Society is made of us and we are made in it. That stands true in more ways than we can ever know. Our discovery of how we naturally grow walled into them will always be only in part as it is an ever-advancing dynamic process and we wouldn't really be who we are today to even discover that little much about ourselves without them. Complicated much.
One of the many effects of this is our understanding of relationships, especially the ones we are exclusive about. We pre-divide them into exclusive ones and non-exclusive ones. Going further, we conveniently subscribe to and unconsciously defend various social relationship paradigms to ensure that what we make exclusive stays exclusive - until of course it works no more for us, after which we find someone else to be exclusive with. That amounts the entire effort to more an excuse for some exclusivity, or any at all for that matter. It protects more than explores, seeks to understand or shares. It has a code word - commitment. One that has a meaning that implies much more than being merely protectionist.
Now don't get me wrong. I am not defending promiscuity. One's morality is his/her own business. The only concern is whether the pricks inside, if they be, when you do cross a line, if you do, aren't numbed as they increase, if and when they are on the increase. The principle: You shouldn't want to increasingly hate what you do while, at the same time, you proportionately increasingly thrive on it. I am only seeking to understand the obsession with exclusivity at all costs.
It is a socio-psychological construct, or perhaps a constrict. On one hand, it's the construct we grow around noticing and therefore emulate, like we do with many other constructs (some which fall in the same category). On the other hand, it's a need for that elusive 'someone'. I can see where 'fish' (we have to catch and keep them) comes from to some extent.
I think we have assumed a warped parallel, to begin with, when we 'pursue' relationships. Perhaps when we take actually falling in love a little more seriously, we really wouldn't pursue it at all. Having to fall in love would mean that we do it without prior knowledge of falling in love. In any other normal circumstance, we wouldn't be very excited about falling into anything that we don't expect. It's like digging a hole for yourself for the sheer thrill of falling into it, knowing exactly how and when you will fall into it and how it will be inside that hole - all the while pretending that the hole doesn't exist in the very spot that you dug it in. Some adventure that is.
The adventure really is when you embark on it like going on an endless road trip and you don't know what you're going to see. Like everyone else on the road who also are on similar adventures, the (other) possibilities of whom you will meet are ones you probably haven't considered, probably because you have no paradigm to stick within. There are no rules except that you're armed with yourself, as what you are mirrors against the things you do and the people you meet, and you decide what the aspirations for your person should be, or if you met them yet in people you've come across do far. It's an ongoing process.
Relationships shouldn't be the end of the process, neither should they end. They should be the means to so much more that they promise, and must be essentially forward cyclic. Self-realisation of a relationship is almost the end of it. Conscious and intended self-realization usually brings it to its death, or its couch potato status. They just lie there while we wallow in our sad dependence on how the relationship must function so that we can remain at peace with our unadventurous selves. We may numb the boredom but won't really help at all. We deal with otherwise.We treat like an appendix that needs to exist. We have externally customised them so that we can sit pretty more, and that's worked very well as we can see.
Long before man found out that he cannot possibly be an island, he always wasn't. After he found out and continues to theorise about it, he always never will be one, even if he tries to ensure that in ways efficiently impossible. Before he theorised about it, he was also small-minded enough to rightly understand that he wouldn't really be able to wrap his arms around it for want of arm length and, sensibly, for the inherent natural unconscious discovering adventure that it was taking him on. Desperation has no place in there, unless we live in those theorised paradigms of understanding which clearly don't see the need for that extra arm length they so require to actually be able to bet a life on them completely.
One of the many effects of this is our understanding of relationships, especially the ones we are exclusive about. We pre-divide them into exclusive ones and non-exclusive ones. Going further, we conveniently subscribe to and unconsciously defend various social relationship paradigms to ensure that what we make exclusive stays exclusive - until of course it works no more for us, after which we find someone else to be exclusive with. That amounts the entire effort to more an excuse for some exclusivity, or any at all for that matter. It protects more than explores, seeks to understand or shares. It has a code word - commitment. One that has a meaning that implies much more than being merely protectionist.
Now don't get me wrong. I am not defending promiscuity. One's morality is his/her own business. The only concern is whether the pricks inside, if they be, when you do cross a line, if you do, aren't numbed as they increase, if and when they are on the increase. The principle: You shouldn't want to increasingly hate what you do while, at the same time, you proportionately increasingly thrive on it. I am only seeking to understand the obsession with exclusivity at all costs.
It is a socio-psychological construct, or perhaps a constrict. On one hand, it's the construct we grow around noticing and therefore emulate, like we do with many other constructs (some which fall in the same category). On the other hand, it's a need for that elusive 'someone'. I can see where 'fish' (we have to catch and keep them) comes from to some extent.
I think we have assumed a warped parallel, to begin with, when we 'pursue' relationships. Perhaps when we take actually falling in love a little more seriously, we really wouldn't pursue it at all. Having to fall in love would mean that we do it without prior knowledge of falling in love. In any other normal circumstance, we wouldn't be very excited about falling into anything that we don't expect. It's like digging a hole for yourself for the sheer thrill of falling into it, knowing exactly how and when you will fall into it and how it will be inside that hole - all the while pretending that the hole doesn't exist in the very spot that you dug it in. Some adventure that is.
The adventure really is when you embark on it like going on an endless road trip and you don't know what you're going to see. Like everyone else on the road who also are on similar adventures, the (other) possibilities of whom you will meet are ones you probably haven't considered, probably because you have no paradigm to stick within. There are no rules except that you're armed with yourself, as what you are mirrors against the things you do and the people you meet, and you decide what the aspirations for your person should be, or if you met them yet in people you've come across do far. It's an ongoing process.
Relationships shouldn't be the end of the process, neither should they end. They should be the means to so much more that they promise, and must be essentially forward cyclic. Self-realisation of a relationship is almost the end of it. Conscious and intended self-realization usually brings it to its death, or its couch potato status. They just lie there while we wallow in our sad dependence on how the relationship must function so that we can remain at peace with our unadventurous selves. We may numb the boredom but won't really help at all. We deal with otherwise.We treat like an appendix that needs to exist. We have externally customised them so that we can sit pretty more, and that's worked very well as we can see.
Long before man found out that he cannot possibly be an island, he always wasn't. After he found out and continues to theorise about it, he always never will be one, even if he tries to ensure that in ways efficiently impossible. Before he theorised about it, he was also small-minded enough to rightly understand that he wouldn't really be able to wrap his arms around it for want of arm length and, sensibly, for the inherent natural unconscious discovering adventure that it was taking him on. Desperation has no place in there, unless we live in those theorised paradigms of understanding which clearly don't see the need for that extra arm length they so require to actually be able to bet a life on them completely.
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