Reality As TV
Nov. 7th, 2005 10:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mlerulesSitting off on the edge of a party, shifting my focus and attention from one group to another, fading into and out of conversations as if I'm switching channels, yet watching it all on a bigscreen TV w/in-screen boxes so I can see it all at once. Now and again roaming from one group to another, tossing in a conversational tidbit, a thought, an idea, a ball to be tossed around, kicked around, played with and/or dropped. Hardly matters: it's the process that's fascinating: watching who leads, who follows, seeing/sensing how power shifts, how social dynamics work, trying to figure out r-ships, interactions, styles, rules (if any), modes of communications, topics, foci. At times it all seems like a game...and I'm not quite sure what the point of it all is...getting along w/others, strengthening f-ships/r-ships, bonding, building/creating mythologies/bonds.
At times I prefer Quiet Time to Active Social Time. Just sitting, listening to music/conversation, letting it take you wherever, doesn't matter much if'n it's not taking you to the same places as anyone else, it's enough that you're journeying together at the same time even if to different places. This too creates bonds. Not ones that necessarily need talking 'bout to keep alive...you know, you sense it...it's deep inside you.
One dear friend/former lover doesn't/didn't much say "I love you," he didn't have to...you just knew it in the way he was, inherant in his being, in our history. This is a lovely feeling, this security, this knowledge. And it's still there, even if we're no longer physical...there's a bond, a whole network of connections...made stronger through the neurological triggers (and marvie results) from sex, no, from making love, 'cause that's what it's all about. And that's what I do. Give up of myself...hopefully w/someone willing and able to do it (at least a bit) w/me: truly amazing results, deep satisfaction, ease, peace of mind, bliss pleasure satisfaction silence happiness: JOY. [Added later, so it throws off the narrative flow, such as it is:] Have finally figured out that it's good enough if it's what I'm doing, even if it's not mutual. 'Cause it ain't gonna be w/just anyone. I've gotta have a certain connection already. And it's strengthened through the process. (Don't at all know if it's like this for the other person. Not quite certain how to find out - I guess ASKING'd help. But not everybody can respond to such a qx: some folks don't seem to THINK about this sorta thing, some don't even quite seem aware of it, some cannot articulate what they're feeling, some don't even wanna try, as that might somehow destroy/diminish the moment(s). And I agree that timing's key.)
So I scan the crowd, watching the interplay, enjoying it from...not afar geographically, but a tad emotionally...sometimes I prefer one-on-one interaction. But I quite like watching the different reactions, the different feelings, the different modes of existing/acting/reacting when diff groups get/hang out together.
I've never had as many people in my life as I seem to have right now. Growing up I spent quite a bit of time on my own, reading, playing alone, daydreaming, making up games, thinking, wandering around...quite happily. We moved often, so getting too attached hurt too much when things had to end. From this arose my first life motto: Nothing Lasts Forever. I'm beyond that now. It's not such a defining feature of my life. Although I do admit to even now, perhaps especially now, being in some way(s) happy precisely b'c I'm quite free: no house, no kids, no job, nothing I have to do, nowhere I have to be, nobody I have to report to or check in with. Which is sorta crazy, 'cause I find that even if I spend a full day alone, as I've been doing a fair amount of recently whilst recovering from being sick (it's been not even a week and I'm ready to be DONE w/being sick), I'll usually pull out my PaperPalm (tm), skip through the address section and give someone a call to chat, to catch up. But not always. Sometimes ('specially recently) I'm just too dang tired to chat w/someone, to expend the energy, even though I know I'll be energized as well in the process.
Sharing energizes me. A quick aside: I'm glad that I've matured such that I don't have to throw out the baby w/the bathwater when I'm reading something that has grains of truth sprinkled into a porridge of thought, some of it not so good/appropriate. Much of what he says is nonsense/wrong, but that's neither here nor there; what matters still matters and holds true, even if mixed w/trash. Along such lines, triggering this aside, I've recently started (re?)reading Erich Fromm's The Art of Loving. If I did read it, it was prolly in Spring 1983, when my life was really quite odd. I'd broken up w/a boyfriend who hadn't taken it well. Without going into details, suffice to say I was stalked, it got bad, nasty even, and I dropped out, hopped on a Greyhound bus to NYC, and things ultimately went far better than it prolly should've, but either dharma/karma or the luck of the innocent kicked in and that summer and what came out of it (my life in SoCal, basically) was pretty damned good and for all that happened, enriched greatly. Anyway, the point was that I've come a long way (baby) from that particular semester when it was reading for what should've been a great course (and was, according to a friend who kept on in it when I dropped out and moved outta the dorms, my roomie now that I think 'bout it) to NOW. So I get different things outta it and can leave the carp aside while focussing and getting what I can outta the good stuff.
What sticks with me (this time 'round...and possibly then, but I don't think I could've found it or recognized it as easily): Love is an activity, not a passive effort; it is a "standing in," not a "falling for." In the most general way, the active character of love can be described as stating that love is primarily GIVING, not receiving. And a bit later: In the very act of giving, I experience my strength, my wealth, my power. This experience of heightened vitality and potency fills me with joy....[I]n the act of giving lies the expression of my aliveness.
And a few pages down, the single lines that sums up much of my feeling about Love: Love is the active concern for the life and the growth of that which we love.
And as if to continue the synchronicity currently abounding, today's MC Escher Daily Calendar Woodcut is aptly entitled Love (from Flor de Pascua, 1921) and shows a mom breastfeeding her youngun.
Now I'm back to a very odd wonderful book: Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, which is triggering all sorts of odd thoughts, including some of the above...
At times I prefer Quiet Time to Active Social Time. Just sitting, listening to music/conversation, letting it take you wherever, doesn't matter much if'n it's not taking you to the same places as anyone else, it's enough that you're journeying together at the same time even if to different places. This too creates bonds. Not ones that necessarily need talking 'bout to keep alive...you know, you sense it...it's deep inside you.
One dear friend/former lover doesn't/didn't much say "I love you," he didn't have to...you just knew it in the way he was, inherant in his being, in our history. This is a lovely feeling, this security, this knowledge. And it's still there, even if we're no longer physical...there's a bond, a whole network of connections...made stronger through the neurological triggers (and marvie results) from sex, no, from making love, 'cause that's what it's all about. And that's what I do. Give up of myself...hopefully w/someone willing and able to do it (at least a bit) w/me: truly amazing results, deep satisfaction, ease, peace of mind, bliss pleasure satisfaction silence happiness: JOY. [Added later, so it throws off the narrative flow, such as it is:] Have finally figured out that it's good enough if it's what I'm doing, even if it's not mutual. 'Cause it ain't gonna be w/just anyone. I've gotta have a certain connection already. And it's strengthened through the process. (Don't at all know if it's like this for the other person. Not quite certain how to find out - I guess ASKING'd help. But not everybody can respond to such a qx: some folks don't seem to THINK about this sorta thing, some don't even quite seem aware of it, some cannot articulate what they're feeling, some don't even wanna try, as that might somehow destroy/diminish the moment(s). And I agree that timing's key.)
So I scan the crowd, watching the interplay, enjoying it from...not afar geographically, but a tad emotionally...sometimes I prefer one-on-one interaction. But I quite like watching the different reactions, the different feelings, the different modes of existing/acting/reacting when diff groups get/hang out together.
I've never had as many people in my life as I seem to have right now. Growing up I spent quite a bit of time on my own, reading, playing alone, daydreaming, making up games, thinking, wandering around...quite happily. We moved often, so getting too attached hurt too much when things had to end. From this arose my first life motto: Nothing Lasts Forever. I'm beyond that now. It's not such a defining feature of my life. Although I do admit to even now, perhaps especially now, being in some way(s) happy precisely b'c I'm quite free: no house, no kids, no job, nothing I have to do, nowhere I have to be, nobody I have to report to or check in with. Which is sorta crazy, 'cause I find that even if I spend a full day alone, as I've been doing a fair amount of recently whilst recovering from being sick (it's been not even a week and I'm ready to be DONE w/being sick), I'll usually pull out my PaperPalm (tm), skip through the address section and give someone a call to chat, to catch up. But not always. Sometimes ('specially recently) I'm just too dang tired to chat w/someone, to expend the energy, even though I know I'll be energized as well in the process.
Sharing energizes me. A quick aside: I'm glad that I've matured such that I don't have to throw out the baby w/the bathwater when I'm reading something that has grains of truth sprinkled into a porridge of thought, some of it not so good/appropriate. Much of what he says is nonsense/wrong, but that's neither here nor there; what matters still matters and holds true, even if mixed w/trash. Along such lines, triggering this aside, I've recently started (re?)reading Erich Fromm's The Art of Loving. If I did read it, it was prolly in Spring 1983, when my life was really quite odd. I'd broken up w/a boyfriend who hadn't taken it well. Without going into details, suffice to say I was stalked, it got bad, nasty even, and I dropped out, hopped on a Greyhound bus to NYC, and things ultimately went far better than it prolly should've, but either dharma/karma or the luck of the innocent kicked in and that summer and what came out of it (my life in SoCal, basically) was pretty damned good and for all that happened, enriched greatly. Anyway, the point was that I've come a long way (baby) from that particular semester when it was reading for what should've been a great course (and was, according to a friend who kept on in it when I dropped out and moved outta the dorms, my roomie now that I think 'bout it) to NOW. So I get different things outta it and can leave the carp aside while focussing and getting what I can outta the good stuff.
What sticks with me (this time 'round...and possibly then, but I don't think I could've found it or recognized it as easily): Love is an activity, not a passive effort; it is a "standing in," not a "falling for." In the most general way, the active character of love can be described as stating that love is primarily GIVING, not receiving. And a bit later: In the very act of giving, I experience my strength, my wealth, my power. This experience of heightened vitality and potency fills me with joy....[I]n the act of giving lies the expression of my aliveness.
And a few pages down, the single lines that sums up much of my feeling about Love: Love is the active concern for the life and the growth of that which we love.
And as if to continue the synchronicity currently abounding, today's MC Escher Daily Calendar Woodcut is aptly entitled Love (from Flor de Pascua, 1921) and shows a mom breastfeeding her youngun.
Now I'm back to a very odd wonderful book: Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, which is triggering all sorts of odd thoughts, including some of the above...
