hmm − 6 September, 2007
From: AJSis
To: LSDC
Mar 8, 2007 1:15 PM
awe~
HELLO very much :-)
What a pleasant surprise...
Since AJ is feeling what she is feeling at the moment i was figuring i would most likely not be getting much in the way of emails from her... Making this message from you a very special, well planned treat for me. Sincere thanks for sharing...
i would love to get into some of the meat of your thoughts/feelings here if that would please you as well.. i'm kinda busy with getting ready for my trip and all but you know.. what was the thing about 'needing an audience' - i would still very much love to get an email conversation going with you about this or most anything else for that matter.. of course.. how to say this.
i do really like you and am most thankful that AJ chose to share with me her closest, nearest and dearest and am also very blessed, thankful, gracious, happy that you also chose to opened up with me so much regarding... You know, your own inner dealings and life situations at the moment to the extent that you already have..and shared with me some of you OWN special people. Further conversation would be great, rewarding, uplifting, enlightening, touching etc - for me...
however- i am not so sure you are REALLY striving/desiring such a real sharing, meeting of the hearts/minds or conversation.. Perhaps this email was just suppose to be a one-way rant sorta thing.. something you just HAD to get off your chest. Now that is complete you might really have nothing more to share or hear from me.. Which would be perfectly understandable and ok. I have nothing but love for you and yours and yes certainly, 'I hear you' and will keep listening if you have more and if you'd like i can keep silent on the matter and just pretend to own it all if that would please you.
BUT
if you DO really want an actual intimate two-way exchange of feelings and thoughts with your mind open and heart full of gladness for it... omg please.. pick me-pick me !
did i mention how AWESOME it was to hear from you.
consider me moved :-)
shalom,
LSDC
Mar 9, 2007 5:19 PM
Interesting that you should mention needing an audience... I have actually been thinking alto about this lately. You see as a Sage, as we have in common, we have an unyielding desire/need to find/uncover the "new" information/idea etc. and then disseminate it to an audience. This desire/need is so powerful and ingrained in us that we will continually search for new ideas as well as audiences to perform for. While this is neither right or wrong, sometimes the results of this process may lead to unhealthy habits. For example, one of the ways that my need to have an audience has been unhealthy for my life is that I tend to over-commit to new projects/activities because the new activity provides me with a new audience that I hope (unconsciously most of the time) will admire me. I also tend to stray away from things that I anticipate that I will not be very good at because I do not get as much bang for my buck so to speak by engaging in these activities--less admiration, less attention etc. I explain all of this just to say that our best features can also be our worst features. The negative pole of Sage is Oration and this can be expressed in many ways. It can mean talking just to talk or going on and on about a point that could be quickly communicated/disseminated. I believe that my over committing to activities is a form of this oration and is really unnecessary to get my need to disseminate information to an audience met. Similar to this, I wonder if your need to take up audience with several women at a time is your oration. I think this would make sense given the information I know about your childhood and your current situation, especially work situation. Let me explain... I'll try not to orate :) As a sage who grew up in a family where it was in your best interest to shrink away and be as unnoticed as possible, you faced quite a dilemma--because I had this same situation, I understand this dilemma at a personal level-- So you needed an audience, who when your young is your family, to admire you, to find you engaging and important and special--to be a star, but to pursue this need would have resulted in negative consequences for you and perhaps your sisters as well. So, if you were like me, you shrunk away, and attempted to fulfill the need to be a "star" internally (hence the pacing in the backyard for hours, playing out imaginary scripts--so sage of you :)). So then this little boy grows up and finds some new information and a way of life that will allow him an eternal audience. See each new woman is a brand new audience... its like opening night on Broadway--exciting, resulting in a performance high. You may begin by disseminating information to these new audiences but before too long you find yourself orating. No conclusion can ever be drawn from the conversation, except that more audiences are justified and needed, because a conclusion to the discussion would put you at risk of losing your audience who continues to admire you as enlightened/wise/interesting? as long as the conversation continues. I guess I would argue that there are healthier ways to have the need for an audience met that would not bring pain to those with whom you are involved. I was also thinking that your need for an audience may be heightened by the fact that you work alone at home where there is no possibility of audience. For a Sage the fact that you work alone is very interesting and in my opinion not in your best interest. So, I suspect that when you have an audience it is somewhat like taking that first sip of water after a long run. Refreshing but not nearly enough. Perhaps building opportunities to have audiences in other and in my opinion, healthier ways would lessen your desire to rotate from woman to woman??? These are just my thoughts...I hope you are not offended by my analysis of you...I am just going on what I think I know about you but I realize that there is much I am yet to understand. Anyway, what do you think?
For a long time, I have not felt admired or desired in my marriage--just tolerated. For a Sage, especially one whose goal is acceptance and is also an idealist, being tolerated rather than admired and accepted is like slowly drowning. It challenges me by calling on every fear that I have...that I am not good enough, that I don't deserve to be loved as a result etc. To combat this, I once again shrunk away and almost completely disassociated from my life. I had an external life and an internal secret life and the two only rarely crossed paths. When I met M’ I was deeply entrenched in this pattern...a fact that he recognized and pointed out during our first conversation (amazing and scary because I thought I was the only one who knew). I could see that M’ saw who I was inside which terrified me on one level. But, at the same time, I could tell that M’ admired me and accepted me fully. This may have been the first time in my life with the exception of my best friend that I had ever experienced this. It was like coming out of a desert and being handed a glass of water. I was frantic to get as much attention/admiration/acceptance as I could from him. This is where our relationship started. In alot of ways I think I provided this same sort of experience for M’ as well. I guess I was ranting a little bit in the last email :) but sometimes you just have to pick up for your sister:) One last thought--always remember that while you explore the meaning of life and engage in a lifestyle that you feel provides you with the most opportunity/information etc. to do this, you are involving other people's real lives--not an excercise in life or an experiment of life but a real living, breathing, feeling life... This brings with it alot of responsibility, doncha think?
Take Care, AJSis
From: LSDC
To: AJSis
Sep 6, 2007 5:51 AM
First of all having alot of sex does not equal having a lot of love.
Very True.
Loving someone means that you consider that person's needs above all others,
huh? We all only EVER consider our own needs above all others - depending on the situation our own needs/values/priorities might be different.
In burning building perhaps where you can only help save one person - yeah ok you naturally quickly reach for the person you most love. But that is still just ego selfish..When one of the two of us still has to stay behind - yeah ok i'd die in the place AJ but largely because she has 2 parasites to feed. Is more of a utilitarian type of thought process...It would please me to die this way. Again selfish but less ego.
Without the immediate danger of serious bodily harm but still in world of dire scarcity - as in the unknown, although very possible, long, slow death of the 2 of us along with the other 10 strangers we share a life raft with. In this case you'd have to consider everyone's needs equally. Not just the 'one that you love' above all others...Again selfish because it pleases me to value our life, our scarce predicament collectively and equality is something i would selfishly value most highly during scarcity.
The vast REST of the time. In the everyday world of abundance we live in we really only ever selfishly look after our own needs
We are each responsible for and need to consider only our own needs.. now, perhaps you specifically have a need to nurture, foster, help the ones you love above all others. Perhaps this pleases you. Or perhaps you have some core belief that you just SHOULD or more likely you just can't HELP yourself. Is the way it IS when you love someone, you have that spontaneous empathic reaction when you see someone in need that you love you FEEL it yourself and you MUST take care of it above all of your other concerns.. but again - you are only responding to your own selfish need however altruistic it might appear from the outside.
not only for the moments you are with her but perhaps more importantly when you are away from her and not directly benefiting from her presense. I once heard a quote that said, "you can easily judge the character of a man by the way he treats those who can do nothing for him"
I feel as if i am ALWAYS directly benefiting from her presence. Don't you? i mean just because she has shaped my life, is a part of me as she is a part of you. Even if she died tomorrow you'd still be 'directly benefiting from her presence' within your person.. but still, i REALLY loved the quote. Made me smile and feel good about myself in the way i daily treat people who can do nothing for me.
Of course you are sweet and attentive blah blah blah when you are with a woman.
thank you, this especially pleased me :)
You stand to benefit directly from this engagement.
We benefit directly from ALL engagements in some way don't we?
When the benefits are not so immediate, however, you easily rationalize engaging in behavior that hurt the woman.
In no manner does my behavior HURT, harm or tresspass against AJ or any other woman.
This does not speak well for your character.
Well no it would not, if i was actually hurting harming or treaspassing - that i am NOT actually speaks WELL of my character :-)
It seems pretty selfish and self-serving to me.
Yes always and this is a good thing
I am all for getting your needs met but not at the expense of several women's feelings/self-esteem etc.
I agree completely.
Here is the beauty of our relationship - love, time, attention, sex and the very intimate parts and feelings of our inner selves are all given and received freely with an open hand, simply for the joy of being together and sharing. It does NOT come at a COST or at the EXPENSE of my lover's feelings or time or energy. In a traditional relationship needs ARE in fact met ONLY at the cost and expense of both parties - as in, i will swear off all others, as long as YOU swear off all others and you better or else i'm OUT...
The cost to both of them is the 'all others' that must exclude and closed off. At the expense of their own limitless feelings and those of the rest of the world that is now to be excluded. Not to mention all of the added costs to ourselves when - now i have to no longer be with you if you are ever with someone else.. even though i really LIKE and want to be with you.. i can't now cause we have constructed this whole artificial, rule based relationship where i do this for you only if you do this for me.. THAT is not love..
Additionally, SELF-esteem is just that. I can not give or TAKE that away. It is dreadfully common for women to base their 'self'-esteem on how much a man loves them or wants to be with them. Then they "lose" it when that thing outside of themselves does not behave in a way that they feel supports or champions them. THAT is clearly not SELF-esteem if it is vulnerable to the whims/actions of another.
I anticipate that your response will be that the woman chooses to feel badly and should just choose to feel at peace with the situation.
I believe one of the most critical things for a child (or adult) to learn so that they might develop emotional intelligence, maturity, self-discipline and life wisdom is that we are all completely 100% control of our own feelings or perhaps more importantly the judgments we have about the feelings we are experiencing moment-to-moment.. That we are NOT the feeling. We are only now very temporarily experiencing the feeling. This way we actually have real life feelings, can really FEEL them in the fullest and experience them in all their richness - as oppose to feelings having us and carrying us off somewhere that has nothing at all to do with reality of the moment. You already know all this stuff, from your own life experience i am sure besides so much that has been written about the space between stimulus and response already.. you with me on this 100% control stuff? It is not just hocus-pocuss, feel-good, new age talk, it's real.
While I do believe that we to some extent choose our own feelings, our immediate feelings are there to protect us and give us feedback about the environment.
Yes feelings or more accurately input from our SENSES can and do provide us with immediate direct feedback about our PHYSICAL environment and we have instantaneous immediate INVOLUNTARY response to them. A loss of balance, something fast toward your eyeball, touching a hot surface - yes we do not CHOSE that reaction or feeling...it is involuntary.
These women feel hurt by your behavior because your behavior is hurtful and probably not healthy for them to be involved with. Their feelings give them clues to this.
The manner in which you believe i HURT these women is not physical and is not an involuntary feeling/reaction. It is an emotional feeling they are experiencing- meaning it is a reaction to a mental construct. Yes i understand it is such a POWERFUL emotional feeling that it does have very real PHYSICAL fight-or-flight response and sensation to it.. but still it is only a pure mental emotional feeling. Yes it is very much providing feedback but NOT about the environment OUT THERE.. it is providing feedback about what is going on IN HERE within their self created mental construct..
They could dismiss these feeling and deny their existance, as you suggest, but they would miss the message
NO-no - they should NOT dismiss it.. they should pay attention. Feelings ARE internal signposts they are important and valuable and are NOT suppose to be ignored or tricked into going away they are to FELT and listened to.. listen closely to - but don't listen to what is going on OUT THERE - cause nothing is really going on out there - the feeling, the damage is from in here. What is going on?.. WHAT am i actually feeling and why?. Most people rarely do this - they do NOT pay attention to their feelings and examine themselves with - what is going on with me, what am i actually feeling here and why…
Is this mental construct an accurate view of reality?
Does my feeling or judgment about the feeling or my reaction to my judgment of the feeling serve my life in a positive way?
Do i WANT to continue feeling this feeling?
Is this WORKING for me in some twisted way?
If so then yes enjoy yourself with it.. if not, well then you are done with it and are in complete control to CHANGE your reaction to the judgment or change your judgment about the feeling or even yes you can even change the feeling itself. Is a beautiful thing.. we do this ANYWAY all the time in life...
For a child it might take might a full 2 minutes to get over spilled milk.. For an adult it might take a full two years to get over some "nasty" comment from a co-worker.. But eventually we get over it. Time heals most all emotional wounds, but no not all.. Until we decide we are done with it we will continue to feel that hurt, that feeling it has nothing at all to do with what is going on OUT THERE.
My point is that rather than be upset over the milk, we learn to get over it in 2 seconds flat.. as we grow older, wiser and more emotionally mature it no longer takes 2 years to get over some random comment or judgment from another.. if the feeling does not please us, we feel it, acknowledge the feeling, see how it does not reflect reality or serves us no good purpose and move on in 60 seconds or less, rather than being pissed at someone outside ourselves for 2 years or two decades...
Which is that they all deserve to be the most important one always not on a rotation.
This part of your comment is amazing to me and is perhaps the MOST important one for me and AJ to cover.. See this thought process i have never even heard from anyone else before. This is uniquely your own mental construct of what is reality. Not that AJ doesn't also feel a flavor of this exact thing in her own way but your idea here and you mention it again with the same words later on is specifically yours.
Your voluntary, learned, completely-controlled-by-you idea that you deserve to be the most important always AND that it is not happening.. Think about what you are saying here.. deserving- as in entitled to- just by virtue of being who you are in relation to me or deserving by way of i do this therefore i should have that... think about that and i am sure there is some sorta fairness or just right-ness to it, equality issue in deserving but not getting... then MOST important - as in your opening statement perhaps - consider that person's needs above all others yes you DO deserve to be most important always but that is NOT something anyone else can give you. You've got to take responsibility for feeling that all on your own if you like. Apparently that you are not my ONLY sexual interest, love, intimate time-partner it makes that mental construct untenable for you and HURTS... Really hurts i get that part.. But it honestly, really this does not have anything at all to do with me.
see AJ’s dominant mental construct that causes her the most pain, although i know there are many more still to uncover, is this idea she has alluded to many times with D’ but i am sure has been a part of her forever, is that the ONLY way people go outside the relationship for sex or love attention etc is because there is something missing or LACKING in the relationship.. This is not just an opinion of hers. This is FACT. The ONLY way this happens is for THAT to be lacking... hello no WONDER that hurts ALOT... i TOTALLY see how damaging that can be so someone's psyche.
It is not true in the least but that doesn't change that reality for her.. we spent 5 hours on the phone last week and untold numbers of hours previously where she actually was able think up on her own and list out many reasons why someone would go outside the relationship for sex, love or intimate relationship regardless of any sense of LACK or missing from the original relationship. But still, when we were done - it did not matter.. the old mental construct is still reality to her - the ONLY time someone goes outside the relationship is when something is missing.. something that she can not give them that they need... yeah THAT would SUCK if it was so.. no wonder that hurts..
You ask each woman to be completely vulnerable to you to open up thier spirits, psyche's, hearts...to feel deeply with you, for you, about you?
Is not so much me asking in a twisting of the arm.. more like an assurance that it will be ok when they do..That it will feel good and good and still always more good. they WANT to.. i WANT to .. we ALL want to. Is what we are here for. So of course we do open up our spirits and it is an awesome beautiful dance that does not ever have to end.
i don't know but what i do know is that this deep vulnerability which allows them to feel joy and intimacy when they are with you also sets them up to feel deep sorrow when you choose another.
Yes perhaps but again they do not HAVE to feel deep sorrow when i choose another. And this is where the REAL harm could be done.. As long as this un-reality is supported, by herself, by her partner, say- myself or the next love of her life... the longer it will ALWAYS hurt her... the longer people HAVE to lie, the longer people will ALWAYS lie to her just as D’ lied to her.. Just as EVERYONE always lies to each other. As long as she continues to believe only out of her or the relationships LACK would a man be with anyone else then forever she will live in fear that outcome.. And then most interesting and deeper still she says.. ‘well yes but in EVERY relationship, and in every PERSON there is ALWAYS lack.. talk about a catch 22..
The ONLY way she is not LESS-than sexually is if she is everything sexually which again of course no one person CAN ever be - even by her OWN standard of reality.. is freaky. Is fear ridden.. i will not have any of it. Is simply not true. Not only is it POSSIBLE for people to have multiple loves and multiple lovers, it is inevitable even by her own standards - the only difference is within my reality this is a positive GOOD thing a DESIRED outcome this inevitability.. within her reality not only is it inevitable, but it is awful and in many ways her FAULT even... omg how sad and hurtful is THAT!
We both know that one cannot have great joy without being vulnerable to great sorrow. So I feel that you perhaps unknowingly? set these women up to feel great sorrow and then act as if their experience of sorrow is rediculous and that they should just choose to feel differently. However to feel less sorrow one must also close themselves off from the feelings of joy as well.
This bit reminded me of KGibran's ~
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that hold your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
Some of you say, "Joy is greater than sorrow," and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater."
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
But still, is not so much that i act like their feelings are ridiculous. It is just that i can FEEL it myself with empathy and i want to help them not have to feel that any more.. but it has nothing at all to DO with me. I am only the spark today or right now. It does not stop with me though, the same ego mental construct of logic does not just stop with sex and marriage it permeates all aspects of her reality. Your reality. Everyone's reality that thinks things outside of themselves cause feelings... WE directly cause our own feelings. There is no separate you-and-me. Loving myself is the ONLY way i can love you. There is not absolute objective reality only what our individual senses create. We are all always selfish. Everything happens in the now. These are very basic mutual inclusive realities that build on and enable each other. It is not something that i try on or looks good among the right crowd, it is the WAY THE WORLD is.. it is not just MY reality it is THE reality...remember the part about there IS no objective reality of course... so basically what i am saying is - this is who i am.
Is ironic that the very thing that makes me so likable, wise, good with all walks of people and children, understanding and empathic, patient easy going, accepting and loving of others is the very thing that AJ or you or MOST people love/hate about me or really do not understand about me.. they LIKE it in these instances but in these others as it does not mesh with their reality it scares them and turns them very decidedly off.. the OTHER ironic thing as i type that bit about "this is who i am" it reminded me of a recent NPR interview with a most likely sociopath convicted serial rapist who's main plea to the public was - "this is who i am"..
More to the point.. i LIKE these aspects about myself.. they SERVE me well. they WORK for me...This taking responsibility for my own feelings and choosing to NOT feel possession or jealousy or less-than when my lover chooses another.. Most people i know WISH they were or could be alot less jealous, less fearful, less exclusive in their relationships. But they just do not know how. Their own feelings, their own mental construct of reality does NOT really work for them so much.. but still they maintain it. They see no other way. And most likely never will.
This is why all the women in your life pull away from you eventually. the joy they experience with you is eventually not worth the collective sorrow that you leave behind
Of "all of the women" in my life, i have always been the one who deliberately pulled away from the monogamous relationship it was SUPPOSE to be or become.. For the VAST majority of my life i have attempted to NOT be this way. i have wanted to live the one-and-only soul-mate, lover, wife monogamous existence that mother culture demands of us. But that is CLEARLY not reality.
It is just SO not true and never was true but mother culture says this is the ONLY way it works.. but that has NOT (at all) been my experience.. in reality the ONLY relationships that last in sincerity are the open ones. Relationships that are whole and honest and truly two balloons uplifting. Is why i still love and consider all my past loves as still current lovers - even though it might have been a decade or two... There has only been ONE other woman besides your AJ that i have ever attempted to have a relationship such as this before from the get go. All up front and above board, friends first and always, no matter what. I'm totally crazy about her.. it is a real problem lol
Perhaps this is none of my business except that one of your rotating women is my sister and she deserves better than this.
see what i mean there it is again. This is very much a part of your core mental construct. She-
Deserves
Is not getting
And this is somehow my doing
