Eliminating one's desire for intimacy
- Thread starter wallyj84
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goodwood
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there, there minimag...you most certainly would be missed.
it is very easy to feel so consumed by one's own memories
of less than ideal treatment by those that are supposed to
be those closest (to you).
in the end - as it turns out - its not about you. i always thought
it was about me. how could it be about anyone other than me?
how dare anyone suggest otherwise?
when i had that reaction to someone telling me "its not about you"
that pissed me OFF! and i didn't know what to make of it.
time - and insightful people sharing their thoughts with me - has allowed
me to see that not only is it not about me, but that its okay, even good that its not about me.
you are here for a reason. circumstances might suck for you right now and no one wants that for themselves or for YOU.
you do need to be here and things WILL get better. if you can't imagine how or when or why then just chill. it will happen.
it is very easy to feel so consumed by one's own memories
of less than ideal treatment by those that are supposed to
be those closest (to you).
in the end - as it turns out - its not about you. i always thought
it was about me. how could it be about anyone other than me?
how dare anyone suggest otherwise?
when i had that reaction to someone telling me "its not about you"
that pissed me OFF! and i didn't know what to make of it.
time - and insightful people sharing their thoughts with me - has allowed
me to see that not only is it not about me, but that its okay, even good that its not about me.
you are here for a reason. circumstances might suck for you right now and no one wants that for themselves or for YOU.
you do need to be here and things WILL get better. if you can't imagine how or when or why then just chill. it will happen.
I've lived in developing nations. People there do have it bad, that's true, but it doesn't change my situation.
At the end of the day, it doesn't matter how well off I might be in comparison to some poor soul living in the third world. The people that I interact with will not be comparing me to them, but instead to my peers in the same country/region/economic level.
There is a lot of truth to that. I dress in a certain way to hide my obesity and deformities, but in the back of my mind, I know that everyone can still see how ugly I am, but that's not the point. The idea is to make myself believe that I'm hiding it and then count on the politeness of society to keep up the charade. This kind of delusion is necessary when interacting with others, but when you're intimate with another person you can't trick yourself. You can't make yourself believe that all your flaws are still hidden. This is part of why intimacy is so dangerous, it takes away your most basic defense from the harshness of the world.
Of course I don't think that anyone should totally avoid human contact, but letting people get so close to you is much more dangerous than you're letting on.
I don't believe that. I'm sorry, although I pride myself on being a logical person, and basing my life on facts and not idealogy or opinion, I cannot bring myself to believe that most people have anything in their life that could be seen as "life-affirming."
People will only note your reaction because they will look at your reaction to see whether or not the information is true. All a negative reaction will do is prove the veracity of your betrayers claims. If they have another way to prove the claims against you, they will not pay attention to your reaction at all.
So someone else is insinuating that I'm crazy.
Maybe I'm not crazy, just honest about myself and the world.Please tell me, what would you define as winning the game?
I don't even know what that is supposed to mean.
By extending that quote to areas like emotional intimacy, aren't you perverting it? I feel like you're twisting that quote into something horrible, instead of taking it for what it is.
That quote is obviously refering to human interaction on general economic and political levels, not on the intimate level of friends/lovers.
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I'm sorry, that person is ridiculous. The thing that keeps people alive isn't "love" it's a fear of death.
That's where we differ, Goodwood. I know it's not about me, and I want to keep it that way. Out in the world I want to stay as low-key as possible, to blend in, to be left alone, unnoticed by everyone.
It seems a whole lot longer when you've already been everywhere you've ever wanted to go, seen everything you've ever wanted to see, done everything you've ever wanted to do.
D_Gunther Snotpole
Account Disabled
Among other things, seeing life clearly rather than merely through one's own projections.
Not that one can entirely clear off the filter of projections ... but one can do more than you seem to think possible, Wally.
D_Gunther Snotpole
Account Disabled
That we are in some sense solitudes and yet can do something about that ... protecting and touching and greeting other beings.
The quote says, among other things, that Ubuntu gives one generosity, a feeling of connection to others, and access to one's own humanity.
It has everything to do with intimacy.
It is only very secondarily, if at all, referring to economic and political levels.
It is in its essence a social and even spiritual notion.
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D_Geffarde Phartsmeller
Experimental Member
If you really want to eliminate your desire for intimacy, just get married. That does it for alot of people.
HiddenLacey
Cherished Member
I agree with that person to me loving someone and REALLY loving them, being in love, being with them forever... that is what makes life worth living to me. I'm not afraid of death, why be afraid of something so out of your hands? You do however have to ability to pick up the piece's and start over and over again. You do have the choice to keep looking for that person that can make your world come to a stand still. In death you have no choice, but in life you always have a choice. Would you really want to cut yourself off from these emotions and live until you die as a hollow shell, as half a person, with nothing but emptiness inside? I just can't imagine a world not full of love, it would be a very sad place indeed.
I'm sorry, I have a completely different interpretation of that quote. When I read it I see as rebuking the American idea of rugged individualism.
Saying that "you can't exist as a human being in isolation" is recognizing the fact that humans are pack animals and thus in order to truly be human we must be part of a group that is larger than ourselves and most importantly recognize this to be the case. Once we comprehend that, as humans, we are not individuals but members of a group we understand our responsibility to that group. This responsibility manifests itself in the form of generosity.
This generosity will stem from the realization that "you are connected and what you do affects the whole world." Once we understand that the actions of others affect us, we can come to realize that that our failures and successes are not totally determined by our own actions.
I think it's obvious how this kind of thinking affects politics and economics. If generosity is essential to being a functioning member of society, then isn't it the government's responsibility to promote as many social welfare programs as possible? This also gives us a moral imperative behind taxes, because if success is not entirely based on your own actions then no one has any right to their money.
I think I'm ranting at this point, so I'll stop there. I believe that quote has a lot of far reaching affects on everything from regulation to education, but not intimacy. To say that quote promotes you weakening and debasing yourself in front of another human being is ridiculous to me.
...I think this is a bunch of nonsense. Sooner or later, everyone wants a degree of intimacy and the ability to hug, kiss, play, mess around. I have a good friend who is the typical tough copper type. After I feed him a big meal and get the Jack out, he softens right up. So I think the right person hasn't come along yet to make you feel the feelings.
I think the risk of intimacy is far too great. You run a very high risk of being hurt and maybe even losing social status. Let me repeat that, you run the risk of losing social status.
If it was just a matter of being hurt, I would have no problem with pursuing intimate relationships, but the possibility of permanently losing social status is too great a risk.
HiddenLacey
Cherished Member
Awww your worried about social status? My feeling's get hurt all the time. I'm kind of like a puppy, you kick me and I keep coming back... I really don't care what others think of me. I like people to like me, but they don't have to and I'll get over it. Words can only hurt you if you let them. I could live on top of a mountain without another person around for miles... but it sure would be better to share that space with someone I loved. I can't imagine caring more about my social status than my desire to love. I could give two nips about what people say. You need to be happy with yourself and stop worrying about people talking about you and where you rank in their eyes. Unless your running for government office one day... then your just screwed. Personally I would never want to draw that much attention to myself. People can be horrible and cruel. You just have to learn how to forget what people say about you. The harder you try to correct their assumptions the worse you look. Cutting yourself off from love because your worried about someone talking about you... I'm just going to guess someone has spread a rumor about you... if it's not true why worry about it?
rob_just_rob
Sexy Member
I had every care for social status beaten out of me at school. It's something I find so fickle, amongst children and adults.
Maybe because it is social? It's a group of people defining you by how they define each other, if you're able to blend into the group through sharing their commonalities or by pretending to, you're fine. But if you don't, well... you can stand in the corner by yourself. Whether it's salary, political views, career, religious beliefs, hobbies, interests, looks, whatever... there's always something that'll make you belong and something that'll set you aside. It's a game; there are rules and there is competition, a ranking and a point system which you can't change unless you're at the top. Great if you enjoy climbing but not so great otherwise. I've never liked that kind of game, not when you can be rewarded or punished for something you have no control over.
I think as long as you care about it, you're making yourself unnecessarily vulnerable to it. Easier to observe it from the outside and take full note of how it's being played, step in as necessary and then step back out when it's not.
Unless there's a different take on social status to the one I'm thinking of here?
Emotional intimacy itself is a frightening thing, I'd never deny that. When it exists, you lay yourself bare to be scrutinised by someone who you hope can see it all and put it together to understand not just who you are but why you are. And in doing so, in sharing the things you'd otherwise keep hidden, you are placing your trust in that person not to use what they've learned against you to manipulate you or to deliberately hurt you.
Even when you do reach a point of trust that deep, which feels strong and solid, you can't hold the future safely in your hands and be certain that there won't come a time when words are sharpened and thrown in anger or something happens/changes and that previously solid state of trust is shaken to it's foundations.
There is always risk, there's risk in everything we do. I risk death by getting out of bed in the morning, by crossing the road, by talking to strangers, by going to work. I can do all that I can to minimise the chances of it happening through events, circumstances or situations I can influence but I have no control over the chaos of other people and that's the scary thing though also a conquerable thing.
Death is inevitable. I've lost people I love to it, I lost a future I hoped to have to it and one day I will experience it but until that day, I see no reason why the prospect of it should lessen my enjoyment of what I have now and what I may have in the future.
For all that is frightening about emotional intimacy, there is nothing that compares to what is good about it. And ironically, that's another thing that makes it frightening.
The idea that you could achieve all you hope to with someone, only to lose it and never have it again. Bittersweet to experience such joy then have every other chance for it tainted by the memory of it after its loss. That's a choice though, not an absolute certainty or truth.
After I lost the person I loved, I wanted to keep the memory of what existed alive so it could never change and we would stay as close as we had been. I wrote every night for two years, a one sided conversation that I hoped could be read from somewhere where I wasn't. I didn't want to move on because I'd been given no choice about needing or wanting to do so and I placed every importance on staying faithful to that memory.
Couldn't comprehend let alone imagine meeting someone else who would make me feel the same way and so terrified that if I did and I went through everything it takes to form love, a bond and trust, that it could be taken away just as easily and painfully as it had before.
Such a fucking lonely state to exist in.
Then I met someone and hesitantly, slowly, the walls I built were worn away and I was happy until it became obvious that things weren't working. There's no point in tearing down the walls and clearing the debris away to make a space for new seeds to grow if someone else doesn't want to help you plant them. Another type of loss. Gradual erosion and degrading, subsidence and shifting until there's nothing left in common and polite words do not fill the hole left by the absence of love and the desire to do anything other than watch daytime television.
Left lonely again and seriously wondering why love and hope should be held so tightly when they both can be taken from you or worn down on a daily basis.
Sometimes though, things happen when you don't expect them and you can meet someone who makes you realise that you've reduced yourself to looking only at the ground of the path you've been dragging your feet along. Stones are nice and safe but they pale into insignificance when that person reminds you that there's an entire world filled with skyclouds, colours, sights and sensations that you'd deliberately faded out until they'd become as lost and forgotten as you felt.
They rekindle hope, you build your trust in each other and together you establish emotional intimacy which then allows you to experience the world you share with everyone else together and to create between you a world inhabited by a population of two. Filled and made wonderful with things so small they can't be touched and things as large as your heart feels when they make you pasta.
Trust, intimacy and loving are all chances and risks but without taking those chances and without being prepared to risk yourself to gain something far larger in return, you're going to be too scared to look at anything else but stones and you're going to shut out the possibility that the rest of the world is amazing.
Also, I love the concept of Ubuntu, thank you Hhuck for sharing that quote.
Maybe because it is social? It's a group of people defining you by how they define each other, if you're able to blend into the group through sharing their commonalities or by pretending to, you're fine. But if you don't, well... you can stand in the corner by yourself. Whether it's salary, political views, career, religious beliefs, hobbies, interests, looks, whatever... there's always something that'll make you belong and something that'll set you aside. It's a game; there are rules and there is competition, a ranking and a point system which you can't change unless you're at the top. Great if you enjoy climbing but not so great otherwise. I've never liked that kind of game, not when you can be rewarded or punished for something you have no control over.
I think as long as you care about it, you're making yourself unnecessarily vulnerable to it. Easier to observe it from the outside and take full note of how it's being played, step in as necessary and then step back out when it's not.
Unless there's a different take on social status to the one I'm thinking of here?
Emotional intimacy itself is a frightening thing, I'd never deny that. When it exists, you lay yourself bare to be scrutinised by someone who you hope can see it all and put it together to understand not just who you are but why you are. And in doing so, in sharing the things you'd otherwise keep hidden, you are placing your trust in that person not to use what they've learned against you to manipulate you or to deliberately hurt you.
Even when you do reach a point of trust that deep, which feels strong and solid, you can't hold the future safely in your hands and be certain that there won't come a time when words are sharpened and thrown in anger or something happens/changes and that previously solid state of trust is shaken to it's foundations.
There is always risk, there's risk in everything we do. I risk death by getting out of bed in the morning, by crossing the road, by talking to strangers, by going to work. I can do all that I can to minimise the chances of it happening through events, circumstances or situations I can influence but I have no control over the chaos of other people and that's the scary thing though also a conquerable thing.
Death is inevitable. I've lost people I love to it, I lost a future I hoped to have to it and one day I will experience it but until that day, I see no reason why the prospect of it should lessen my enjoyment of what I have now and what I may have in the future.
For all that is frightening about emotional intimacy, there is nothing that compares to what is good about it. And ironically, that's another thing that makes it frightening.
The idea that you could achieve all you hope to with someone, only to lose it and never have it again. Bittersweet to experience such joy then have every other chance for it tainted by the memory of it after its loss. That's a choice though, not an absolute certainty or truth.
After I lost the person I loved, I wanted to keep the memory of what existed alive so it could never change and we would stay as close as we had been. I wrote every night for two years, a one sided conversation that I hoped could be read from somewhere where I wasn't. I didn't want to move on because I'd been given no choice about needing or wanting to do so and I placed every importance on staying faithful to that memory.
Couldn't comprehend let alone imagine meeting someone else who would make me feel the same way and so terrified that if I did and I went through everything it takes to form love, a bond and trust, that it could be taken away just as easily and painfully as it had before.
Such a fucking lonely state to exist in.
Then I met someone and hesitantly, slowly, the walls I built were worn away and I was happy until it became obvious that things weren't working. There's no point in tearing down the walls and clearing the debris away to make a space for new seeds to grow if someone else doesn't want to help you plant them. Another type of loss. Gradual erosion and degrading, subsidence and shifting until there's nothing left in common and polite words do not fill the hole left by the absence of love and the desire to do anything other than watch daytime television.
Left lonely again and seriously wondering why love and hope should be held so tightly when they both can be taken from you or worn down on a daily basis.
Sometimes though, things happen when you don't expect them and you can meet someone who makes you realise that you've reduced yourself to looking only at the ground of the path you've been dragging your feet along. Stones are nice and safe but they pale into insignificance when that person reminds you that there's an entire world filled with skyclouds, colours, sights and sensations that you'd deliberately faded out until they'd become as lost and forgotten as you felt.
They rekindle hope, you build your trust in each other and together you establish emotional intimacy which then allows you to experience the world you share with everyone else together and to create between you a world inhabited by a population of two. Filled and made wonderful with things so small they can't be touched and things as large as your heart feels when they make you pasta.
Trust, intimacy and loving are all chances and risks but without taking those chances and without being prepared to risk yourself to gain something far larger in return, you're going to be too scared to look at anything else but stones and you're going to shut out the possibility that the rest of the world is amazing.
Also, I love the concept of Ubuntu, thank you Hhuck for sharing that quote.
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