Now this is the main job for the rest of my life:
how to accept that it essentially does not matter whether others feel I am good or bad, silly or magnificent, lovely or stupid ...without becoming a complete cunt. "Octopuses are not monogamous, have haphazard sex lives and seem not very social...
...there is a kind of mental surplus in the octopus." It is always a mystery to me how to:
a) allow DESIRES and thoughts and fears and things said and done to arise and pass and fall away inconsequentially without getting too attached to them and developing shame and drama without failing to... b) take responsibility for and examine and learn from my carelessness and thoughtlessness and, at times, abusiveness [though I do not mean I am a monster; I simply mean the abuse of power in a relationship that many of us have been guilty of. Because if do a without b, then I become another old white man cruising through life careless of the damage he causes. And if I do b without a, I become caught in my own melodrama to nobody's benefit. Revelation
My friend is in a corner of his garden looking over the patched stone wall at the line between earth and sky where fields fall over cliffs to the patient, stalking sea below. He is balancing oranges on the wall, drawn by the possibilities of their presence to see how they might stack up to the pressures of this place and reveal a pattern. Two oranges, one beside the other, reveal a separateness in proximity, then rise to become four, six, eight oranges, in two tall presences, looking into the garden and out to the sea. They start to lean towards each other, disclosing a desire not anticipated to touch, to support each other in their efforts to stand together between earth and sky with a slight opening between them. Mary Booker 20.02.2019 Thank you Mary Heartbreak cure“The main time that love is painful and needs treatment is heartbreak,” says Brown. For most people, heartbreak goes away with time, or with the help of therapy or even anti-depressants, says Brown.
But people struggling with love addiction may one day benefit from other types of drugs. Theoretically, drugs could be developed that disrupt the bond we feel with someone. A study in 2013 manipulated hormones in prairie voles. These animals are monogamous, forming strong pair bonds – a process that involves the hormone vasopressin. The team found that blocking the voles’ receptors for this hormone caused males to stop defending their mates, and spend more time with other females. There is also evidence to suggest we may have anti-love networks in the brain, that help us become less attached to people we have previously felt close to. Tapping into these might help accelerate a person’s ability to get over someone, but we don’t know how to do this yet. From New Scientist 14/2/2019 Simon, whose principal relationship has ended, is becoming interested in purpose, meaning and identity.
I'm sure he is also dull and grey and tiresome sometimes, but he is interested in all these other things and that seems wonderful. It's as if daily life and relationship and work and the vegetable garden can get in the way of checking on meaning, purpose and identity. We shouldn't have to get divorced to bring these things to mind. And then again, his feeling sometimes is that his interest in purpose, meaning and identity is completely pointless. No better than doing the crossword or rearing a cabbage. Can anything have any more point than growing a cabbage? |