I recently had a revelation that nearly ever major tragedy in literature (or plays/movies) is a direct result of lack of, or mis-, information. How many times do we get the omniscient "god" view, only to have the despair of knowing that if this character had only told this other character that one crucial bit of info there could have been a happy ending? THAT, my friends, is the essence of tragedy.
Moral of this story: TALK TO PEOPLE. And be honest.
"Hurt me with the truth, but never comfort me with a lie."
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Monday, March 25, 2013
Which part of fate are we stuck with?
Had a wacky thought last night...
Backstory: I fell in love in 2003 and he was IT. He was the love of my life. Within weeks, there was absolutely no doubt in my mind - we had an uncanny magnetism.... I started having visions of our children... everything at the core of my being was vibrating with this feeling of rightness. And lest anyone immediately write this off as me being totally nuts (I am, but that's different), he absolutely felt the same way - we just knew. We started talking about marriage and our future, and he asked me to move with him when he started grad school that fall. And again, to differentiate from the stereotypical, somewhat frantic and anxious, romeo-and-juliet version of young love, this experience wasn't driven by a feeling of need or desperation - it was calm, and solid, and grounding. It simply was. And we both knew it.
And then, for a variety of reasons - including the onset of a depression I had never before experienced (school and life-path related), and the stress of his own early-grad-school experience, as well as so many other factors we may never fully understand - about 8 months later we broke up.
I've thought through enough material for an entire book (or three) since then, about pretty much every aspect of this experience and relationships and love, but the continuation of the story that is relevant here is that I didn't fully process through a lot of the internal effects and emotional aftermath of that relationship until about a year ago. Nearly a decade later (and only after finally meeting the only other person with whom I've had anything close to that same grounded feeling of absolute rightness, which, consequently, had a more than a few intriguing similarities, including the fact that it also only lasted a short time).
So here's the completely new point-to-ponder that came to me last night, which I am feeling inspired to share here. To be honest, I'm pretty sure I don't believe this is true, in the universal sense of truth, but it's a pretty interesting concept to contemplate...
What if that was how long I was destined to be emotionally involved with him, regardless of what actually happened with our relationship?
In other words, what if it didn't matter if we had stayed together and had an amazingly romantic and loving decade together, because once our predetermined time was up, we would decide to go our separate ways regardless?
In a more universal sense, what if there are aspects of our path/fate that ARE set, and the choices we make only determine the details of our experience within that pre-set framework (i.e. whether our on-the-ground life lines up with that universal feeling of rightness, or not).
I hope y'all have fun with this one. :D
ETA: Related Radiolab episodes suggested by a friend.
Backstory: I fell in love in 2003 and he was IT. He was the love of my life. Within weeks, there was absolutely no doubt in my mind - we had an uncanny magnetism.... I started having visions of our children... everything at the core of my being was vibrating with this feeling of rightness. And lest anyone immediately write this off as me being totally nuts (I am, but that's different), he absolutely felt the same way - we just knew. We started talking about marriage and our future, and he asked me to move with him when he started grad school that fall. And again, to differentiate from the stereotypical, somewhat frantic and anxious, romeo-and-juliet version of young love, this experience wasn't driven by a feeling of need or desperation - it was calm, and solid, and grounding. It simply was. And we both knew it.
And then, for a variety of reasons - including the onset of a depression I had never before experienced (school and life-path related), and the stress of his own early-grad-school experience, as well as so many other factors we may never fully understand - about 8 months later we broke up.
I've thought through enough material for an entire book (or three) since then, about pretty much every aspect of this experience and relationships and love, but the continuation of the story that is relevant here is that I didn't fully process through a lot of the internal effects and emotional aftermath of that relationship until about a year ago. Nearly a decade later (and only after finally meeting the only other person with whom I've had anything close to that same grounded feeling of absolute rightness, which, consequently, had a more than a few intriguing similarities, including the fact that it also only lasted a short time).
So here's the completely new point-to-ponder that came to me last night, which I am feeling inspired to share here. To be honest, I'm pretty sure I don't believe this is true, in the universal sense of truth, but it's a pretty interesting concept to contemplate...
What if that was how long I was destined to be emotionally involved with him, regardless of what actually happened with our relationship?
In other words, what if it didn't matter if we had stayed together and had an amazingly romantic and loving decade together, because once our predetermined time was up, we would decide to go our separate ways regardless?
In a more universal sense, what if there are aspects of our path/fate that ARE set, and the choices we make only determine the details of our experience within that pre-set framework (i.e. whether our on-the-ground life lines up with that universal feeling of rightness, or not).
I hope y'all have fun with this one. :D
ETA: Related Radiolab episodes suggested by a friend.
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
LIVE the story you want to be living.
I posted this on my FB wall on my birthday, and I think it deserves to go here too...
**Originally posted on 6 Aug 2012**
Nothing like starting my birthday off with a midnight run in the rain. :)
Khrysti's birthday thought o' the day: I've been hearing/reading a lot lately about letting go of whatever "story" you maintain about yourself that's holding you or keeping you from whatever growth you would like to be experiencing. But lately I've been wondering if the solution isn't to let go of all stories, but instead to make sure that you are actually living the one composite story you *want* to be living... reducing the distance/disconnect between the way you know you actually are (because you can't fool yourself) and the way you really *want* to be (the story you *want* to believe/know is true about yourself). In other words, taking action towards actually LIVING that story, starting now.
Maybe that's my birthday wish... for any of you who have ever had the thought "I wish I was more/less ____________" or "I wish I was more like ________" to take any possible little step today towards actually BEING "more/less ___________" or "more like _________".
♥ you all so very much.
(If it helps to post it here as a birthday present to me please do. :) )
**Originally posted on 6 Aug 2012**
Nothing like starting my birthday off with a midnight run in the rain. :)
Khrysti's birthday thought o' the day: I've been hearing/reading a lot lately about letting go of whatever "story" you maintain about yourself that's holding you or keeping you from whatever growth you would like to be experiencing. But lately I've been wondering if the solution isn't to let go of all stories, but instead to make sure that you are actually living the one composite story you *want* to be living... reducing the distance/disconnect between the way you know you actually are (because you can't fool yourself) and the way you really *want* to be (the story you *want* to believe/know is true about yourself). In other words, taking action towards actually LIVING that story, starting now.
Maybe that's my birthday wish... for any of you who have ever had the thought "I wish I was more/less ____________" or "I wish I was more like ________" to take any possible little step today towards actually BEING "more/less ___________" or "more like _________".
♥ you all so very much.
(If it helps to post it here as a birthday present to me please do. :) )
*****
And a couple of delightful follow-up quotes:
"Only the ideas that we actually live are of any value." - Hesse
"To know that you do not know is the best. To pretend to know is disease." - Lao Tzu
"To know that you do not know is the best. To pretend to know is disease." - Lao Tzu
Monday, June 25, 2012
Leaning into it...
One of my favorite bloggers posted this today, and it's right in line with a concept that bubbled over a bit in a few areas in my life this weekend... don't you just love it when that kind of vortex happens? Gives me those lovely goosebumps of "rightness".
"...nervous
energy [anxiety or fear] is often a signpost that what you're about to do matters. The
real challenge is to learn to intuit whether the visceral response is
shutting down opportunity or keeping you from physical harm.
There
are times when it's the latter. And those are the moments, when there
is very real risk of physical danger, when you seriously consider the
intelligence of backing away. But, in my experience (at least once
you're out of your teens), the vast majority of times, it's the former.
And that's all about leaning in."
With the help of a few of the amazing people I have in my life, I finally realized last night that the major loneliness I've been feeling for the past month is because I've set myself some legitimately challenging goals. And given that my tendency (that I'm thankfully in the process of letting go) is to look to a partnered relationship as an escape from, or avoidance of, the challenging responsibilities I've given myself, I've been feeling desperate for that "security" of a partnered relationship. But it's not security. It's avoidance. And therefore it's hollow and ethereal... a fear-driven echo of the solidly REAL relationships I actually want (and already do have in so many ways) that are based on a foundation of strongly centered and grounded independence.
So here's to leaning into the wind. ;D
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Saturday, January 28, 2012
My feminist perspective
As with so many huge changes in societal thought and practice, there are subtleties that go way deeper than the major-but-superficial things we fight so strongly for. Often, the alteration of those subtleties has to do with truly letting go of the underlying fundamental premise, instead of just fighting for the opposite outcome within that premise.
Take the Slutwalk movement, essentially characterized by this eloquent phrase:
"Why do we teach women how not to dress instead of men how not to rape?"
For me it this idea has become something much more profound about reclaiming the concept of what it means for a woman to be a "slut": as it stands, that word is often used to describe a woman who either has a lot of sex with different partners, or, heaven forbid, is open about the fact that she enjoys it. The idea of reclaiming this concept means altering the fundamental culturally-upheld dichotomy between a woman's and a man's "acceptable" sexual thoughts, desires, and behaviors. If being a "slut" means that I am secure and accepting of my inherent sexual nature and allow myself to pursue my own desires *without shame*, then yes please.
But the key is that it also be without belligerence or bitterness against the culture that spawned that word in the first place. Because as long as you continue to push against something, you continue to acknowledge its existence. You continue to give it structure. The act of pushing against something gives it the fuel to keep pushing back. But if you instead simply step aside and let it fall... if you stop believing it has power... then suddenly it doesn't.
So the feminist movement, to me, isn't about claiming equality, it's about claiming femininity. It's about insisting not that we're equal, because we're not and that's part of the beautiful balance of nature, but that we are all exactly what we are and we have the right to accept true reality.
This post was inspired by this article on a woman's right to react. (And thanks to a few aikido practices for part of that lesson.)
Take the Slutwalk movement, essentially characterized by this eloquent phrase:
"Why do we teach women how not to dress instead of men how not to rape?"
For me it this idea has become something much more profound about reclaiming the concept of what it means for a woman to be a "slut": as it stands, that word is often used to describe a woman who either has a lot of sex with different partners, or, heaven forbid, is open about the fact that she enjoys it. The idea of reclaiming this concept means altering the fundamental culturally-upheld dichotomy between a woman's and a man's "acceptable" sexual thoughts, desires, and behaviors. If being a "slut" means that I am secure and accepting of my inherent sexual nature and allow myself to pursue my own desires *without shame*, then yes please.
But the key is that it also be without belligerence or bitterness against the culture that spawned that word in the first place. Because as long as you continue to push against something, you continue to acknowledge its existence. You continue to give it structure. The act of pushing against something gives it the fuel to keep pushing back. But if you instead simply step aside and let it fall... if you stop believing it has power... then suddenly it doesn't.
So the feminist movement, to me, isn't about claiming equality, it's about claiming femininity. It's about insisting not that we're equal, because we're not and that's part of the beautiful balance of nature, but that we are all exactly what we are and we have the right to accept true reality.
This post was inspired by this article on a woman's right to react. (And thanks to a few aikido practices for part of that lesson.)
Monday, June 27, 2011
Thought for the day: Balance
Just came upon this while washing dishes (thank you to the dish-washing thought fairy).
"Balanced" does not always mean "equal".
(You could replace "always" with "have to" for a subtle variation.)
My thought process: Each of us are unique. We each have our own set of qualities, skills, virtues, faults, challenges, goals, etc... Therefore, in relationships (friends, lovers, familial, partnered dancing, whatever), we each bring our own set of qualities into the mix - some of us are more patient, some more enthusiastic, some more affluent, some more grounded, some more playful, some more imaginative, some more knowledgeable about this topic or another, etc. I realized just now (though I know I've realized this before) that the key to a healthy and sustainable relationship is not to match each other equally, but instead to maintain a balance in whatever each of you brings into the relationship.
I often find myself lured into believing that I need to match whatever someone else has to offer to maintain equality in a relationship, but that isn't realistic (and is therefore inherently unsustainable). I need to remember instead that the qualities that I possess only need to be in balance within the relationship, and that what I have to offer is more than enough to do exactly that.
(Especially when combined with the awareness that I'm not the only one making choices and carrying responsibility for that balance.)
:)
"Balanced" does not always mean "equal".
(You could replace "always" with "have to" for a subtle variation.)
My thought process: Each of us are unique. We each have our own set of qualities, skills, virtues, faults, challenges, goals, etc... Therefore, in relationships (friends, lovers, familial, partnered dancing, whatever), we each bring our own set of qualities into the mix - some of us are more patient, some more enthusiastic, some more affluent, some more grounded, some more playful, some more imaginative, some more knowledgeable about this topic or another, etc. I realized just now (though I know I've realized this before) that the key to a healthy and sustainable relationship is not to match each other equally, but instead to maintain a balance in whatever each of you brings into the relationship.
I often find myself lured into believing that I need to match whatever someone else has to offer to maintain equality in a relationship, but that isn't realistic (and is therefore inherently unsustainable). I need to remember instead that the qualities that I possess only need to be in balance within the relationship, and that what I have to offer is more than enough to do exactly that.
(Especially when combined with the awareness that I'm not the only one making choices and carrying responsibility for that balance.)
:)
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