Romance

[Kelly Jones]

There was potential to explore the psychology of sexual fantasy, in relation to differences between the sexes, but in this thread, I'm more interested in exploring romance. From the "What is the consciousness of a woman like?" thread (page 17):

Kelly to Carmel: What a thrill it is, to be liberated, after being held back by her cunning and sabotage for so long. One can get so much further......

The alternative is falling prey to her charms of emotionalism and unreasonableness, seeing enemies where there are none, refusing to reason openly, hating the very thought of exploring ideas, hating with a passion the demands of reason on one's life, hating the possibility of failure and disappointment, and pussy-footing around in mediocrity out of fear of discouragement, suffering and humiliation. If one lets Woman take hold in that way, then the chance for deeper understanding and philosophical-spiritual growth is lost forever. The next time the chance comes, one will have to battle even harder to resist Her. And soon enough, one's weakness for these psychological pitfalls will be overwhelming. The resulting waste of a good mind is a terrible thing to behold.

Carmel: ok Kelly, all of that was a bit too preachy for my taste, it even borders on being romantic, at times.

Possibly Carmel was being somewhat dry, in accusing me of romanticism in this description of aborted idealism, after I had asked her to critique her "romantic" preference for men smelling faintly woodsy or for not drooling, stammering, or having high-pitched voices. But it got me thinking about the relationship between idealism and eroticism. By eroticism, I mean what the ancient Greeks practised, who actually loved their gods. I don't mean fetishism and other forms of sexual stimuli, better described as erotica, obviously. It's not a difficult concept to understand: one is attracted to what one values, including where those values seem to be displayed by others, to the point of romanticising about a particular person in the belief that they encapsulate what one desires deepest.

To be clear about this, I view romance as fantasising about something in a dreamy, emotional, unrealistic and irrational manner. Escapism, in a word.

My question is: why did Carmel view the idealism expressed in my description of falling into the spell of Woman, romantic? Was it because I expressed it using terms like "battle", "forever", "suffering", and the like? But given the definition of romance above, which seems pretty fair (comments are welcome), these terms are not romantic at all. They're not even poetic. The entire passage was completely down-to-earth in my view. Was Carmel being insincere, or is there something typical in her reaction?

For instance, when the powerful inner influence of values on one's own thought-development (contained within one, and not projected outwardly onto others) is regarded as equally fluffy and romantic as eroticism (where ideals are cast onto people, and one falls in love with those imagined values in them), is that a typical mistake? If so, why has that mistake occurred?

How does the fact that all the major religions (one of the best demonstrations of eroticism, beginning with the ancient Greeks) were invented by men, and that devotees of gurus tend more often to be female, tie in with this? Perhaps the equation of idealism with romanticism helps bond male and female.......?

.
[edit title: "Romance and Idealism" > "Romance"]

[jupiviv]

To add more fire to this already fiercely burning fire, I'll say that Carmel is probably not conscious enough to clarify her ideas. She's lost in the henids. You should have understood that aspect of her psychology before going further.

[Blair]

You go Kelly, you go like this punch|punch, *poof*! (like a comic book)

You just knock the shit out of ignorance baby. Get in there and ruck.

Satire is a lost art, as is wisdom.

[Kelly Jones]

What fire? I was just musing on an interesting discrepancy - of course hoping to ignite something, but least of all a catfight ... If I overestimated Carmel, it was probably because of the dearth in the field, that one little spark gives off so much light that I think it brighter than it really is.

And give us a break, prince. I don't intentionally act cruelly, and I try not to rub it in brazenly. I'm sorry that I am the bearer of bad news, even though it is excellent news ultimately. I understand the need not to hurt people's feelings unnecessarily, and I do my best to avoid anything of that nature.

Back onto something more relevant to the topic, I came across something from those ancient Greeks. A word for "those who are dead like myself" : "paranekroi". Kierkegaard mentions it from Lucian. That's something David missed, incidentally, when he interpreted Laird's "living next door to the source" as living next door to the forest sages --- Kierkegaard was educated by Socrates and the ancient Greeks. Or were the ancient cynics also forest sages? It's possible. Anyway, this for the paranekroi, past, present and future......

.

[Blair]

Kelly. I love you, always have and always will.

Love is in fact the answer to all questions.

There is only love.

[Kunga]

if it's romantic/ideal to hope & strive for world peace ...then fuck reality

[Pam Seeback]

Love born of belief in dualism is romantic, sexual, brotherly, motherly, fatherly, in other worlds, love arising from the fear of the death of flesh. Such love is really the desire for an imagined reunion between the imagined subject-object split in human consciousness.

There is no awareness of "love" in the Unconditioned Mind, for there is no awareness of a subject-object split that needs to "be healed" or "reunited" by thoughts of "love", but if one was to use the metaphor "love" when referring to the Thought nature of the Unconditioned Mind, they could use the word "love" to suggest or point to the nature of Being Unconditioned to Dualism, that is, the permanent, neverchanging union nature of subject-object expression, Thought thinking infinitely, eternally, of thought.

[Kunga]

oh...and about romance in a man/woman relationship (as a couple):

i've ............. been without love/romance for 20 years in my present relationship
i've............ been aging rapidly
i've............. been extremely unhappy
i ............. fantasize
i ............. escape
i ............... long for love as if my life depended on it
i ............. see there are more important things in life
my............. life is insignificant
back to reality
reality sucks
i............ HATE romance novels
i .................. love reality


what a fuckin paradox


all the "i" 's i used is a good indication of what my problemo is

if reality was a reality there would be no need for romance/love/idealism
because i wouldn't feel the need for these things
i would be in a state of perpetual bliss just being THE REAL
but i am acting through a separateness...this i,me,shit is not reality.....

[Kelly Jones]

It's not dualities, or using an "I" that's the issue here. It's a wrong perception of what contrasts mean.

Contrasts mean that things exist relatively. The contrast makes things "stand out" by comparison. But this is no issue for someone who can perceive rightly, who can remember the context.

The wrong perception assumes that things are really and truly separate, forgetting the contrast that gave rise to them.

All you need do is "look past the edges". When you see a person, notice the boundary, and the background. Look at the environment that gives rise to them. Keep forcing the mind to see dualities, and relationships. The context of all dualities, and the reality of how the I, exists will then become real --- revealing that it is both impossible and unnecessary to abandon dualities.

[Kelly Jones]

Kelly. I love you, always have and always will.

Love is in fact the answer to all questions.

There is only love.

Wasn't my opening post clear and straightforward enough?



For the record, are you an alcoholic? or have a psychiatric illness? You seem to have a deep liking for nastiness, and I noticed that you often seem to interpret my direct, untrammeled approach as nasty and aggressive bullying. I reckon that's why you posted the above; a sarcastic kind of praise, driven by your hope to find malicious and bloody-minded argument.

Many people mistakenly believe that serious psychological introspection is the same as hatred, bitterness and nastiness. Admittedly, some people on this forum cannot do anything about that mistake; they don't have the capacity to bear the suffering of introspective meditation. But I hope someone in the neighbourhood is capable of courageous thinking. Otherwise, this place is only fit for the handicapped and mentally ill.

.

[Anders Schlander]

Hm, romance and ideals,

Is 'romantic ideals' those that are unreasonable? like, for example, world peace, 'spread the love', and the likes?

'Romantic ideals' An ideal that is not properly thought out, being unreasonable, fantasy-like, and narrow.

Ideals are reasonable ideals, with a bigger perspective, contains greater depth.

I think the blend of romanticism and Idealism is the blend of the feminine and masculine psychologies that we have so often used; in a sense, the Guru exhibits an ideal, while the feminine psychology is capable only of loosely holding onto the romantic ideal.



ill try answer the question as follows more generally though;

Kelly writes: "For instance, when the powerful inner influence of values on one's own thought-development (contained within one, and not projected outwardly onto others) is regarded as equally fluffy and romantic as eroticism (where ideals are cast onto people, and one falls in love with those imagined values in them), is that a typical mistake? If so, why has that mistake occurred?"

The romantic ideal is less consistent, and less founded on principles. The ideal could be wrongly interpreted to be more of the romantic variety because the interpreter is narrow-minded and inconsistent, and selects only part of the ideal. It could just be the words used that have been grasped at wrongly. Or a person that is very feminine might not notice an ideal at all.


The man usually exhibits greater principle, consistency and ideality, no doubt that's what it took to actually form the great religions in the first place.

Man and Woman bonds because Man thinks Woman is interested in ideals, She is actually impressed with a man of ideals, but she herself is interested in the romantic ideal that she sees in him.
Then, by bonding together, the man loses his ideal, and adopts a romantic one as he sees into the womans eyes and is blinded.

The Guru could have an ideal, but the woman would not see it properly. She sees a romantic one - that of becoming attached to the Guru as a father figure. Men are also trapped into the romance sometimes, and when the romantic ideal becomes less and less grounded in reality, the ideal turns slowly to mush. The backbone of the man has decomposed into bonded romance. Ofcourse, there is usually a degree of ideals in any relationship, atleast those with semi-intelligent people, they exhibit romantic ideals that are more or less grounded in reality, enough to ensure that one can keep the pretence that one is not living a fantasy.

edit: bolded added text, corrected a couple mistakes

[Kelly Jones]

Well, is there any difference between the unreality of the fantasies of romantic poets like Keats and Leopardi, and those of people surfing the personals columns?

For instance, compare

"I've always loved this lonesome hill
And this hedge that hides
The entire horizon, almost, from sight.
But sitting here in a daydream, I picture
The boundless spaces away there, silences
Deeper than human silence, an unfathomable hush
In which my heart is hardly beat
From fear. And hearing the wind
Rush rustling through these bushes,
I pit its speech against infinite silence -
And a notion of eternity floats to mind,
And the dead seasons, and the season
Beating here and now, and the sound of it. So,
In this immensity my thoughts all drown;
It's easeful to be wrecked in seas like these."

(Leopardi, "L'Infinito", tr. Eamon Grennan)

with

Jen & Matthew
Brisbane

“After many years of painful dating we finally found each other. Matt's response was that he couldn't believe the right person for him was on the other side of the globe, but there you have it!”

(from the testimonials for Bigpond dating service, eHarmony)

.

[jupiviv]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wc3f4xU_FfQ

[Blair]

For the record, are you an alcoholic? or have a psychiatric illness? You seem to have a deep liking for nastiness, and I noticed that you often seem to interpret my direct, untrammeled approach as nasty and aggressive bullying.

Well, yeaah, I suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and have for most of my life.

How do ya like dem' apples, you two-bit wannabe psychologist biyatch.

[Kelly Jones]

Sorry to hear it, and thanks for being honest for once. You should get some counselling for that, and I don't mean that frivolously or with any condescension. I've experienced something similar, and know how trauma can go on controlling your behaviour. But it is possible to heal if one is willing to tackle the problem.

[Blair]

You are being condescensing though, it's one of your more irritating "foibles" , at the end of the day you aren't so much a philosopher as a meddling, idealistic new-agey young woman. It will pass...

How can you say you experienced something similar when you don't know what happened to me?

It's not always possible to heal (mental or physical scars), and a thorough understanding of causality would allow you to realize that.

[Kunga]

It's not dualities, or using an "I" that's the issue here. It's a wrong perception of what contrasts mean.

Contrasts mean that things exist relatively. The contrast makes things "stand out" by comparison. But this is no issue for someone who can perceive rightly, who can remember the context.

The wrong perception assumes that things are really and truly separate, forgetting the contrast that gave rise to them.

All you need do is "look past the edges". When you see a person, notice the boundary, and the background. Look at the environment that gives rise to them. Keep forcing the mind to see dualities, and relationships. The context of all dualities, and the reality of how the I, exists will then become real --- revealing that it is both impossible and unnecessary to abandon dualities.

Yes...Thank you again Kelly _/\_

This phenomena/material duality is equal to non-duality/emptiness ......the interdependent relationship of everything appearing as form is empty of inherent
existence ....impossible to separate form from emptiness....

[jupiviv]

All you need do is "look past the edges". When you see a person, notice the boundary, and the background. Look at the environment that gives rise to them. Keep forcing the mind to see dualities, and relationships. The context of all dualities, and the reality of how the I, exists will then become real --- revealing that it is both impossible and unnecessary to abandon dualities.

A better way to think of it would be to think of any distinction/duality whatsoever. Can the fact that you are making that distinction change? No, it can't. Even if you don't perceive the distinction the next moment, it will still be eternally true that the distinction was made at the time when it was made. Why is this so? Because all distinctions are basically the truth of A=A, which is true for all time. In Zen, there's a saying - first there was a teacup, then there was no teacup, and then there was a tea cup again.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

To be clear about this, I view romance as fantasizing about something in a dreamy, emotional, unrealistic and irrational manner. Escapism, in a word.

My question is: why did Carmel view the idealism expressed in my description of falling into the spell of Woman, romantic? Was it because I expressed it using terms like "battle", "forever", "suffering", and the like? But given the definition of romance above, which seems pretty fair (comments are welcome), these terms are not romantic at all.

Some people use the term closer in meaning to romanticism: with its imaginative, exaggerating colorful expressions. The element in common with your definition would be "unrealistic" in the sense that it does not translate to hard-nosed "facts". Your battle and suffering would not be comparable to the battle of a cancer patient and the "in your face" physical dimension of such condition. And "forever" could then be said to be a term expressing a strong imagination if taken literally, a term more often used in fairy tales than in common speech.

It's impossible to escape this critique though when there's a desire to express a psychological battle: it will bound to sound like open warfare, it needs a hero and a fire-breathing dragon. In medieval times, where so much of our concepts of romance originates, there was a maiden to be saved. The story as you're telling it has a wise dragon locked away in a tower with the maiden laying down at the bottom guarding it jealously!

Some writers on the topic of romance has traced it back to the story of Tristan and Isolde as one of the oldest and clearest expression of romantic love in our culture. It could be interesting to explore this literature and the historical development of the notions contained in that story in general.

[Pam Seeback]

All you need do is "look past the edges". When you see a person, notice the boundary, and the background. Look at the environment that gives rise to them. Keep forcing the mind to see dualities, and relationships. The context of all dualities, and the reality of how the I, exists will then become real --- revealing that it is both impossible and unnecessary to abandon dualities.

Cease interpreting what you see, hear, touch, taste and smell for a few moments and then come back and tell me that it is impossible to abandon dualities. If you can go longer than a few moments, all the better, but it is a rare individual who is not "chomping on the bit" of opinion and judgment within a few moments of being with their own silence.

[Kunga]

Ideals are reasonable ideals, with a bigger perspective, contains greater depth.

Yes...i think it's reasonable to aspire to higher ideals, such as world peace & love. Without having high goals, how can we evolve ?

becoming attached to the Guru as a father figure

or falling in love with the Guru because he is pure and innocent...unlike a man that is interested or consumed by sex with her. I find that the man that sees the woman as a sexual object is repulsive (unless feelings are mutual...rare is it that a man can love without lust. Ironically i am sexually attracted to men that are not womanizers. I feel they can be trusted. The bond of love is broken with infidelity (at least with me).

Also bonding is a chemical/hormone thing (pheromones) . Mother Nature has a one track mind.

[Kelly Jones]

How can you say you experienced something similar when you don't know what happened to me? It's not always possible to heal (mental or physical scars), and a thorough understanding of causality would allow you to realize that.

PTSD is actually far more common than you might think. Most people nurse emotional damage, and have some degree of PTSD. It can be a way of excusing one's failures and inadequacies. Not that I'm criticising you. I don't know what happened to you, but PTSD is basically the same dynamic: sustaining emotional damage (with the mental or physical scars you mention) after experiencing something very stressful, or experiencing stress for a long period of time. So, healing depends on how long therapy is postponed, and whether there has been brain damage, or to what extent. You seem sufficiently rational to work-out the issues that are sustaining your anger. My rough estimation is that you don't have severe PTSD, but you experienced something difficult in the last 15-20 years. A rough guess is that you chose to view the experience as a "badge of honour" or "rite of initiation". On that basis, you have postponed the therapy, because to some extent you've found a place of security in your disorder, since it allows you to distance yourself in an anti-social way from others.

.

[Kelly Jones]

Some people use the term [romance] closer in meaning to romanticism: with its imaginative, exaggerating colorful expressions. The element in common with your definition would be "unrealistic" in the sense that it does not translate to hard-nosed "facts". Your battle and suffering would not be comparable to the battle of a cancer patient and the "in your face" physical dimension of such condition. And "forever" could then be said to be a term expressing a strong imagination if taken literally, a term more often used in fairy tales than in common speech.

Well, the psychological battle to enlighten oneself is totally physical and is replete with hard-nosed facts. Here's a great example that I really like from Hakuin:

If you have this 'spirit' then, by that very fact, your very clothes, your 'hakama' (divided skirt), your upper robes (Kataginu), will be to you as the 'seven-pieced robes' or the 'nine-folded stoles' of monks. Your two-edged swords will be your desk or meditation table, placed always before you. The saddle you ride on will be the cushion on which you sit in meditation. The hills, streams, the plains will be the floor of your meditation hall. The four corners of the earth and its ten directions, the height and the depth of the universe will be to you the great 'cave' in which you are performing your meditation --- they will be, in very truth, the substance of your real self. Then the positive and negative principles of creation will be to you your two daily meals of gruel. Heaven, hell, the pure land and hades will be your internal organs, your spleen, your stomach, your liver, and your kidneys. Then the hall of the arts, with its outer and inner courts of three hundred mats (where state business is carried on) will become the morning and evening meetings of instruction and scripture reading. The trillions of Mount Sumerus will be, as it were, bundled together to become your spinal column, and every form of activity in the world of affairs --- such as abdication ceremonies, retirements of lords, archery meetings, writing up accounts --- all of these will become to you wondrous works of the good purposes of the Bodhisattvas. They will draw forth the believing heart of brave and bold men, they will bring you into harmony with that true discipline of introspection. Then when you are standing or sitting, moving or resting, from time to time test whether you have lost the right spirit or not lost it --- this is the correct road of the true discipline of the wise and holy ones of past and present.

If one does poeticise and exaggerate the value of the goal (for example, instead of a female: the damsel, or ... the beautiful damsel, or ... the beautiful damsel in distress, or ... the beautiful damsel in distress imprisoned far away, etc.), one only does that to fight against the current apathy and its magnetic pull. That means, one is actually drawing one closer to reality, and away from fantasy.

.

[Blair]

PTSD is actually far more common than you might think.

I'm aware of it's prevalence, try not to put words in others mouths Kelly, it's one your ugliest traits.

Not that I'm criticising you.

That's exactly what you do everytime you spout your mouth off on here, criticise something or someone. Another one of your undesirable traits.

You seem sufficiently rational to work-out the issues that are sustaining your anger.

Thankyou for your patronising blessing, Kelly.

A rough guess is that you chose to view the experience as a "badge of honour" or "rite of initiation".

Way off the mark; it happened when I was five, not an age where you think along the lines of "badge of honour" at having a prolonged experience of shher terror at all.

On that basis, you have postponed the therapy.

I said I've had it most of my life, not that I knew I had it.

[Kelly Jones]

Cool down, Rex! I'm not pretending to be an expert on trauma, just offering my rough estimations. Notice that I did say 'rough guess'. I guessed you'd experienced the trauma in the last few decades, because you didn't seem to match my own experience of childhood trauma (I had 3rd degree burns as a 4-year-old). It's easier to deal with it, if it was accidental, if you were cared-for reasonably well afterwards, if it recurred or not, and that sort of thing.

The whole point is to go think about it rationally, and not to let it become the bedrock of one's perception of reality --- after all, how likely is it that the nature of reality is based on that event? Zip chance.

This is getting off topic, but that seems to be the way of these threads. Hopefully, it can get back on course anon.

.