Ramblings: Laws of Attraction

[Kurzyk]

It was just another day at the café. The regulars were scattered about the tables and chairs reading books the majority of them wouldn’t put away. But that’s ok. They always came with a smile and left healthy tips in the jar.

In she walked; her hair gold as the sun on a warm summer day. Each step held the grace of a fawn stepping through the dew laden grasses of a misty meadow.

Before she spoke, I knew her. She was one of the university’s top pianists. And she was here in the café! I saw her play once, a point I mentioned as her eyes lit up. I told her, her performance was magical, breathtaking and I loved it. She smiled.

We chatted for a bit about Bach and fugues, and how we enjoyed playing them. Our eyes met and for a moment as fleeting as a flash of lightning there was a connection.

I made her drink before she even requested it. She was surprised I remembered what it was. I was too, considering I go through a hundred customers a night and hadn’t seen her in two months.

Our eyes met again with that realization that there was someone else in the world who could see the magic and beauty. Someone who understood.

And as my mind spun with torturous possibilities, I received a text message from my wife saying she loved me.



Attraction is a funny thing. I love my wife. There have been moments where I couldn’t conceive loving anyone else, and I’ve shed tears of being unable to adequately express just how much she means to me. I’ve flown to the heights of spiritual ecstasy and have felt that if there was the possibility of multiple lives, that she was the one that walked with me through all of them.

Yet… after all that, a beautiful blond walks in with a smile and my mind starts spinning.

From what I understand it’s normal and healthy to recognize those feelings. We even share them and laugh about it; her reminding me of the very attractive man in her class that looks and sounds like Mohindr from Heroes. (Before he got all spider-creepy.)

Personally I don't like it and often feel horribly guilty. It worries me to think that there's a part of me that finds attraction elsewhere; my wife not being good enough on some level. But again she reminds me that it's normal and there will always be attractions out there and possibilities. Noone is perfect and can satisfy EVERY need.

She's a lovely soul and my better half for sure.

I'm slowly coming to terms with her advice and am much more relaxed about it than I was. It's just a headtrip to love someone and feel complete one night, then catching myself checking out someone else the next. *slaps his hand* Bad Kurzyk! >.>

*sighs* Someday I hope to figure it out. For now, i'm just trying not to be so hard on myself and laugh it off.

[Kurzyk]

Nothingness: An empty black hole existing simply to exist, devoid of sound and life, circling into deeper complexities of silence.

Ever have moments where the sequence of a day just stops for a moment and all the pursuits both mental or otherwise, still and all we can 'see' is the ever shifting chaos of an unfathomable moment of infinity? It's times like that where the conversations around us turn from exciting chatter, to covered insecurities to incoherent babble and all the colors and detail in our surrounding loses its dictionary of human definition and turns to ...

This is all really just a load of crap; useless words thrown together in my own attempt to articulate what can't be. In reality I'm sitting at the counter of the cafe I used to work at, warding off various 'happy go lucky' people attempting to recruit me, or spread their inane banter just for a few more minutes in time. I don't blame them. We're all just doing the best we can, and that little seemingly minute exchange could be just what they need to lighten their spirits. The day tilts differently for us all.

Emptiness: That singular open feeling experienced in the gut that precludes nausea.

There was a time when this all made sense. Not in the way that someone could explain in an equation, or share as a bedtime story. But there was an undefinable rythym to it, as if one could just reach out and tap it with their fingers. And even though it would fade or redefine as quickly as a snowflake landing on a warm hand, there would be that sharp, subtle clarity we could bring home with a smile.

Now the light that once pervaded through the chaos has flickered out leaving only shadow, and the grief of the dead. I used to see them in New York, lurking in the alleys and just out of sight. I used to walk among them, blood in my eyes with only a shell to carry me. Now the walking ghouls lurk among the living; dead inside with only memories of what was.

Love: Temporary insanity brought on by large quantities of chocolate.

Macbeth summed it up:

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

In truth he was obviously bitter and a bit a mess from his situation. I would add that life is really what we make of it, but that's of course an appropriately logical response but not necessarily with empathy.

At the end of the day, i've come to realize that there is an inescapable, and unavoidable truth that must be faced.

The Void. That area where nothingness, emptiness, chaos, and nonsense coexist. The part of us that stands alone, and has no sense of itself.

For a while since my wife left, i'd spent time trying to fill my time with friends, alcohol, sex, whatever I could to keep myself happy. But there is no escaping it. At the end of the day, when the cheer of our plans and pursuits stills, and the moment silences for that single moment in time, I see it.



I will not run.


I choose to face it.

[Ephemera]

Bravo.  This post really speaks to me.  I've been through some very dark darkness of late.  It's good to know that I can be at peace with myself in the void.  I wish I could flood it with light, but there's not enough energy in me to power that light at the moment.  There are those who wander in, carrying their lantern, raising it so they can peer at me in its glow.  They hope to make sure I'm still moving---but only I can decide to keep moving and find my way out.  Life is truly what we make of it.  I believe that with everything I have.  I'm sorry for the pain in your darkness, Kurzyk.  I hope you have plenty of friends who will occasionally cast their lights upon you.  I hope you find peace in that void and your way out of it.  If I bump into you, I'll offer a hug and a few hours of solace by way of company.

Sincerely,

Ephemera

[Kurzyk]

Found an interesting article that I wanted to share. It discusses Monogamy and whether it's natural for homo sapiens.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/07/27/ryan.promiscuity.normal/index.html?hpt=C2

I've always been fascinated with this topic. At the moment I would say I'm monogamous. I like the idea of a single love that can be cultivated and grown into old age, and dying together. I'm not particularly religious, although I have my spiritual moments, and I do entertain the idea that choosing one person and sticking to them has a "strength through challenge" quality.

And yet...

I can't help this feeling that somehow I'm fighting the pull... that there are and will always be components to my sexuality that are not satisfied, or even forced to fit into a "box" of what society has deemed appropriate. I'm fully aware of the U.S.'s puritanical upbringing and the stranglehold religion has on our perception of life. I often wonder whether the male's ability to produce so many millions of sperm is nature's way of saying we are meant for more than one mate.

The other thought that I keep tucked away and only peek at when I'm feeling adventurous, is what if the monogamy drive stems from inadequacy, insecurity or just plain fear? If I was truly confident in myself, my feelings and my sexuality, would I want only one partner? There would be no holding on to them, no unsurity of what they did, or whether they would leave. There would be no jealousy, or competition with other men that would look at my hot partner as we walked by. In a relationship, where confidence and love would be truly strong, (as opposed to strong on the surface masking deeper feelings and issues,) would we only have one partner?

Sure we could always choose it, but how much choice do we have over our biological make-up? Are we wired to be polygamous and deny those feelings for social conditioning?

[Trieste]

Emotional monogamy is a different beast from sexual monogamy. They have two different motivators, and two different places in our lives.

I will say up front that I am not monogamous, and have never been monogamous. I have chafed under the thumb of previous lovers who swore they would "try" monogamy for my sake, but who then turned around and hit me with the jealousy-hammer as soon as we were in a relationship. I loathe jealousy itself quite a lot. It has no place in a loving relationship whether you're monogamous, poly, or anywhere in between.

Having expressed my bias, I can say that sexual monogamy makes little sense evolutionarily. It makes little sense for women as well as men; what if the 'one man' she chose to nurture her and her babies turns out to be infertile? What if he runs away? Better to have sex with many males and have them all stick around because they all believe it could be their kid you've dropped. I believe the evolutionary reasons for men to be non-monogamous have been well-explored and I probably don't need to go into them.

However, we've certainly broken sensible evolutionary logic before, and it's possible we have broken them again. However, as the article mentioned, the prevalence of egalitarianism in pre-agrarian societies makes that unlikely. Just like we study fossils to get a sense of our physical evolution, a lot can be learned about cultural evolution from societies that have not 'progressed' as much.

Emotional monogamy is very different. We are capable of having sex without feeling, and vice versa. Why would we need to make multiple deeply emotional connections with others? If you look at evolution it makes sense: the more numerous your family is, the better-able they are to care for you during illness or infirmary or old age. This makes evolutionary sense, even to the point of explaining lesbian or gay relationships. I think it also comes down to our capacity to love. It is finite, but it is not as limited as we are led to believe. If people can have six or eight or twelve siblings, about all of whom they care deeply, why can we not have just as many lovers? Why can't three lovers have an enduring, everlasting love such as the one you describe? It's possibly a matter of passion. "We only have so much passion", I've been told. But we don't feel passion for one person all the time. We feel other emotions: anger, hurt, disappointment. We feel those pretty deeply when it involves our siblings or parents or close friends, too. It seems, to me, to be a matter of cultivation. You're used to the idea of being angry with more than one person at once, so the idea doesn't seem strange to you. You don't run into a barrier. If you were also used to loving, passionately and fully, more than one person at once, I'm positive that you would find yourself barrier-free in that, also.

Kurz, if you haven't yet read The Ethical Slut, I think you would find it enlightening. This is the version I have, though this one comes up first on Amazon. I'm honestly not sure if the second one is a reprint, an update, an expansion or what.

Either way, that's my take.

[Will]

That is a pretty interesting article, for sure.  The issue I have with it pops up early though; it lays out the rather tired argument that monogamy is hard, therefore it must not be normal.  It goes on to imply that any lack of passion or interest in a relationship is due only to our animal past.

::)

You only get from a relationship what you put into it.  Blaming a loss of freshness on one's ape genes is a bit of a cop out.  After all, any long-term relationship is going to be hard, whether you have one or a dozen (and exponentially more so with the dozen).  That doesn't mean you should immediately shelve any relationship as soon as you hit a rough patch and chalk it up to evolution. :P

The anthropological angle is a much more solid base to build an argument on.  I would say that there is a difference between humans and the other varieties of apes that complicates things, though; we have very complex emotions.  We can find fulfillment by having someone that knows us and accepts us on a very deep level.  I'm not sure a bonobo can experience that.

I don't completely disagree with the general point of the article.  Multiple sex partners does seem to be the most logical state for humans.  I agree with that totally; I would be a hypocrite if I didn't.  I just think that love has a place in there somewhere as well, and that we shouldn't all just toss the idea of love and relationships out the window as somehow "false" or "too hard."  As the author said at the close of the article, we can choose how we live our lives, and we can certainly choose to forgo our emotional advantage in favor of sport fucking.  But I think it would be a shame.

[Cecilia]

I'm currently reading "Sex at Dawn" and finding it rather interesting and amusing.  "Amusing" because the authors certainly are witty and use fun turns of phrase and numerous entertaining examples.  "Interesting" because there's a lot to think about.  They call upon a number of examples that show that a coupled marriage is not necessarily part of a natural human condition but part of our societal norms.  It debunks the idea that marriage between two people is the "Way Things Should Be" and goes a long way to make it easier to understand why so many of us have sexual needs that go beyond the marital bed.  That said, I don't think the book's intentions are to send people into wild orgy filled lifestyles so much as to explain those urges and help those who don't relate to monogamy understand that monogamy is more a social construct than a  genetic one.   

[DaddyCool]

I personally take the Roissysphere/PUA society's view - women are hypergamous - they want to have the kid with the sexiest genes possible, and if they can get a provider to give them support and raise those kids, all the better. Men want to have sex with as many of the hottest women that they can. This all comes back down to how much each gender invests in their kids(men have sex, women get to spend 5 years pregnant/child raising)

Marriage exists because some people realised that having a bunch of big, alpha male leaders monopolise access to women (check out Ismoulay the Bloodthirsty, or the various tribal kings who stated that all women in the tribe were their property) wasn't really that good for society. Monogamy is really a loss for women more than men, as most women would rather have a one tenth share of a great guy than exclusive possession of a loser. It does mean, however, that when a guy works his butt off to become a provider or producer for society, he can get enough status that women will actually want to sleep with him and consider marrying him. Some people, like In Mala Fide consider this to be how western society came to sit pretty much on top of the world compared to places like Africa.

These ideas should be pretty familiar to anyone reading an evo psych book.

[Kurzyk]

Once upon a time,
a long time ago,
there lived a young boy and his family.

It was a happy time. A time when the Universe
whispered secrets on the sparkles of sunbeams,
and visions on the shifting patterns of dreams.

The boy did not accept the view before him,
and longed to know more. What started as ambition
became obsession and all throughout his schooling,
while the other kids played, he studied.

After a time, he began to see patterns and truths
that none other could see shifted before him.

One day, casting aside all that he knew,
all the friends that comforted him,
the love that lay by his side,
the family that protected him,
he chased the truth that he'd dedicated his life to find

and found it.

The world opened
just a crack
enough to See.

But he was not prepared
and was young and foolish.
Instead of seeing the beauty of life
and all its balance,
he saw its danger, its risk
and his true vulnerability.

He ran.

Ran from his family, from his friends,
from himself,
and fell into fear and darkness.

Years later, he awoke;
a shadow of what he once was
living with nothing but memory.

[Kurzyk]

Beautiful sunny sunday as I look out over the tops of buildings, 160 feet off the ground. 17th floor in a high-rise along the river in Manhattan has its advantages; quiet from the double pane windows and being removed from the real core of the island with all its squabbling and craziness.

I remember twenty years ago I had arrived to this same room I am in now from college in Vermont. I had chosen to leave mid junior year because of it's over price and lack of focus. Yearning to be out in the real world and away from the pompous pretention of discussing life from the top of a mountain, here I was... crash landed on to concrete, away from the community I had loved in that crazy forest fishbowl.

If I had one sadness from back then it would be my 20s. Most people in their 20s here in Manhattan experience a wild ride of career beginnings, advancement, wild night life, clubs, parties, a continuation of the roller coaster of puberty now in beginning adulthood.

For me, when I crash landed in manhattan I was beginning my 20s, but I had spent 10 years prior living in hard core debauchery... testing my limits, perception and after 10+ years of partying, drinking, pot and other wild mind blowing substances, my body was tired. I had grown up. So my 20s were the transition of cleaning myself up, working hard and creating music.

This is wonderful, and a decision I do not regret. Health and fitness is a beautiful thing, and cleaning myself up was an act of love. My sadness, and what made it the worst years of my life was its isolation. The only "friends" I had were just partying, drinking buddies. Idiots that had serious problems and refused to clean themselves up. Some overdosed and died, others just got more and more angry, and unhealthy. When I made my decision to clean up, I had to pull away from them and let them go. So for the first time in my life since I was a boy, I was facing the world sober. All of my social skills had come from being drunk or high, and I felt the worst fears and social anxiety. There were no meetups.com or anything like that, and in hind sight, I probably should have cleaned myself up with some kind of group like AA. Might have made the transition easier, and made new friends that understood my struggles.
Instead the only socializing I saw were the crowded, packed sports bars where everyone new each other, and of course were getting drunk.

I was alone. And Im a social guy! Those years of isolation were horrible. I spent much of the time playing music which helped and eventually I began dating again which got me out and socializing again. I moved back to Vermont, and then Louisiana, got married. And even though the marriage failed those journeys helped me get perspective on those difficult years. Now because of ailing parents I am back in the same city, 160 feet off the ground in a beautiful tower overlooking this concrete silly place.

The social anxiety never went away and is still here. There is so much I want to do with my life, but the thought of one step out the door to do it, floods me with a wave of fear. I am not a quitter and I know that we all struggle with a battle of some kind. It is part of the human condition, and it builds strength. This is my struggle. So much of my life is wonderful and I am so happy to be here on this beautiful Earth.

And so I fight this demon with each day. And with all the resources the internet has to offer, it's not like those dark years 20 years ago. Meetups is a fun resource, and timeoutNY is great too. Dating is super easy now with online dating, and I have family here that I feel comfortable with to go out and explore places with. I've decided, and committed to making a list of all the things I want to do here in NY, a kind of micro-bucket list. I'm going to do something new and social each weekend, whether it's a class of some kind, drinks at a bar, a new restaurant etc. I can beat this thing. The world is a great place, and life is to be lived! Sure I lost my 20s in sadness, but it was meant to be, maybe I needed the time to reflect and process the major and positive changes I was going through. Sure it's unconventional, and not what most people do in their 20s but I've never lived life like anyone else or the norms.

Life moves very fast. I want to enjoy it while I can. So for everyone suffering from decisions in their past, or anxieties don't give up. Know that deep down you love yourself and are just trying to do what's best for you, and there are resources out there to help if you need it. Life is what you make it, so don't let the negative thoughts late at night get to you. It's just reflection, shake it off, do a dance and move on. Tomorrow is a new day.