On the radio this morning a guest commented on this relationship with his wife and the length of their marriage: the longer it lasts the better it gets.
This tends to be the general opinion, at least in the Western World. Relationships, it is thought, should last, and if they should show signs of strain, you should work to improve things. And if you cannot do it yourself, then there are plenty of marriage guidance councillors, sex therapists and the like just waiting to help and advise you. Men who restlessly go from one relationship to another are often described as suffering from ‘Don Juan Syndrome’. One hears such things as: only a long relationship is a meaningful relationship.
What all this amounts to is that whatever a person’s mind, body and spirit are saying to them they are ignoring, or over-riding, in favour of some externally imposed rules that derive from I don’t know where, but probably the likes of the ethics of the major religions. Or, it might be that having realised how useful the notion of ‘loyalty’ is to them, those in power have managed to get loyalty classed as one of the ‘virtues’, and the population is buying into it, especially in the area of relationships – boss/employee, master/servant as well as husband wife.
In fact it applies to all sorts of relationships besides marriage. Obviously there is friendship and other human relationships, but this is a world ruled by ‘experts’, and experts can be described as people who are loyal to one profession.
One can turn this around completely and say that a healthy relationship is based on common interest, and should not be forced to endure beyond the duration of that interest in any of the parties involved.
So, for example, I decide to explore weaving, say, and I know someone who has also taken an interest in weaving, or I know someone who is a weaver and who want an apprentice. I would make friends with one or more of these people and we would have a ‘meaningful’ relationship. In this case there is ‘substance’ and point to the relationship. It is not purely emotional = empty but feels good.
Often enough marriages hit the rocks when the children are old enough to fend for themselves, which suggests that the common interest did exist, and it was child-rearing. It would therefore be pointless, and even harmful, to try and endure that relationship into the future, to prolong it, when it has, in fact, died a natural death.
This is a view of life in which one sees everyone’s life as having purpose, meaning and direction. Every life is a story, and there are times when one person’s story overlaps, or runs parallel to, another person’s story, and at such times they can form a relationship (teacher/pupil, master/apprentice, friend/friend, boss/employee, husband/wife etc etc) which enhances, stimulates and energises both partners.
It seems to me that if you trust YOURSELF and put the urgings of your own mind, body and spirit before the dictates of others, then this is the place you will get to. And it really is a far more comfortable, interesting, fun, stress-free, FREE place to be.
All I have been saying applies as much to interests and professions as to people. I mean, when one finds one’s interest in some activity or field of study flagging, then one should recognise that it has died a perfectly natural death and that it is time to move on. The loss may only be temporary; things sometimes need to ‘over-winter’ in the mind, and if you allow them to do so you will, in time, find that spring arrives and you are full of new motivation, new energy and new ideas etc etc. If you do not let go you will be ‘flogging a dead horse’, and it will never get to its feet again, and you will never have the energy and enthusiasm, will always have to struggle to maintain your interest and keep working. It seems to me that it is highly un-natural and unhealthy to devote oneself single-mindedly to, say, music or physics or nursing or whatever for all of one’s life.
That’s not love, it sounds more like lust. Lust is exclusive, love is inclusive…drawing everything into it.