Leila's journal

[leila]

Good points from cross.chrono journal as a reminder for “ myself “ :

@Vineeto

In order to successfully ‘nip in the bud’ it’s essential to have understood the underlying patterns of the occurring feelings you want to ‘nip’. Obviously there is still some remnant investment in love, which is not surprising, as it is considered the highly-prized cure-all for loneliness and the mess of the human condition in general.

You have made some significant inroads into understanding love, especially knowing that it has a ‘bad’ side.

@Vineeto

The key ingredient for feeling-being ‘Vineeto’ was, when ‘she’ investigated the pining aspect of love, ‘her’ childhood-inspired romantic dream of belonging to a man and therefrom having an iron-clad identity as a woman (A Bit of Vineeto, #love). Seeing this fact, thus abandoning the romantic dream, and reclaiming ‘her’ autonomy, was only the beginning of a longer process of weening ‘herself’ off the whole maze of female identity and man-woman relating in general.

@Vineeto

You say “The other person that ‘I’ am dreaming of does not exist. They can never match the dream.” It goes further than that, love itself can never fulfil the dream it inherently promises

@Vineeto

If this fact, that love will not solve your problem of aloneness and loneliness, is allowed to sink in, as an irrefutable fact, love will lose its appeal and you can regain your autonomy and dignity as a person in your own right – and simultaneous recognize your partner’s own autonomy and dignity. It also dispenses with pining and jealousy in one fell swoop.

@Vineeto

To have sincere intent is vital. I noticed an aspect in your report is about control, ‘me’ controlling ‘me’ to move into the direction ‘I’ think is right – and that approach is sudorific, at best. Even though the ingredient may be right, the outcome is still a serious enterprise of ‘you’ forcing yourself to be in a particular way.

Sincerity will allow you to unlock your hidden-away-during-puberty naiveté (link), to allow yourself to become more and more guileless, artless, ingenuous, unsophisticated, open, aboveboard, direct, frank, straightforward, child-like but with adult sensibilities. With that sincere and naïve intent you will see that suddenly life becomes easier, more fun, more allowing things to happen rather than vigilantly directing them to happen.

@Vineeto

I see you are really getting the hang of it. When you are naïve, your previous ‘problems’ can no longer present themselves as serious as before and that makes it also so much easier to either decline them right away or find the triggers no longer as gripping and convincing as before. When it gets to the stage where you can’t even take yourself as serious as before then the fun takes over and life becomes truly an exquisite adventure.

@Vineeto

While parents were the first authority for you – as for most children – it’s helpful to keep in mind that the situation was the same for your parents, and for their parents, and so on. This means that nobody is to blame for the mess one finds oneself in, and by taking the blame away, doubt will disappear as well because you realize that nobody is the ultimate authority – no one or no thing is in charge of the universe … that there is no ‘Ultimate Authority’. It might be a shock at the start but realizing this fact is incredibly liberating. It puts you in charge of your own life … and your freedom (and your happiness and harmlessness) is in your hands alone.

@Vineeto

Don’t be too hard on yourself, you have done very well – to arrive at this point where you know for a fact that no improvement of ‘me’ will ever allow ‘me’ to enter the actual world. That is the very end of the “sudorific challenge”, a taboo outcome for a ‘high achiever’, lol.

@cross.chrono

Perhaps I need to go further and ween myself as well. I had noticed that love and my relation to it plays into the male identity too. When I think about it, it feels like that to be successful in love also means being successful in society in general. Those who can outwardly show that they are succecssful in their relationships are seen as examplars of knowing the secret to living a happy life. And I think that coupled with the psychological authority set in place and built upon since childhood serves to create a persistent doubt that “they” know something that I don’t.

@cross.chrono

I also find interesting that in one of the articles posted by Richard that lust is also described as love (lust, attraction, attachment). But most often, it is the attraction and attachment parts that are described as love. Perhaps an attempt to separate out the ‘bad’ from the ‘good’. I feel lust and attraction more often than attachment. At one point I sat with lust and attraction and it became so strong that it seemed like an overpowering desire. In the middle it felt like it was more about sexual conquest than anything to do with caring for another person. I’ve had many occasions before when I am out at a social setting with a woman I liked that I was actually in a competition in the jungle with other men trying to “win” and be better so that I may prove myself worthy of being with this woman. Even further than that it seems like it’s about vying for status everywhere I go. And behind it all then must be this instinctual desire for power. When I felt it, it also made me a little embarassed that I had these feelings.

@cross.chrono

Another aspect that may be further compounding the suffering of love for me is perhaps related to all of this. It’s tied to the male identity. Basically, if I fail at love then it means I’m a failure of society in general.

@cross.chrono

Putting all of this together then it seems like it’s about “winning” and conquest rather than about any sort of peace or intimacy.

@cross.chrono

Then my partner also has her own identity of what it is to be a woman.

@cross.chrono

It feels like then to abandon this male identity means to abandon how I relate with women as well. This leaves that feeling of loneliness and aloneness again.

@Vineeto

I thought maybe I just had to actively nip it in the bud and that perhaps it was a habitual action in going towards love. I’ve seen the underlying patterns too many times so I thought maybe I was just being crazy to keep “investigating” it.

@Vineeto

Vineeto: Seeing this fact, thus abandoning the romantic dream, and reclaiming ‘her’ autonomy, was only the beginning of a longer process of weening ‘herself’ off the whole maze of female identity and man-woman relating in general.

@Vineeto

I see you already discovered more to understand love and man-woman relating from an additional aspect – the identity of being a ‘man’ in society’s eyes. This “persistent doubt” is nothing other than your social conditioning you have been subject to from an early age – of course you feel “that “they” know something that I don’t”.

However, if you look more closely at the individuals who make up ‘society’, it will become obvious to you that the ‘happy’ and “successful in their relationships” façade is just that. Just study women’s magazines, watch the news, observe your neighbours and workmates, and you find that what is presented in Hollywood movies is not the whole picture.

@Vineeto

Peter: At this stage it may be useful to state my motives for writing. As I watch television, read newspapers, listen to people and observe the relationships of men and women around me, I see sorrow – sadness, melancholy, despair, resignation and the bitter-sweetness of love; and malice – vindictiveness, sarcasm, revenge, innuendo, gossip, jealousy, violence and hate. Nowhere do I see delight, contentment, satisfaction, benevolence, consensus and co-operation. Nor do I see any men and women living together in peace and harmony. So I thought my story could be useful to anyone who, like me, hadn’t given up yet, but who could see they had ‘nothing left to lose’ in trying something new.

@Vineeto

The best way to explore this topic is by approaching it in a naïve way, by putting aside preconceived sophisticated ideas of what you should be like as a man or as a partner, and start exploring afresh what it is like to interact with a fellow human being who happens to be a female. You might even discover what you have in common and also what the “battle of the sexes”, the notion of a woman’s camp and a man’s camp, prevents you from finding out. With the sincere, and unilateral, intent to be happy and harmless a lot can be explored in a friendly fashion (which includes being friendly with yourself).

@Vineeto

Don’t give up so easily. It’s a fascinating adventure when one is involved in discovering the details of what makes up a man’s identity, and the more you discover the more it will fall away applying fascinated attention to those details. What remains is being more what you are, a fellow human being,