4. likely to cause neurosis and self pity in most people who want > it but don't find it. :Do you feel self-pity because you have not found it? nope. i stopped looking. i'm very happy with my lifestyle and most of the people i know who feel the same way are also very happy. oddly enough.... it's the people who have been conditioned into searching for that blue bird that are seeking counseling, enduring self pity, lonely at home with no one to love them..... : Perhaps true lasting :love is not something you FIND, but something you create and give away. ok. perhaps. and since i've created and given it away so much i guess i've found it!.....lucky me. :If you've never had a love that lasts forever, then how do you know temporary :loves are just as wonderful and just as important? good question. conversely, if YOU've never traveled my route how do YOU know i'm wrong? all i know is what i see.... i'm very happy with my lifestyle and most of the people i know who feel the same way are also very happy. oddly enough.... it's the people who have been conditioned into searching for that blue bird that are seeking counseling, enduring self pity, lonely at home with no one to love them..... > perhaps the most "satisfactory method" is to realize that it (true lasting > love) is really not that important nor very likely? :See above about importance and likelihood. your point is...."true lasting love is important." my point is...."you've been conditioned to believe that but it's not true...or, at least...doesn't have to be true" :Do you think if you were to stop loving your children they would consider :the loss of your love unimportant? yes. : Do you think it is important to them :that you love them now and that you continue to love them? yes. lorna sthilaire and i were in love. and now we aint. and we are still best friends....we tell each other everything! (so be careful what you guys say to her....:-) when we loved it was important for us to maintain that monogamous love... when we stopped loving on a sexual/intimate basis it was important that we continue loving as best friends... we have done this..... and we are both very happy....no regrets.... i feel that what you want is for me to start feeling sorry for myself because i've never experienced "true ever lasting love". no thanks. i don't need the extra expense for the psychological counseling....nor do i need the deep depression. what i want is for everyone to stop getting so nuerotic over perfectly normal and healthy comings and goings of relationships. haven't you seen any woody allan films? annie hall, love and death, manhattan, play it again sam...? he addreses these issues very well....and his conclusions seem similiar to mine... should i listen to woody allan? or my mother? you have my permission to believe what you want .... but...having actually spent lots of time discussing the issue, researching the issue, analyzing the issue...i've come to the conclusion that it's mostly just conditioning and need not be our prime directive in life. from my perspective....most people haven't really thought about it very much....they just do it.... "get married, stay married, have children cus THAT'S WHAT PEOPLE DO!...or else you wil be lonely and sad!!!!" a challenge..... i didn't read the rest of your base note....it was, after all, quite long. i'll read it if you promise to read 2 pieces that i have that explain my position better and more logically....they happen to be quite long, also.... what sayeth thou? rik
751.5	If I had my druthers...	MARCIE::JLAMOTTE	J & J's Memere	`Tue May 02 1989 21:22`	9
	I believe that it is possible to love one person for a long time even unto death do us part. I also believe that many couples have done that quite successfully. I would also have liked to have had one love. Loving more than one person in a lifetime is an alternative...not my choice maybe my fate.
751.6	Some more thoughts...	SMAUG::DESMOND		`Tue May 02 1989 21:47`	138
	> no. it's highly unlikely because people are growing and changing > faster than ever. as they grow and change....they often grow apart. > big deal. so what?....it's life....and there is nothing wrong with > having more than 1 "true love" relationship in your lifetime. Growth and change does not have to mean growing apart. Likewise, just because two people are committed to each other for life does not mean they cease to exist as separate people. They can still grow and change while maintaining a loving relationship. Of course love involves some level of sacrifice for the beloved which may mean that one does not grow in exactly the same way he/she would have grown in the absence of the relationship. > no. it's rather naive because most people only believe in "one true > lasting love forever" because they were taught/conditioned to > believe/desire it by fairy tales, their parents (most parents > are pretty ignorant), society, churches.... It seems to me that people are now being "conditioned" to believe that love can't last forever because love is somehow intertwined with physical attraction which is largely dependent on staying young (or at least the appearance of youth) and no one can escape aging. > i believe there would be less need for counseling for adults > suffering from relationship loss if we counseled them as children > into understanding that love does not generally last forever and > it's ok for love to end....and new ones to begin.... Why not teach our children about love which does not end? About how to make a lifelong commitment? About choosing a partner who also believes in making a relationship last through good times and bad? Perhaps then love would generally last forever and we would have less need for counselors. > nope. i stopped looking. i'm very happy with my lifestyle and most > of the people i know who feel the same way are also very happy. > oddly enough.... > it's the people who have been conditioned into searching for that > blue bird that are seeking counseling, enduring self pity, lonely > at home with no one to love them..... Are you really happy deep down inside? Is there never any feeling that maybe there is something more to life that is missing? Maybe you really want someone to share your whole life and that someone is not there? I just ask to make you consider the possibilities. > :If you've never had a love that lasts forever, then how do you know temporary > :loves are just as wonderful and just as important? > good question. conversely, if YOU've never traveled my route how do YOU know i'm > wrong? I have had relationships that have not lasted and I know that is not what I want for the rest of my life. I know that I would like someone to share my whole life with until death. > your point is...."true lasting love is important." > my point is...."you've been conditioned to believe that but it's > not true...or, at least...doesn't have to be true" Perhaps you've conditioned yourself to believe that it is not important. That way you aren't missing out on anything important in life. Is this possible? > :Do you think if you were to stop loving your children they would consider > :the loss of your love unimportant? > yes. If the loss of your love is unimportant, then does that mean the presence of your love is unimportant? If that's true, why love at all? Why love anyone temporarily or permanently. After all it is not important. Why should anyone have multiple occurrences of something that is not important? > : Do you think it is important to them > :that you love them now and that you continue to love them? > yes. I don't understand. How can loss of something important not be important? > lorna sthilaire and i were in love. > and now we aint. > and we are still best friends....we tell each other everything! > (so be careful what you guys say to her....:-) > when we loved it was important for us to maintain that monogamous > love... > when we stopped loving on a sexual/intimate basis it was important > that we continue loving as best friends... > we have done this..... > and we are both very happy....no regrets.... I would say that you two ARE still in love. > i feel that what you want is for me to start feeling sorry for myself > because i've never experienced "true ever lasting love". > no thanks. i don't need the extra expense for the psychological > counseling....nor do i need the deep depression. I don't want you to feel sorry for yourself. That would not be particularly productive. However, because you have not experience true ever lasting love does not mean that it is impossible for many (maybe most) other people. > haven't you seen any woody allan films? > annie hall, love and death, manhattan, play it again sam...? > he addreses these issues very well....and his conclusions seem > similiar to mine... > should i listen to woody allan? or my mother? Personally I don't necessarily find Woody Allen to be an authority on love or relationships but then I don't know a lot about him. I would certainly listen to my mother before Woody Allen, wonderful woman that she is. > you have my permission to believe what you want .... > but...having actually spent lots of time discussing the issue, > researching the issue, analyzing the issue...i've come to > the conclusion that it's mostly just conditioning and need not > be our prime directive in life. I really wasn't looking for your permission to believe what I want. I don't need anyone's permission but thanks for the offer. I have done much discussing, researching, analyzing, and praying about this issue and I have not reached the same conclusion as you. > a challenge..... > i didn't read the rest of your base note....it was, after all, > quite long. > i'll read it if you promise to read 2 pieces that i have > that explain my position better and more logically....they > happen to be quite long, also.... > > what sayeth thou? I know it was long but I think it is worth reading. It took considerably longer to type it in than it will to read it. As for promising to read what you have, I don't want you to read mine because I read yours. I want you to read what I wrote because you are open to the ideas presented there and because you might learn something new. I would like to see what you have also because I still have much to learn and I would be interested in reading another point of view. John
751.7	yet another poem	NOETIC::KOLBE	The dilettante debutante	`Wed May 03 1989 17:05`	24
	<It seems to me that people are now being "conditioned" to believe that love <can't last forever because love is somehow intertwined with physical attraction <which is largely dependent on staying young (or at least the appearance of <youth) and no one can escape aging. This reminds me of a song I learned once. It's taken from a poem but I don't know the author. It's hard to remove yourself from what another person looks like but it seems the most lasting relationships manage this. After all you are growing old together. The last two lines have always made me think - "this is what love should be like" liesl Believe me if all those endearing young charms that I gaze on so fondly today were leave you tomorrow and melt in my arms just like fairy dust fading away Thou would still be adored as this moment thou art though thy loveliness faded away and around the dear ruins each beat of my heart would entwine itself verdently still
751.8	Not Woody Allen	YODA::BARANSKI	Incorrugatible!	`Wed May 03 1989 17:20`	18
	'Woody Allen' I wouldn't consider Woody Allen to be an authority on relationships. And I would consider anyone who does consider him to be an authority to be in deep trouble. Woody is good for pointing out the potholes and ideosyncrasies of relationships, but he has few if any answers. I don't think I've ever seen Woody Allen portray a genuinely happy character. I think that people need to believe in the goal of permanent relationships, but accept relationships that come and go. Both have their places. Some people will never have permanent relationship either through fate (never meeting the right person), or else they just are not suited to permanent relationships. People need to just let people be people. What will happen will happen. And for yourself, work to make what you want to happen, happen; but don't hang your goals on others. Jim.
751.10	aint nobody an authority on relationships	SALEM::SAWYER	but....why?	`Wed May 03 1989 18:32`	47
	re:.8 i don't consider woody allan an authority on relationships. i consider him a wiser than average person who has questioned and analyzed love and relationships more than the average person and who has come up with some intelligent alternatives. i'm not sure there are any real authorities on relationships. most of the "authorities" i've read have espoused beliefs that i feel are rather naive and self limiting.... sorry to tell you this but....you thinking that i'm in deep trouble has no impact. i feel that people who are so stuck on love forever with one person to be in deep trouble. i'm sure that has no impact on you or many of the other fine noters. you can continue to believe in and strive for love forever.... i choose to be happy with my love/life style. perhaps i'm missing something special....? oh well. i have lots of special things andpeople in my life so ...i don't really "miss" love forever with one person or perhaps you are missing some other special things.... perhaps you've missed out on other special, loving relationships that could have developed...? i know your way. i was there. i was taught/condition the same way you were/are. i broke free and i'm glad i did. have you ever tasted the joys of my path? so many of you just continue to espouse..."love forever with one person or loneliness and unhappiness are the price to pay" without ever experiencing the alternatives.... i'm sure your way is good for you.....if it's really what you want. you may have it with my best wishes.... cus all i want is for people to be happy regardless of who they love or how long they love.... i have my way...please don't tell me it's not as good as yours. it's good enough for me! i've tried yours. i like mine better. it works for me and i'm happy with it..... fair enough? rik
751.11		GERBIL::IRLBACHER	not yesterday's woman, today	`Thu May 04 1989 13:22`	39
	I lived--and loved--a man for 30 years, as in "till death do you part". The most bitter-sweet memory I have is that my name was the last word he spoke. [no, please, I am not trying to evoke any emotion except to tell you what matters to me] It was not a marriage made in heaven. We came from 2 different worlds, and spent most of that 30 years learning how to cope with each other! But we shared the same basic values, the same hopes for ourselves and our 4 children, and we were firmly committed to the belief that life with each other was still better--with all its bumps--than life elsewhere. Love? Does anyone remember in Fiddler On The Roof how Tevya asked his wife "Do you love me?'" and she kept giving him a list of all the things she did for him, and he kept saying "yes, but do you love me?" And finally, she says, "Yes, I love you." I thought that was a very special segment of the musical. I don't know much about loving lots of others. I haven't much practice. But I did have a relationship which lasted 3 1/2 years. I only know that it was different, and now that it is over, and I have evaluated it and laid it to rest, I don't feel that it is an experience I would much want to relive. Dr. Scott Peck [The Road Less Traveled] said something to the effect that love becomes real love only when it is given without any expectation of return. I do recommend his book; I cannot do any justice to his thesis here. I figure we all do the best we can with what we have and getting through life is a tough procedure. What makes one wo/man happy would be a prison to another; what constitutes the "good life" for me might drive you to suicide, and vice versa. But a long life with a single love...those were the days, my friends, and they were lovely, while they lasted..... M
751.12	keep it simple	YODA::BARANSKI	Incorrugatible!	`Thu May 04 1989 16:04`	32
	'who would I consider an authority on relationships?' Well... since you ask. I would consider the bible an authority on relationships. I consider Peck to be an authority. I consider "Human Be-ing: how to have a relationship instead of a power struggle" an authority. I consider Nathan & Devers Brandon "What Love asks of us" to be an authority. I consider C.S. Lewis to be an authority on relationships. You may consider someone else's authorities, or even someone else to be naive, but it would do you good to remember that there is no one who can't learn something from someone else. We all have our areas of naivity and experience. So... I consider calling someone naive a reflection on the speaker, rather then on the person spoken of. I'm certainly not stuck on 'one person forever', but I see definite advantages to it. My big problem lies more in how do you stop loving other people, or how do you split yourself so as to say this expression of love is ok with this person but not with anyone else, but these expressions are ok... I can't and don't care to segment myself that way. Let what will be, Be. Don't try to force a relationship into a mold. When you do that you destroy any opportunity for healthy growth, and twist and put a lot of stress on the relationship that it doesn't need. When you are ready to get married, get married, but not before. If your SO wants to go out three nights a week, let them. Just love them. Sooner or later they will miss you and stay home, or whatever else should happen will happen. I don't think love and relationships have to be all that complicated. It's when you try to twist it to fit some mold or pigeonhole is when it becomes real complicated. Jim.
751.13	RE: .10	APEHUB::RON		`Thu May 04 1989 18:24`	46
	> ... most of the "authorities" i've read have espoused beliefs > that i feel are rather naive and self limiting... It seems the author of .10 has already made up his mind not to let any amount of reasoning change his opinion. To that end, he discards any opposing opinions since none of them is "authoritative". The logic in .10's reasoning is that any opposing opinion is not authoritative and nothing but an authoritative opinion will change his mind. True 'catch 22' reasoning... > i know your way. i was there. i was taught/condition the > same way you were/are. i broke free and i'm glad i did. For someone who CLAIMS to have spent his adult life in multiple short relationships, how can .10 claim to "having been there"? How can he KNOW the true meaning of a long, satisfying relationship? He's never been in one. What did he break free from? > i feel that people who are so stuck on love forever with one > person to be in deep trouble. As someone who has been in such deep trouble for almost 30 years, I do have a different opinion. I question .10's capacity for judging --or even considering-- long, loving relationships, since he is discussing something he knows absolutely zilch about. On the other hand, most people who have been in a long lasting, fulfilling relationship, have also experienced one or more transitory ones, previous to settling down. I suspect such people are qualified to compare the two, since they have experienced both. Granted, a 'forever' relationship is not for everyone and there is nothing wrong or objectionable about transitory love affairs (except when kids are involved. Because they do not know enough to discard authoritative opinions, they insist on getting hurt). I simply question .10's qualifications to knock a lifestyle he apparently has not experienced. So, what else is new? -- Ron
751.14	Stop, think, and consider	CREDIT::BNELSON	It's SHOWtime!	`Thu May 04 1989 18:41`	58
	Wow. This really hit home. You're right, even if you don't believe what it's saying, it will make you stop and consider (if you approach it with an open mind). I've only had a chance to read this a couple times, so I can't say I agree with all of it yet. But certainly, there are parts which made me want to cry out "yes!". It is so nice when you come across something which elucidates thoughts and feelings you've had for some time but couldn't express yourself. A "package"... I can't say I've ever considered this view before, because my mind just doesn't seem to work that way. It will require more thought on my part, but at a first pass it does seem to explain a few things. A "message"... Instinctively, I think this is true. You are saying to that other person: "I see you for who you really are. I see all the foibles and imperfections with great clarity. But they do not matter, for I also see the True person beyond those things. And that person I find so wonderful, so precious, that I wish to show you what I see by giving of myself." One sentence in particular struck me. It goes, "To love you have to climb out of the cradle, where everything is 'getting', and grow up to the maturity of giving, without concern for getting anything special in return." I agree, but at the same time I recognize the need for awareness as to what is going on in the relationship. You have to be careful not to overextend yourself, to give too much. Also, you need to be sure that the giving is not all one-way. In these situations, something is likely wrong with the relationship (though not necessarily with either of the parties involved). But I do not know that you must discover your own self-worth in the eyes of someone else. I think each person should discover that for him or herself. Certainly, you can discover more worth in another person's eyes, but I think you need a basis to work from. If you do not feel your own self-worth, how can you love yourself? And if you do not love yourself, how can anyone else love you? Something which occurred to me as I read this was: it seems that we have different views of what love is. Perhaps another part of the "equation" for finding a truly lasting love is finding someone whose views of love match your own. Most importantly though, this piece did make me stop -- think -- and consider my own views. Which is all any author can ask. Thank you for sharing this. Brian
751.15	For further reading, reflection...	SMAUG::DESMOND		`Thu May 04 1989 19:04`	49
	Re: .14 Thank you, Brian. Your reply made the time it took to type 400 lines in all worthwhile. I'm glad it gave you reason to stop and think. That was all I wanted the base note to do for all the readers of HUMAN_RELATIONS. I don't expect the whole world to agree with me or with what I entered here. But I personally believe the world would be better off if more people made the effort to love the way Marilyn describes in .11 Also since Marilyn made mention of _The Road Less Traveled_ by M. Scott Peck, I thought I would enter some other books that might be of interest to anyone who wants to read more about love. And Rik, I hope you will be interested to take the time to check out some of these books just to see another point of view expressed more eloquently than I ever could. _Unconditional Love_ by John Powell, S.J. This is my favorite book about love. It is short and very easy to read and understand. An excellent book that I think everyone could benefit from. _Love_ by Leo Buscaglia This is another excellent book about love. Dr. Buscaglia has done a lot of work on relationships and has taught a course on love at the University of Southern California. _Loving Each Other_ by Leo Buscaglia This is a good book about relationships and how to improve them. Much of it is the result of his course at USC. _The Art of Loving_ by Erich Fromm This is considered one of the best books on love from a pyschological point of view. Certainly worth reading although not as light as the one's above. Both Leo Buscaglia and John Powell have several other books. Many are readily available at most general bookstores, usually in the Psychology section. Then there is the book the base note was from which is _Love and Living_ by Thomas Merton. This is most likely not available in a general bookstore. I picked up my copy at a Christian bookstore in Worcester, MA. If anyone would like to read any of these and has trouble finding them, please let me know and I'll see how I can help out. John
751.16		RUBY::BOYAJIAN	Starfleet Security	`Fri May 05 1989 10:03`	34
	re:.13 What you say may be true, but it can just as easily be said that some of the "authorities" cited as such by other noters here are thought of as authorities because they spout the same ideas already held by the noters who hold them up as authorities? re:.0 and following notes by John I don't want to speak for Rik (I find his position as extreme as yours; I'm somewhere in the middle, but closer to his end of the spectrum). What I see are the differences in his and your arguments as I read them are that you are arguing that "ever-lasting love" is best for everyone, and Rik is arguing that he's found the opposite is true for him, and by extension, for many others. What may be right for you and untold others may not be right for everyone, and I think that's really what Rik is trying to say. The thought of having one person to share love with for the rest of my life has its appeal, but in looking backwards through the last 20 years of my life, I tell myself that if I stayed with "A" for my whole life, I'd never have known "B", et alia, at least in the way that I did. And so on down the line. Each break-up added misery to my life, but it created a situation where I was able to know the love of someone else, and each of those relationships, however brief, meant a lot to me, and all contributed to making me what I am today. True, not having had an ever-lasting love means that I cannot know the joy that it brings, but I can't say that the lack of it has made for an unhappy life. --- jerry
751.17	The Authoratative Answer?	TOOK::HEFFERNAN	Am I having fun yet?	`Fri May 05 1989 12:18`	24
	I find the discussion on authorities on love interesting. I have read most of the books mentioned and they were somewhat helpful but are also somewhat not helpful. Is there such a thing as an authority on love? What is an authority anyway? What happens when you read what an authority says and your own experience differs? Does this create stress and confusion that what the authority said and what your expereince is are two different things? Does this create an idea in your mind that you should be conforming and experiencing things as described by the "authority"? Ultimately, there are no authorities, only your own experience. Even that, what is it? Is your experience something you own that is you have created? Is the love in your life a creation of your own ego, self-image, and ideas about love or something quite different beyond your self and your ideas. When you really know you have loved, where is the self at this time? Maybe we should put down all ideas about love, all needs, all images of what ourself and what love is, and just do it! john
751.18	learn something from everyone	YODA::BARANSKI	If it ain't simple, it ain't Love	`Fri May 05 1989 14:10`	15
	"What happens when you read what an authority says and your own experience differs?" No Problem. Obviously the authority and I have experienced different situations. Reading an authority adds to my knowledge/experience, it does not replace it. If the experiences differ, then we are talking about two different things, or at the very least two different viewpoints of the same situation. Either way, I can learn from it. There may be no authorities who know everything, but you can learn something from everyone. Jim.
751.19	Yeah, I can comment	ELESYS::JASNIEWSKI	the air that I breathe - and to	`Fri May 05 1989 14:10`	146
	I have some comments on .0 - First off, it's contexted horribly, for a treatise on Love. There are better than 50 negatively contexted statements or expressions in about 400 lines. Conclusion? It's full of negativity - a "not" for every 8 lines... Yeccch!! There's some statements that are absolute CA-CA too. Such as: >For love takes you out of yourself. You lose control. You "fall." You get hurt. It upsets the ordinary routine of life. You become emotional, imaginative, vulnerable, foolish. You are no longer content to eat and sleep, make money and have fun. You now have to let yourself be carried away with this force that is stronger than reason and more imperious even than business!< This sounds more like a description of an addiction, which is a disease, according to modern thinking. Love? >You will accept the unavoidable power of love as a necessity that can be controlled and turned to good account. You will confine it to the narrow category of "fun" and so will not let it get out of hand. You will have fun by making others fall without falling yourself.< This is one of the stupidest statements I've ever read. I cannot even comment further. >Life curves upward to a peak of intensity, a high point of value and meaning, at which all its latent creative possibilities go into action and the person transcends himself or herself in encounter, response, and communion with another.< In my opinion, a belief in the above would eventually be suicidal. >It is for this that we came into this world -- this communion and self- transcendence. We do not become fully human until we give ourselves to each other in love.< Likewise, this is ca-ca of the most absolute form; ringing of religious overtones. >Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone -- we find it with another. We do not discover the secret of our lives merely by study and calculation in our own isolated meditations.< I'm about to puke! The necessity of "another" is a belief supporting a human character dysfunctionality called co-dependancy. They are purporting this. >The meaning of our life is a secret that has to be revealed to us in love, 'by the one we love.'< I DIS-agree. This kind of thinking will get you down at the bottom of the pit faster than anything. What happens if the "one you love" just blows you off!?! There goes your meaning of life....STUPID! >We will never be fully real until we let ourselves fall in love -- either with another human person or with God.< I KNEW it. Note the explicit lack of mention of falling in love with the self. You're being set up to be controlled - to be good little sheep, in some great herdsman's flock. >Hence, our attitude toward life is also going to be in one way or another an attitude toward love.< I can agree with this. >Our conception of ourselves is bound to be profoundly affected by our conception -- and our experience -- of love.< Oh boy, do I even need to go on? Sure, true, true. But why on earth would anyone let this "affect" ever happen more than once? This is a hallmark trait of codependancy, which is a disease for god's sake! >Such a life does not make sense, and is not likely to be happy.< Oooh, such certainty I hear, Oh Great One of the negative context. >Yet since the idea of happiness is with us inseparable from the idea of prosperity, we must face the fact that a love that is not crowned with every material and social benefit seems to us to be rather suspect.< Again, such a "certain" tone. >Anyone who regards love as a deal made on the basis of "needs" is in danger of falling into a purely quantitative ethic. If love is a deal, then who is to say that you should not make as many deals as possible?< What about sharing needs with someone else? >From the moment one approaches it in terms of "need" and "fulfillment," love has to be a deal.> HAS to be, eh? Get off your pulpit, preacher! >And what is worse, since we are constantly subjected to the saturated bombing of our senses and imaginations with suggestions of impossibly ideal fulfillments, we cannot help revising our estimate of the deal we have made. We cannot help going back on it and making a "better" deal with someone who is more satisfying.< I understand. But, are we trully all helpless wimps who "cannot help themselves"!?! Get off it! >The effects of overstimulation by advertising and other media keeps us at the highest possible pitch of dissatisfaction with the second rate fulfillment we are actually getting and with the deal we have made.< Only if you let it... >The basic error is to regard love merely as a need, an appetite, a craving, a hunger which calls for satisfaction. Psychologically, this concept reflects an immature and regressive attitude toward life and toward other people. To begin with, it is negative... But the plain truth is this: love is not a matter of getting what you want.< I have to wonder if this "preacher" knows anything at all about negativity. >It is a living appreciation of life as value and as gift. Agreed! Finially, a positively contexted statement. >When people are truly in love, they experience far more than just a mutual need for each other's company and consolation. In their relation with each other they become different people: they are more than their everyday selves, more alive, more understanding, more enduring, and seemingly more endowed. They are made over into new beings. They are transformed by the power of their love.< I disagree. >I cannot find myself in myself, but only in another. My true meaning and worth are shown to me not in my estimate of myself, but in the eyes of the one who loves me; and that one must love me as I am, with all my faults and limitations, revealing to me the truth that these faults and limitations cannot destroy my worth in 'their' eyes; and that I am therefore valuable as a person, in spite of my shortcomings, in spite of the imperfections of my exterior "package." That's IT. I give up - this sht is POISON*. See you in hell! Joe Jas
751.20	cool your jets Joe	YODA::BARANSKI	If it ain't simple, it ain't Love	`Fri May 05 1989 14:45`	30
	Joe, I think you've read .0 wrong. A fair proportion of the things you object to are ways that .0 is saying people typically handle love. .0 is not saying they are right things to do; .0 is pointing out common mistakes. "This sounds more like a description of an addiction, which is a disease, according to modern thinking. Love? I'm about to puke! The necessity of "another" is a belief supporting a human character dysfunctionality called co-dependancy. They are purporting this." This is a difference between addicition & codependancy and the love they are talking about. At times it is a fine line, just as there is a fine line between madness & genius, but it is a big difference in the result. Superficially the description may seem like codependancy to you, but there is a difference. I fail to see what you find objectionable in the following; it is certainly true. "Our conception of ourselves is bound to be profoundly affected by our conception -- and our experience -- of love." .0 talks about love being treated as a set of needs, and how that is wrong. Treating love as a set of needs could be like codependancy, and .0 points that out as wrong. A fullfilling love is much more then that. Cool your jets Joe. Read .0 by itself, not with all your baggage. Or... just forget about it... Jim.
751.21	Not So Readily Available, Except..............	FDCV01::ROSS		`Fri May 05 1989 15:11`	13
	Re: .19 Joe, I don't know why you're surprised that the basenote seems to have so many religious overtones. The author did state that the book wasn't available in a general bookstore, and that he got his copy from a Christian bookstore in Worcester. I wonder if this book was found in the section, right next to the New Age Movement and Crystal Chants aisle. :-) Alan
751.22	finger food	TOOK::HEFFERNAN	Am I having fun yet?	`Fri May 05 1989 17:42`	25
	Thomas Merton was a Trappist monk and writer that lived most of his life in a Monastery. He's a real interesting guy in my view. Later in his life he started to check out Eastern religions and began to see the underlying essence of all mystical traditions which is the experience of the here and right now. Seems like there is a lot of religion bashing starting to happen in this note. A lot of religions have become institutions and have lost their true essence for many of the practitioners. That does not mean the original teaching was bogus. Religious systems are pointers and symbols to our experience right here and now. If I point my finger at the moon, my finger is not the moon. This is like the religious teachings. Many people these days just see the finger and think that their finger is better than the other person's finger and we end up with a lot of suffering. Teaching are just a pointer. Later, they can be dispensed with. If you see the Buddha on the road, kill him! Dawn after dawn - the Sun! Night after night - the Moon!
751.23	I guess I did get discussion going.	SMAUG::DESMOND		`Fri May 05 1989 17:43`	18
	Re: .19 I was going to reply in much the same way as Jim did. Much of what is written by Thomas Merton is pointing out what he believes is wrong with some of our modern views of love. As for religious overtones, well, Thomas Merton was a Trappist monk. I didn't realize those of us who subscribe to anything remotely resembling religious views were not allowed to express them here. Re: .16 Jerry, I understand when you say that it looks like I am saying that my views of love are for everyone. I do not mean to suggest that. I really did enter this as a way to stimulate discussion and to give many people here reason to examine their views of love and to see if there might be some information that they had not considered. When one believes in something very strongly, the strength of the conviction can't help but come across. I hope no one has taken offense.
751.24	try arguing with what i said...and not what you THINK i meant	SALEM::SAWYER	but....why?	`Fri May 05 1989 18:40`	49
	ron... :It seems the author of .10 has already made up his mind not to let :any amount of reasoning change his opinion. To that end, he discards :any opposing opinions since none of them is "authoritative". golly...i would say the exact same thing about you and your beliefs! it seems to me that no amount of logic or reasoning will change your opinion!... logic and reasoning dictate that love does not always last forever! logic and reasoning indicate that it doesn't matter! the opposing opinions are..."my mother told me...and fairy tales clearly state....that all people must have one love forever!" :The logic in .10's reasoning is that any opposing opinion is not :authoritative and nothing but an authoritative opinion will change :his mind. True 'catch 22' reasoning... not quite....the logic is....far too often "authorities" are just stating what they believe or what they've been taught... but that does not make them right! look...all i've been saying (why am i saying it again? you still won't understand..though you'll swear you do) is this... love forever with one person is nice... but many loves spread over a life time is nice too... and one way is NOT better than the other way... you can be happy with one love forever..AND you can be happy with multiple loves what you seem to be saying is... "love forever with one person is THE BEST".... "if you don't have one love forever then you must be unhappy" ron...you are not listening to what i'm saying... you are just arguing...worse...you are arguing using non-logic and calling it logic!.... you insist that i refuse to change my mind.... i insist that you refuse to change your mind.... you think i'm illogical... i think you're illogical... you trust all authority figures... i don't.... have a nice weekend rik
751.25	Point One	BRADOR::HATASHITA		`Fri May 05 1989 18:48`	32
	The writer of the text in the base note, as eloquent as he may be, has missed the reality-bound train by a good half hour. I've divided my response into three point: Point One: The author of the text in the base note did a good job of bashing the "marketing/profit attitude" towards love. One thing that he failed to point out, however, is that touting the need to aspire to love and the perpetuation of the myths of some ethereal magic which surround love, is as profitable as marketing any other commodity. We spend at least as much money as a species in pursuit of love as we do on data processing equipment. If you think about it, we probably spend a whole lot more. Every time we send flowers, take a date out for dinner or to a movie, buy cologne or a new suit or dress to wear on a date; even when we buy a self help book with a title like, "LOVE; How To Find It and Get It and Hold Onto It Like Your Future and The Future of The Known Universe Depends On It", we are contributing to the profitability of love. I realize that one of the messages put forth in the base note was that love is unconcerned with the packaging; that somehow true love can disregard everything except the "true and central core of another person". But in the jumble of messages from the multitude of media which assail our senses, we have come to truly believe that making a decent impression on someone in the context of our society's values, is, if nothing else, the first step towards "enamoring oneself". True love may be unconcerned with such mundane trivialities as personal hygiene, but I doubt it.
751.26	Point Two	BRADOR::HATASHITA		`Fri May 05 1989 18:50`	41
	Point Two: > Love is, in fact, an intensification of life, a completeness, a fullness, > a wholeness of life. > We do not find the meaning of life by > ourselves alone -- we find it with another. We do not discover the > secret of our lives merely by study and calculation in our own isolated > meditations. The meaning of our life is a secret that has to be revealed > to us in love, 'by the one we love.' This attitude that love is the be-all-and-end-all of existence, and that if you don't have someone to love or someone to love you, you're missing out on the major reason for existence, I have come to regard as dangerous. I have seen too many people, hyped on this notion to the point of fanaticism, destroy their self esteem and become, in their own eyes, worthless human beings because they couldn't live up to this absurd notion. The sad part is: It is the notions and the myths, not the people, which are worthless. If the Porsche company started a campaign which proclaimed something to the effect of: Having a Porsche is a heightened form of existence. You can't begin to know what it is to be alive unless you drive a Porsche. ...and the general public bought the story, we'd have a lot of people who would feel their lives are unfulfilled because they drove a Mazda. No matter that the Porsche may be impractical and irrelevant to their own lives. And anyone who dared to question the validity of this claim would look upon the whole thing and chuckle. What I observe out there in the real world is many desperate people, thrashing around like mating salmon, trying pathetically to achieve this thing called love. If you're one of these people I suggest you quit embarrassing yourself and put things into perspective. We are not intended to be defined in terms of other people. We are individuals who must seek out our own identity and our own happiness on our own. If you look to other people or institutions or causes about which to establish your own justification for existence you are "wimping out".
751.27	Point Three	BRADOR::HATASHITA		`Fri May 05 1989 18:54`	25
	Point Three: The point I try to get across to the practical people who care to listen is that being in love is not a goal in itself but an aspect of the process we call life. Each person that is reading this note is an individual who has one shot in which to enrich and experience his/her own life. There is no need to wrap yourself up in something which you believe to be greater than yourself because as an individual you have more worth than any cause or group or concept ever imagined. I have nothing against love itself for it is a wonderful frame of mind and in the end I truly believe that it is the most potent emotion we can, as humble "biological entities", experience. But I do think that anyone who embraces love in the ways indicated in the base note is destined to cling like a burr to even the faintest hint of love and in doing so will miss out the joys of learning to love themselves. There is nothing wrong with narcisism. The love of one's self is much more fulfilling than the love of another and possibly even the love of God. Kris
751.28	what a pleasure to see....	SALEM::SAWYER	but....why?	`Fri May 05 1989 19:00`	21
	re: last 2... Kris!...a breath of (logical) fresh air! love is great....but why do so many people (ron) insist that the only truly great love is... love with one person forever! ? why do they insist that all all people who haven't found love with one person forever! MUST be unhappy!...MUST be lonely!...MUST be missing out on THE MOST IMPORTANT ASPECT OF LIFE!....? why...do they get mad at people...like me and kris...who believe...logically...that it's ok to be single...it's ok to have multiple loves in life? ron....why? what is it about my belief...kris's belief....which we feel are both logical and healthy....that angers you? rik
751.29	dont' be so angry...ron...relax...watch the ole ticker	SALEM::SAWYER	but....why?	`Fri May 05 1989 19:21`	33
	:--or even considering-- long, loving relationships, since he is :discussing something he knows absolutely zilch about. you are a very rude person. did marriage help you to "mature" to this point? :Granted, a 'forever' relationship is not for everyone and there is very good....!~ : nothing wrong or objectionable about transitory love affairs very good! : (except when kids are involved. Because they do not know enough to discard :authoritative opinions, they insist on getting hurt). i disagree....but...what else is new... : I simply :question .10's qualifications to knock a lifestyle he apparently has :not experienced. ron ole buddy...i no longer question it!...i recognize that love forever with one person is WONDERFUL!... ok? but i also recognize that many loves spaced throughout a life time is also...WONDERFUL! and i question your qualifications to knock that life style... which you have done quite often... :So, what else is new? not much -- Ron rik
751.30	Please clarify your ideas	SMAUG::DESMOND		`Fri May 05 1989 21:51`	46
	Re: .24 Rik, Why do logic and reasoning dictate that love does not always last forever? Perhaps your personal experience has shown that but how do logic and reasoning dictate that? If one believes that love is not just a feeling, but a commitment to the growth and happiness of another, then where is the logic that says it must end? Love freely given does not have to ever end even if feelings come and go. Love is not dependent on feelings. One of the big difficulties I have with many loves is what happens when one of the "lovers" decides it's time to move on and the other has not reached the same conclusion? I know you have said that one must be taught to be open to the termination of a relationship. It seems to me that one would always have to hold back because you can never be sure if the other is going to walk out at amy minute. I have great difficulty with the insecurity in such a situation. Can you offer any insight into why that is not a problem, Rik? Re: .25 I don't think Thomas Merton is trying to convince anyone that there is some magic surrounding love. I know Leo Buscaglia, John Powell, and M. Scott Peck don't believe that. All of them will tell you that true love takes effort and is not some magical power such as you would find in a fairy tale. As for true love not being concerned about "packaging," how do you think couples stay together when one of them has physically deteriorated through age or injury. What about when one can't bathe oneself and a loved one has to do it? This is not to say that physical attraction does not start things off much (most) of the time. However attraction and love are two very different things. Re: .26 Realizing meaning in life through loving another does not lead to complete dependence on another for every breath of life. Perhaps the wording in the base note seems too strong in a country which emphasizes individualism so heavily. Re: .27 Love of one's self is good and is important. However, narcissism is defined as "Excessive love of oneself." That I don't find to be a good thing.
751.31		HAMSTR::IRLBACHER	not yesterday's woman, today	`Mon May 08 1989 00:27`	68
	"Most" people "love" at the beginning generally from the neck down. They don't often think about the long road ahead; how many of us have chosen someone because we were so blinded by "love" that we didn't see any negatives about the other until we became fully satisfied from the neck down and slowly began to realize that the "marvelous wo/man" we had chosen wasn't perfect? What then? "Out you go, Sally [or Joe]. You no longer fit the bill and I gotta be me and being me means I gotta find something better, bigger, more beautiful and so long, kid." Or do you evaluate what you have together, what you both stand for, what you value and what you want from each other and the relationship, and then start to do what Dr. Scott Peck calls the hard work of digging in and making the marriage/relationship work. People who make their marriages/relationships work, and spend their years growing both together and as individuals, develop a history. They own scrapebooks of pictures, and share the same "in" private jokes, and they learn to forgive the misguided political choice [when one votes for Nixon...ugh!]. I find it a bit hard to understand---please, don't get hot over this in notes-don't bore everyone with your tatting back and forth, if you must say something, send me mail--how relationships which last short periods of time can have any depth, any history, any depth of shared cultural meaning. How can something "wonderful" begin when you barely know anything about anyone? Frankly, I think that most of us could easily learn to love anyone we put our minds to love if--big if--we thought first about: Would we be companionable..would we share enough of the same interests to want to be together most of the time out of the bedroom and away from the TV set? Do we have the same basic values--in other words, do we both stand for basically the same things which matter most to us? Do we really know who they are...their parents, family, friends? Have we spent enough time together doing ordinary things to find out if they are built for the long run...or if they always have an eye out for something better and more exciting? Do we like* each other? Long loving and good marriages/relationships become that way from the neck up; and whether we like to think so or not, so do our sexual feelings. Old Benjamin F. said it best: "In the dark, all cats are grey." Well, they ain't in the light...and that is where real loving behavior generally takes place. And anyway, who in H*ll says that we have to love a wo/man to be happy? Does that mean that those who deeply love and care for others or devote themselves to a cause, or to their Spiritual Power, love less deeply and are less fulfilled? Love cannot be defined. Love cannot be pigeonholed. And no amount of noting is anything but one wo/man's opinion. Which we all agreed that we would respect, even when we think they are totally misguided and astonishingly reprehensible and flagrantly undemocratic. [grin] [snicker] [smile] [I hate it when someone does this] Lighten up! Love one another....M
751.32	I see hope...	ELESYS::JASNIEWSKI	the air that I breathe - and to	`Mon May 08 1989 13:04`	8
	Well, HURRAY for .26 and .27! .31 has some excellent points to consider, in considering a maintainance effort. It's well known that your car will end up a piece of junk without maintainance. Same is true with your love relationship. Joe Jas
751.33	Patience and tolerance	VICTOR::NAIK		`Mon May 08 1989 15:33`	8
	Love lasts longer : if there is tolerance in the relationship. if both partners accept that no one is perfect. if there is variety in the relationship. regards, Girish
751.36	life is the means, love is the ends	YODA::BARANSKI	If it ain't simple, it ain't Love	`Mon May 08 1989 19:46`	53
	RE: HATASHITA Good Points all of them! I especially liked: "What I observe out there in the real world is many desperate people, thrashing around like mating salmon, trying pathetically to achieve this thing called love. If you're one of these people I suggest you quit embarrassing yourself and put things into perspective." As a person who has undoubtably don't more then his share of undignified thrashing about, I can laugh my head off about it! :-) However, I don't understand how you can say this: "There is nothing wrong with narcisism. The love of one's self is much more fulfilling than the love of another and possibly even the love of God." There's a lot that can be wrong with narcisism. It can cause a person to be ingrown, sterile, morbid... Yes, self love is great, yes self love is necessary to life and to loving others and God. But is loving yourself an end in and of it's self? It is not for me. For me, loving myself is important, but it is not an end that I work for. For me, loving myself is the means by which I can love others, and God. The problem with a lot of alternatives in live is that "the worst enemy of the best is the not quite as good". What does this mean? It means that if you have something that gives you some amount of satisfaction, most people have little or no urge to try for something better, the best. This is why people have arguments like single is better then married, one relationship is better then multiple, etc... "This attitude that love is the be-all-and-end-all of existence, and that if you don't have someone to love or someone to love you, you're missing out on the major reason for existence, I have come to regard as dangerous." I still regard love as the "end-all" of existance. Perhaps not romantic love, perhaps what I consider christian love, but loving and caring other people nonetheless. If we don't leave the world better off then without ourselves, then we are just parasites. However, love is certainly not the "be-all" of existance. There's an awfull lot of life that needs to be gone through that isn't 'love'. Perhaps the rest of life is the 'means' to which love is the 'ends'. But we can't skip the rest of life, and trash about grasping at love when we wouldn't know what to do with it if we had it. I think that's what causes a lot of problems if that people want to just skip the difficult parts of life, and just take the icing of love. They don't realize that love isn't going to work unless they go through all the other stuff. Jim.
751.37	You are not doomed if you don't agree	TOOK::HEFFERNAN	Am I having fun yet?	`Mon May 08 1989 20:13`	39
	RE: <<< Note 751.35 by ELESYS::JASNIEWSKI "the air that I breathe - and to" >>> -< I'll bet even hell is a slight of context >- "Religious flavor" of course boils down to someone "on the box" claiming: "This is this; that is that and those who do not believe in the absolute truth and righteousness of what I say are doomed". > Who is really on the soapbox? > Certainly, the author of .0 never said anything about being doomed. > He is saying that love is our highest purpose that we can fufill on > this earth. Although he mentions marriage, in my reading he > is talking about a broader view of love (and not about "romantic > love"). He is saying that businessperson's love where I scratch > your back if you scratch my back is ultimately unsatisfying. In > other words, ego's always want to be separate. You can make > alliances between two egos but ultimatley conflicts arise and you > have to give up your ego needs. > Beleive it if you want to. Don't take my word for it; see for > yourself. How's that for religious dogma! > The rest of your note is a diatribe on the Catholic Church's > thinking on masturabation (which I'm not sure is still the case). In > any case, I don't see the relevance of this on Merton's article > which has nothing to do with the Catholic Church's position on > masturbation. Merton was very outspoken and was in trouble with > his head monk alot about what he wrote. He spoke from his own > experience. It would be nice if people could read something by a > person who happens to be a monk and not mix up what he is saying > with their own difficulties with the Cathlic Church or their > perception of it. I'm not Catholic (I used to be - now I'm Zen > Buddhist) but I see what Merton is saying as essentially devoid > of a lot of dogma but coming out of the so-called mystical > experience which tends to be the basis for all religions if > practiced as they were originally intended. john
751.38	...	ELESYS::JASNIEWSKI	the air that I breathe - and to	`Mon May 08 1989 21:41`	8
	I'm sorry if what was reply 35 has troubled anyone. Rereading it, I've decided that it was perhaps inappropriately motivated by something that trully has nothing to do with the discussion. Therefore, it does not belong here so I deleted it. My apologies. Joe Jas
751.39	Strictly IMHO....	CSOA1::KRESS	Certified Member of the Dream Team	`Mon May 08 1989 23:08`	20
	I found Thomas Merton's view thoroughly fascinating. I can't say that I agree with the man completely but he does present some interesting ideas. While reading this excerpt, I kept thinking to myself that Merton should take this thinking further. Why must it be limited to romantic love? Personally, I don't think everyone can experience what Merton describes and if such is the case, does this make the person less whole? What about love for family, friends, and people? The opportunites for giving of ourselves is so vast, why limit it to romantic love? Of course, since this is an excerpt, perhaps Merton discusses this elsewhere. Sometimes I wonder if we're all so busy looking that we miss out on so much in life. Perhaps what we seek the most is within our reach, only we do not realize it. Kris
751.40	Relationships Don't Work	TOOK::HEFFERNAN	Am I having fun yet?	`Wed May 10 1989 00:44`	174
	RE: .39 Thank you for you reply. RE: .0 Here is another perspective on this subject. Those not familiar with meditation; please excuse all the references to it. From Everyday Zen, By Charlotte Joko Beck I recently returned from Australia. I went there hoping to enjoy some normal weather - so the first two days of sesshin it poured, which was fun. Then for the last five days of sesshin in Brisbane there was a cold gale. It was so strong that we could hardly stand up as we ran between buildings. We had to fight just to keep our balance. The wind was alike a truck, roaring over the roof the whole time. Anyway, it was a good sesshin, and what I got (as I always do) is that no matter where you go, people are people: they are all wonderful and they are all troubled, as people are everywhere; and the same questions trouble the Australians as trouble us. They have just as much difficulty with relationships as we do. So I want to talk for a few minutes about the illusions we have that relationships are going to work. See, they don't. They simply don't work. There was never a relationship that worked. You may say, "Well, why are we doing this practice if that's true?" It's the fact that we want something to work that makes our relationships so unsatisfactory. In a way life can work-but not coming from the standpoint that we are going to do something to make it work. In everything we do in relation to other people, there is a subtle or not so subtle expectation. We think, "Somehow, I'm going to figure this relationship out and make it work, and then I will get what I want." We all want something from the people we are in relationship to. And even if we avoid relationships that's another way of wanting something. So relationships just don't work. Well, what does work then? The only thing that works (if we really practice) is a desire not to have something for myself but to support all life, including individual relationships. Now, you may say, "Well, that sounds nice, I'll do that!" But nobody really wants to do that. We don't want to support others. To truly support somebody means that you give them everything and expect nothing. You may give them your time, your work, your money, anything. "If you need it, I'll give it to you." Love expects nothing. Instead of that we have all these games: "I'm going to communicate so our relationship will be better," which really means "I'm going to communicate so you'll see what I want." The underlying expectation we bring to those games insures relationships won't work. If we really see that, then a few of us will begin to understand the next step, of seeing another way of being. We may get a glimpse of it now and then: "Yes, I can do this for you, I can support your life and expect nothing. Nothing." There is a true story of a wife whose husband had been in Japan during the war. In Japan, he lived with a Japanese woman and had a couple of children with her. He loved the Japanese woman very much. When he came home, he did not tell his wife about this love. But finally, when he knew he was dying, he confessed to her the truth of the relationship and the children. At first she was very upset. But then something within her began to stir and she worked and worked with her anguished feelings; finally, before her husband died, she said, "I will take care of them." So she sent to Japan, found the young woman, and brought her and the children back to the United States. They made a home together and the wife did all she could to teach the young woman English, to get her a job, and to help with the children. That's what love is. A meditative practice is not some airy-fairy process, but a way of getting in touch with our own life. As we practice, more and more we have some idea of this other way of being, and we begin to turn away form a self-oriented" orientation - not to an "other-centered" orientation (because it includes ourselves), but to a totally open orientation. If our practice is not moving in that direction, then it is not true practice. Whenever we want anything we know our practice has to continue. And since none of us can say other than that, it just means that for all of us our practice has to continue. I have been practicing a long time, yet I notice that on this trip I just took (which was a long trip at my age, even though the sesshin was good, with strong impact on a lot of people) I was saying, "Well, it took too much out of me, I don't know if I will do it next year. Maybe I need more rest." The human mind is like that. Like anyone else, I want to be comfortable. I like to feel good. I don't like to be tired. And you may say, "Well, what's wrong with wanting a little comfort for myself?" There is nothing wrong with wanting it, unless it is at variance with that which is more important to me than comfort, my primary orientation in life. If that primary orientation does not emerge from practice, then practice isn't practice. If we know our primary orientation, it will have its effect on every phase of life, on our relationships, our work, everything. If something doesn't emerge from practice that is more than just what I want, what would make my life more pleasant, then it's not practice. But let's not oversimplify the problem. As we sit like this, we have to develop two, three, four aspects of practice. Just to sit in strong concentration has value. But unless we are careful, we can use this to escape from life. In fact, one can use the kind of power it develops in very poor ways. Concentration is one aspect of practice; we don't overemphasize it here, hut the ability must be acquired at some point. The Vipassna-type practice (which I prefer) in which you notice, notice, notice, is very valuable and I think the best and most basic training. Yet it can lead to people who are (and I think I was at one time) almost totally impersonal. There was nothing I felt emotionally because I had become an observing machine. That can sometimes be a drawback from this type of practice. There are also other ways of practicing. Each way has strengths and drawbacks. And there are various psychological and therapeutic trainings which are valuable; yet they also have drawbacks The development of a human being into what I would call a balanced, wise, compassionate person is not simple. In a relationship, whenever we sense unease-that point where it does not suit us- a big question mark should shoot up as to what is going on with us. How we can practice with that unease? I am not saying that all relationships should be continued forever, because the point of the relationship has nothing to do with the relationship itself. The point of the relationship is the added power that life gets in working with that channel. A good relationship gives life more power. If two people are strong together, then life has a more powerful channel than with two single people. It's almost as if a third and larger channel has been opened. That is what life is looking for. It doesn't care if you are "happy" in the relationship. What it is looking for is a channel, and it wants the channel to be powerful. If it's not powerful life would just as soon discard it. Life does not care about your relationship. It is looking for channels for its power so that it can function maximally. Life is looking for a strong channel and, like a strong wind, it will beat on a relationship to test it. If the relationship can't take the testing, then either the relationship needs to grow in strength so that it can take it, or it may need to dissolve so that something new and fresh can emerge from the ruins. Whether it crashes or not is less important than what is learned. Many people marry, for instance, when nothing is served by the relationship. I am not advocating that people dissolve their marriages, of course. I am simply mean that we often misinterpret what marriage is about. When a relationship isn't working, it means the partners and preoccupied with "I": "What I want is..." or "This isn't right for me." If there is little wanting, then the relationship is strong and it will function. That's all life is interested in. As a separate ego with your separate desires, you are of no importance to life. And all weak relationships reflect the fact that somebody wants something for himself or herself. These are big questions I am raising, and you may not agree with everything I am saying. Still, Zen practice is about being selfless, about realizing that one is no-self. That does not mean to be a non-entity. It means to be very strong. But to be strong does not mean to be rigid. I've heard of a way of designing houses at the beach, where the big storms can flood houses: when they are flooded, the middle of the house collapse and the water, instead of taking down the whole house, just rushess through the middle and leaves the house standing. A good relationship is something like that. It has a flexible structure and a way of absorbing shocks and stresses so that it can keep its integrity, and continue to function. But when relationship is mostly "I want", the structure will be rigid. When it is rigid, it can't take pressure from life and so it can't serve life very well. Life likes people to be flexible so it can use them for what it needs to accomplish. If we understand zazen and our practice we can begin to get acquainted with ourselves, and how our troublesome emotions wreak havoc with our lives. If we really practice very slowly, over the years, strength develops. At times this is a horrendous process. If anyone tells you differently they are not telling you about real meditation. Real mediation is by no means a flowery, blissful process. But if we really do it in time we begin to know what it is we're after; we begin to see who we are. So I want you to appreciate your practice and really do it. Practice is not a trimming on your life. Practice is the foundation. If that's not there nothing else will be there. So let's keep clarifying what our practice is at this moment. And who knows- some of us might even find ourselves in a relationship that works-one that has a very different base. It is up to us to create that base. So let's just do that.
751.41		ZONULE::WEBB		`Wed May 10 1989 12:55`	1
	That's pretty impressive... thanks for putting it in.