LOVE AND RELATIONSHIPS
A LETTER FROM ZEUS
Now that Pandora’s box has been opened let’s look at this non-existent
thing called love that women crave and men battle to attain.
Are men absolutely crazy?
Do they battle for love? Have you ever heard of great battles being fought
for an undesirable female.
Is love then related only to the beautiful or is it pure fiction a product of the mind.
Both Jesus the Nazarene and Buddha spoke of Love.
Jesus said "love thy brother as thyself" and Buddha said that Benevolent Love was essential for the human creature.
Is this love the same as the young girl has who can’t bear the thought that she is not loved in return?
Does this love of Jesus and Buddha have connected with it suffering, jealousy, domination and possession?
Certainly not, so that cannot be what sages are talking about when they speak of love.
THE GREAT BARD HAD IT RIGHT
Shakespeare, that fine bard who understood human nature, so well declared:
"Love is the most beautiful of dreams and the worst of nightmares.”
And so it is.
Look at this marvelous sonnet of his called The desire of Death (Sonnet 147):
My love is as a fever, longing still
For that which longer nurseth the disease,
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
The uncertain sickly appetite to please.
My reason, the physician to my love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
Hath left me, and I desperate now approve
Desire is death, which physic did except.
Past cure I am, now reason is past care,
And frantic-mad with evermore unrest;
My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are,
At random from the truth vainly express'd;
For I have sworn thee fair and thought thee bright,
Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.
I like the statement in Act 1 of Much Ado About Nothing, when Beatrice declares:
“thank God and my cold blood… : I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me."
That indeed is a healthy spirit. A dog’s bark is real and a crow an irritation.
Who is it that can claim that Love is not also suffering. But in nature there is no suffering. Yet there is conflict, death and even pain, but no suffering.
Are not all men and women fools to accept an ounce of false happiness for a hundred pounds of suffering. The trouble is you see that the false happiness comes first and love is blind, completely blind.
It is not only blind to physical and mental defections, but blind to the true nature of natural affect.
O me! what eyes hath Love put in my head
Which have no correspondence with true sight;
Or, if they have, where is my judgment fled,
That censures falsely what they see aright?
If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,
What means the world to say it is not so?
If it be not, then love doth well denote
Love's eye is not so true as all men's: no,
How can it? O! how can Love's eye be true
That is so vexed with watching and with tears?
No marvel then, though I mistake my view;
The sun itself sees not, till heaven clears.
O cunning Love! with tears thou keep'st me blind,
Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find.
So here we have a problem with love. It completely blinds anyone to the faults that in one’s “true love” would in a sensible person be an impediment to getting together and staying together in the future.
But the fool afflicted with love does far worse than simply ignore the faults of the other, the victim actually invents qualities that the other does not possess.
DON QUIXOTE
Everyone sees the irony of the fantasies of Don Quixote de la Mancha and among other things his love for his Dulcinea of Toboso.
She is the muse of Alonso Quixano, who stepped into rusty armour put a beard tray on his head and become the immortal Don Quixote de la Mancha.
We never meet Dulcinea personally in Cervantes' book, for she only exists Don Quijote’s mind.
"Her name is Dulcinea, her kingdom, Toboso, which is in La Mancha, her condition must be that of princess, at the very least, for she is my queen and lady, and her beauty is supernatural, for in it one finds the reality of all the impossible."
Believing himself to be a knight, like most men actully do, he converts in his head a plump and homey peasant girl of his village into the magnificent Princess Dulcinea, as most men actually do.
Everything the feeble-minded human male creature does for the first seven years more o less is for her --his work, his home and every quest is made in her name. Until he finds out she has changed.
Of course she never really changed. Her mask is off, that is all.
Don Quijote was either smart or Cervantes saw him as smart, for the girl, Dulcinea, really called Aldonza Lorenzo, is utterly unaware of these events as the Don never speaks to her and loves her only from afar. If Aldonza had known she would probably have snatched him up.
If she had, poor Don Quijote would have thought that he was the chosen one. A great mistake, for all those Dulcineas out there can’t have the one they want.
They know that, so you my poor idiot are second or perhaps even third or fourth choice.
Laugh at the absurdity of the man in his romantic folly. Then laugh at yourself. You are trapped in the world of Dulcineas. Better it were that you jousting with windmills thinking them giants and entered into combat with the Knight of Mirrors, another delusion.
Anyway his life was better than your own trapped mundane existence, chasing success, possessions and one woman or more which you can never really possess.
Shakespeare and Cervantes were two writers of genius, perhaps the greatest of our times. Both understood the human psychology far better than the psychiatrists and psychologists and wrote of Love and its problems.
The former the depths of love’s despair and the other only the heights of its fantasy. The problem is that both are correct and the despair walks hand in hand with the fantasy.
Is then nature all awry? No, it is not.
There are two things here in conflict. One is the Identity of the mind. It is the Identity that sets the personal likes and dislikes which are based upon confusion, greed and aversion, three poisons for any human creature.
In conflict with this is the completely natural impulse to mate with someone.
Who are you going to choose? If you were a whole and complete liberated person you would listen to what nature tells you, for it is completely able to decide. And what is more, it does so correctly.
But the Identity gets in there and declares that she must be the best you can “obtain”. You have your particular dream, all set by you of course by the constant barrage of announcements in magazines, billboards and internet as well as the glamorous creatures in the films one sees.
Of course you have your limits so you set your eyes on the best one can do. But there are the negative factors too and so the internal dissonance is resolved by ignoring the “bad”, thus at least the natural impulse will be able to assert itself.
But you, poor stupid fellow, just look at today, not tomorrow. Your Identity desires and that is all that is important. Your Identity doesn’t think now of what will happen soon. The faults will begin to manifest themselves. Okay, so you made a mistake. What does your Identity do now? It begins to cry. Just as it began to cry if there was any chance that she would not choose you, you now cry because you were chosen. Was that bad luck or stupidity?
But at the same time, if she looks at someone else that is no good either, because your great act is exposed. You too are not what was presented in the courtship.
But she is yours, your possession. You have not exactly bought her, but she is a sort of investment. What else have you got? Now there is a problem, for all the faults you see in her don’t seem to be in many other women.
Poor fool, don’t you see that more flies are caught with honey than water? Anyway, what’s stopping you from leaving? The law for one thing and second the fact that you are probably feeling older and perhaps a little heavier and there are so many younger gallants around. And at least she is at home.
Yes, the little woman is waiting there eagerly for you to come home, with a hot meal and slippers. Or at least she was in the beginning.
Yes, my friend, that is what happens when you listen to Identity love.
If you had not been a fool you would have listened to nature’s voice. But nature has a different set of rules and they are not the same as the state and church have together generated for their own ends.
Come on, my friend. Why does she love you? Yes, why does she love you, who is unintelligent and sensitive in a way that she cannot appreciate. Do you know why she loves you? It is because she sees the raw material that can be moulded into precisely what her covetous Identity wishes.
You think that you are chasing her? Do you remember the song which says ”a man chases a girl until she catches him?” That is very cute, but also true.
Psychologically it appears, and you can ask yourself if it is true or not, that a woman matches herself to a man in the wish that he will change, and a man matches himself with the wish that she will not.
Both are in for suffering, for women change, and not for the better and men do not change. At least they do not change in any way that matches her expectations.
Do you know how long this love will last? The average is seven years. Why is that? It is nature's way of saying enough is enough. Now if you had gotten together with natural affect then things would be different, but Identity is fickle and the male eye is a roving eye.
The problem is that in the first instant there is great confusion in the human mind, because sensuality, sexuality, Identity courtship and a thirst for a relationship are mistaken for this love which does not exist.
ADAM AND EVE
Do you believe for a moment that Adam loved Eve or Eve loved Adam?
Not likely. God just put them together and said fornicate and beget children.
They did. Did they enjoy it? Probably not, because if they had God would probably have been pretty upset. Anyway, what choice did either have?
Do you ever wonder what would have happened if Adam had been gay? Or Eve infertile, for that matter? Supposing Adam's sperm count was low, what a catastrophe that would have been.
But God knew better than to let that happen, or perhaps it was not God at all, but the fact that there were no significant levels of radiation present, that he had not yet found the name and form of Cocaine or Marijuana, that the tobacco industry had not yet developed their products and there were few toxins or pesticidal chemicals (DDT, aldrin, dieldrin, PCPs, dioxins, and furans), plastic softening chemicals like Phthalates, hydrocarbons (ethylbenzene, benzene, toluene, and xylene) or anything at all polluting the environment.
Stress could have been a factor, but since Eve was the only woman around, emotional stress would have been minimal.
But there must have been natural affect, that is, a natural impulse of mutual attraction. No, not mental at all, just an impulse that nature engendered to allow them and all creatures to multiply and replenish the earth. Yes, that was natural.
Anyway Eve was not in love with Adam, that is sure, because she was not jealous or dominating. You may say that there were no women around to be jealous of, but that is not the point at all. A woman can be jealous of a shepherd spending more time with his sheep than her.
And with all that naming of every plant and animal that Adam had to do, it was certain he was not home much. But Adam had children and they had children until now as of June 16th at 19:44 GMT there are 6,522,595,586 of us and going up.
It makes no difference at all if Adam and Eve were legend or not, because there are still 6,522,596,294 of us.
Do you think I made a mistake? Oh no, my friend, in the last five minutes 708 more people were born than died, and certainly not through love.
They were born by desire or because it's warmer in bed than out in the cold.
Another factor of course is the female desire to have children.
For that she needs, at least for the moment, a man.
But any man won’t do, for she needs someone to be with at least until the children are old enough to be self-supporting, unless the state gives a hand.
In the old days that would have been about seven years, but today it's about 35 years, just enough to see each one through University and for each second child you can add a couple of years. If you are lucky then, you will be about 60, with only five years left to retire.
All that for love. There may be some stout-hearted women who go it alone, and why not, for really what are you worth. We are not talking about your wealth, but what you have really done with your life… Not much, that is certain. Why not? She has her excuse, she got married and sacrificed her future for you and her family. Now she is old and on the rocks and not fit for anything and you don’t love her and all you can do is sit around doing nothing, spending time with your other stupid friends talking politics and sport.
The longer you wait to have your one and a half children, the longer in the tooth you will be. She is right, of course. You fell in the trap of “being in love”, when you could have listened to a better voice inside from the true Force of Life.
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments.
Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark.
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering barque,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom,
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
Shakespeare was once again correct. Love is not Natural Affect.
Both men and women have allowed their minds to be trapped in the folly of relationships that cannot ever work due to the primordial impulses of sex and security. If man (and woman), instead of advancing with those impulses of intercourse, was tempered with true sensitivity, true discrimination, true perception and volition that was based upon natural wisdom and not the three poisons of Identity and had rejected Identity, they would today be living in harmony and balance.
They would not be chained to the same rules, but they would be free from Identity suffering due to gender differences.
Love does not exist. True affect free from Identity does.
RELATIONSHIPS
Everyone talks about their relationships. At least women do. Men don’t talk about them, but are as equally distressed because they don’t work. But why should they work at all? A relationship is between two people, two individuals, one a woman with a different mind and objectives that are generally alien to the man, and a man who really has few objectives apart from his libido and for the most part just wants things to be quiet and calm.
It is all very nice in the Bible saying that some day the lamb will lay down with the wolf, but lambs are pretty helpless and confused and wolves know precisely what they want.
In the human sphere of course the woman is more a fox than a wolf and the man a rabbit more than a lamb. Of course you know who wins in most situations.
The problem is men just don’t want to be involved with all those words and recriminations. He would rather say okay and let her do what she wants. There are times when he stands fast against arguments, pleas, emotional blackmail, tears and “the look”. You know about the look, don’t you? It says, "O-kay do what you want, and I will suffer silently."
If it was just suffering on her part it would not be that bad, but the suffering goes on and on and the look continues with the eloquent sighs of suffering self-sacrifice.
Why do you feel guilty? Because she is the weaker gender... What a great lie that is. She has all the arms and you are a blind target, a rabbit running in circles. You can win all the so-called theoretical arguments that you like, but when it is something important to her, who wins? She does or if she is clever, she wins and you believe that you have won.
Is it any wonder that relationships are a problem?
Do you know the time when most men remembered that they felt happy?
When they were in the forces with other men.
Sure, they wrote those letters and liked receiving them, but where did he laugh the most? Where did he enjoy relationships that were not gender-
soiled in the forces or in the fire service or the police or in any uniform where there were no women around.
Naturally now it is different. You have to watch what you say and do for fear of offence. But worst of all are the games that now come to the fore between your fellow men.
There is nothing better to destroy a nice group with camaraderie and good humour than the presence of a woman.
The only place a man is safe for at least a couple of hours is in team sports, athletics, tennis, golf and a few other exclusive sport areas where men and women do not compete. The all-male smoking clubs have gone along with all the good times and the silence. It isn’t that they want what you have, it’s just that they don’t want you to have it.
Do you realize that the only place where you are completely safe from woman is in the public toilets, and that is only because they have urinals?
But soon someone, a woman, will figure a way around that.
How is it humanly possible to obtain a silence when one of a pair wants to talk?
How is it possible to obtain simplicity when the other wants more of everything?
How is it possible to let the filthy dollar come in one door and not go out the back door when one of you wants to buy?
How many pairs of shoes do you have? Suits? Shirts? You are not even overloaded with underpants? I won’t ask about her dresses, skirts, trousers, suits, scarves, gloves panty hose, hats and more. I don’t have to because you know. She says that she buys them for you.
You may indeed remember some of them as they flash out the door as she goes to meet with her friends or march off to work. You have the same suit you have had for years and a thousand ties and socks to match. But probably the matching is not even really your idea.
Do you have a cell phone? Sure, why not. She probably does too. Did you ever compare the bills and separate out the legitimate work and business calls? But it is not all one way. She really has the house she wants, for the moment. You have the car you want. Very good, but think about that. Do you?
Would you not rather have an open top Ferrari or a mountain-going Discovery to get out in the country? What do you have? Why? Of course anyway you don’t have the wealth to buy one, do you. Where does all the money go? At least she is probably also working. But there is a small family rule I am sure you have noticed, though it is not always declared. What is yours is mine and what is mine is my own.
But not all women are tied to the same brush that is true. Some have their own broom, a witch's broom. Aha, you know about that. There was an interesting book written by John Gray entitled Men Are from Mars, Women from Venus: A Practical Guide for Improving Communication and Getting What You Want in Your Relationships.
But it is clear that the author was probably interested in selling his book, as most writers are, for the truth is while men are indeed from Mars, women are from far out there in some other Galaxy, and neither you nor her are here on Earth.
The problem is with the word “relationship” as it is applied to human relations between men and women. It is another impossible word like Love.
Looking back is one of the greatest of all enemies and the woman has a phenomenal memory for the details. She can remember the splash of egg on the shirt he wore when they met. He can’t remember when or where, unless he has been reminded on every anniversary. Anything that he has ever done wrong will be marked down in her memory to be used when appropriate.
We are lucky indeed that the keeper of heaven’s gate is not a woman, for it is sure that not a man would get through. Actually it would better if no men ever got through, for if heaven is filled with the women of great virtue, or at least those that have filled the churches and have been forgiven every once in a while, who wants to be there?
Can you imagine the music they will play on their harps? Of course. "Why is Mommy kissing Santa Claus" and a mass of love songs or laments by Sinatra or Crosby if they are older and the mush-like songs of younger handsome heartthrobs if they are not.
Actually nobody needs an intimate relationship. If two people are really as one, where is the relationship? Being together with someone is not like negotiating for the settlement of rights and goods. Neither is it , "you be all for me and I will be all for you". It is neither being “you” nor “me”. It is being one.
To be one, then individual Identity must go.
You have to be Adam again, before the serpent got in the picture.
Are you alone, even when you are with her? Are you alone even when you are with him?
There is even a difference in being lonely if you insist on being what your Identity says. He wants to be with someone for support and healing. She wants to be with someone that will hold her because physical closeness is comfort and security. For him togetherness is a mental closeness. Can the two never meet?
Under the present circumstances of your life it is unlikely, because there is really no basic idea within either to become really united.
WHY IS IT SO DIFFICULT?
We are a tribal animal and cannot even become a tribe of two. How absurd that is. Why is it so difficult?
First there is a deep mutual distrust. One cannot completely rely upon the other, the way they are thinking or the way they react. You are two persons with your own hidden desires and secrets. Indeed it is this unpredictability of the other’s behavior that causes this lack of confidence. But the root is Identity.
The question is always what is he, or she, doing for ME? Is he or she working for my best interest? You see there is no idea of unity whatsoever. Naturally there is a mutual mistrust. You do not know her. She does not know you. You never did. Identity was your initial judge and Identity, one way or another, is desire.
Strangely enough, the second most important factor in the agony of relationships is money. But it is not precisely the money itself which is the problem, but unemployment, the loss of a job or the lack of a present job and even the lack of progress in a job. The feeling once more is that your partner has let you down.
In other words, he or she is not doing her share. That, you see, is the same problem of being a judge of one another.
Does your left hand ever consider that the right hand is not doing its job?
This doing one’s share steps over into every aspect of life. It is a case of, “my part” and “your part”, not “our part”. There is no anarchist idea present in which both do the very best they can without recriminations.
There is between pairs a social contract which is open-ended and always changing depending on the whims and ideas of one or the other. What absolute stupidity. A social contract for natural unity? What does she do? Grumble and harp on your lack of oneness. She knows what a mistake she made, but she loved you once. What unadulterated poppycock.
What do you do, keep silent and note that things are not as they were. You too have made a mistake. Things would have been different if... if… if...
Third on the list of problems presented when questioned is the fact that each has different attitudes, different opinions, different beliefs and different likes and dislikes. But it is not that these are differences relevant to great issues. It seems that there are little points of agreement on even the most trivial things, like where to keep the keys to the car, where the dishes with the blue edge go, when the dishes have to be done and who does them, who is in charge of… etc... etc.
Begin the list today and in a couple of years you will still be writing and each difference, if there is any discussion about the issues, will evolve in accusations and counter accusations. You may shut up but she wants to go on and win. Why? Because she is correct. You don’t really give a damn who is correct. You just want peace. You can tell her to shut up, but today that is called mental abuse. You can shut up and walk away. That today is called mental cruelty. Probably it would have been better to not make the list, say nothing and suffer until you die and keep out of the way as long as possible, coming home for meals.
Of course, that doesn’t work either, for the meals aren’t what they used to be.
Anyway, she is correct. You don’t care about her or what she has to put up with all day. You certainly don’t appreciate her. But what is there really to appreciate? Of course it is not her fault. It is not yours either for that matter. What is the blasted fault then? The miserable identities of each one that demand their autonomy and if they can’t get it their pound of flesh...
That of course brings us logically to the next point of dissent, the future.
There is great uncertainty about what is going to happen.
It is bad enough now, how much worse will it get. How will it end up?
What can be done? He says, “Shit, she can have everything if it comes to that.”
She says, ”I’m not prepared and I’m older,” and of course there are the kids in the house under wing and foot until they are thirty. What a disaster.
The future for both is as barren as a dead snail. Neither wants to really split, but they don’t really suit each other either. What will they do? They will become bookends, supporting nothing in the middle except debts and children.
If you are one of them and are exceedingly lucky you will mimic Simon and Garfunkel. You will read yor Robert Frost and she her Emily Dickinson, glancing over one to the other occasionally, smiling gently and inside saying “shit”.
But the worst is the dishonesty and the lies. What is it that you don’t want the other to know about? It is not that you are having an affair with her best friend or that the single neighbor comes often to borrow a cup of sugar. That is for soap operas.
The problem is neither wants their secret life invaded. She has her romances in her head. You have yours. Both know that the other will laugh at the stupidity of the other and call it childish.
Then there are the little things that each does that the other is not to know about. What little things each buys with loose change. The sly beer, the tart with cream topping. What things are said to friends of like gender.
No it’s not the big lies that are the problem. They all come to the surface. The problem is the little lies which cover up the disagreeable differences and the clear lack of understanding of one and the other.
In other times the joke was that when a man encountered a young available chick and she asked if he was married, he said, “Yes, but my wife doesn’t understand me.” That made everything alright.
Today no-one asks who is married or with someone or not until it’s too late and who cares anyway. Alright, it is true. You don’t have the slightest idea what she is thinking about or what she is hiding from you and she has no idea what secrets you have.
And the problem is that both know that there are lies. So it is not the lying itself, it is the fact that the truth is not known. What fools we are.
Next in order of problems are the hassles and frustrations associated with domestic responsibilities. That is a terrible word is it not? Responsibilities! It sounds like a disease almost worse than measles or whooping cough. Well actually it is, and it can develop into the “black plague”.
Where did you catch it? First from your parents, it was aggravated by school, developed into an irritation by the church, festered in society and work, and became a full blown sore with pus and blood right in your home.
“You are not living up to your responsibilities”. Who said that?
What are those responsibilities? They are what she says they are. That is the first thing that you as man have to learn. What’s more, state, church and society will support her in that. Actually her friends will support her along with her parents. Actually your mother will also probably support her too, even if she doesn’t like her much, as she was never really right for you.
There are no responsibilities. Do cats and dogs have responsibilities? No. How about frogs and elephants, do they have responsibilities? Even thousands of years ago the saber tooth tiger and the mastodons didn’t have responsibilities.
But you, a modern, so-called intelligent and really sensitive man, have responsibilities.
Who makes them up? She does. What folly. But the tragedy is that she also makes them up for herself. She makes up so many responsibilities that she is loaded down with them. Then she says, “I have too many responsibilities”.
What are they? They are the children, the house, her parents and then you in that order of importance. Of course the house includes a thousand and one things so you are down on the bottom of the totem pole. But that is OK, for you are a responsibility to her because you don’t do what you should and are irresponsible, which brings you back to the top because you are to blame for the problem with the children and the house.
It is your great fortune that you are not responsible for her parents, unless of course she wants you to be. Ah yes, the other thing you are responsible for is her problems and the state of her life.
Really “responsibilities” is just a word. When you are a natural human creature without Identity then there are no responsibilities, you and she are doing things well without problems. Sure there are mistakes, but no responsibilities to burden the mind. The worst thing you are actually paradoxically responsible for however is installing a sense of responsibility in your children, when really you should be teaching them that "responsibilities" is just a word that describes things people talk about when no one is doing anything naturally.
Next in order comes the frustrations of making decisions about anything. If you were alone decisions would be no problem. You would decide and then if things went wrong correct the problem. You can do that, can’t you, with your self-assurance and confidence. And if something really goes wrong with a decision and there are problems you can’t correct then you can shrug it off and carry on learning for the next time. That is the way it is, isn’t it.
On the other hand, she believes that she has to make decisions which are correct, not frequently but every time. It is not her fault, when you were in school learning to be irresponsible, she was learning not only to be responsible but to do things correctly.
Boys are useless, little girls do things right. Wasn’t that the case? Girls do their homework correctly (of course there are some girls with a boy’s mind) and make correct decisions about everything, otherwise they are “bad” girls. Boys are bad anyway, so they don’t count. So girls learn a helplessness in the face of decisions.
They are either now completely at a loss, because they feel inadequate or insist that correct decisions must be made. So how can the two of you ever get together on any decision? She can leave it up to you and then you will hear about being wrong for the next twenty years. If you leave it up to her, if it goes well you are a turd, and if it goes bad you are a turd. If you try talking about it the criteria are never agreed upon, the way of thinking about the problem is different and each has his or her own objectives and views.
She may ask her friends and together they can make the wrong decision collectively. You won’t ask your friends because you will lose face, or if you do ask them you will ignore them. Examine those thousands of decisions, my friend, and see that there is only one that you have to make.
To change and be a natural human creature, throwing out Identity, or be an Identity slave for the rest of your life.
Next comes the problem of intimate relationships. Let’s face it, men are not and never have been a one-woman creature and women are and must by their nature pair with the very best male available.
She thought that that was you. Which only goes to prove what errors Identity can make. So if your eyes are everywhere looking for sex then why are you settling for one? That is easy. In prehistoric times there was only one best and he had all the women. The other males fought for the leftovers. Your forefathers were among that group that relied on leftovers and most of the time they were sexually frustrated and starved.
The women had a problem too, for at the slightest whim it was “off with her head”, or she was shifted down 200 places to the bottom of the line or kicked out for the inferior men to feast on.
Of course she fought for first place with the great hope that her security would be assured through having her son next in charge when he managed to destroy his father, perhaps with her help.
But unfortunately that wasn’t what generally happened.
But eventually with their skill they, the other sex, found a way out, they managed to limit the number of women for the chief. The rest were paired off and everybody was apparently happy including the budding wizards and the growing state of democracy.
But she still really wants the chief wherever he is, yes, that knight in blue shining armor with a sheathed sword and a bunch of roses in his hands (red of course) is waiting to tell her she is first and foremost and that her sons (and daughters) will live happy ever after.
Meanwhile you look at her and remember how it was.
Actually you don’t actually remember, but your system does.
Do you have a princess in mind?
No, any princess will do, but preferably one you can take out of the closet and turn on the switch and then put it away again when you are tired.
Of course she has to have several available programs: sexy, servant, supporter and nurse when you need one. The program is set of course to the mode of obedient and silent.
But my friend, the list of problems in relationships is not yet done. Past, present and future educational status is a problem. It is not that she is more intelligent than you in your eyes, but she wants to outdata you. What you hate is to see a certificate of hers on the wall with some sort of attainment. All you can put on the wall is your birth certificate, a prize you got for being the best bunny in a masquerade ball and your military honorable discharge if you were there in that bunch.
She wants a proper certificate. How do you feel, chum? Is the word inadequate appropriate
On the other hand perhaps you went to Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, Cornell, MIT, Stanford or Berkeley and now she wants one too. What for?
You know really how useless your degrees are.
If it wasn’t for the social thing they wouldn’t even be good as toilet paper.
So now she wants to spend money and be more educated. You try to tell her that Florence Nightingale was better than Fleming and Freud. Then she reminds you of the Curies.
Then you say, “we don’t need the money”, when you really do. She says, “you know it’s not that, I just want to grow.” She looks at you as if you have not grown, which is certainly true. You shrug your shoulders because you know you can’t win. Then she strikes the final decimating blow to your masculinity. “I want to be somebody and help other people.” She wants to help other people and she can’t even help herself. Shit.
Next come the recriminations and comparisons. You come home and find her with the old album out. You know the one. It has the old photos of her before she made the great mistake. This is the album with all her old beaus in. There is one with Harry in it. He’s the one who is a famous brain surgeon, then there’s Charles who is vice director in line with Bill Gates. Harry Phipps is also there. You remember him he was second in the Mister America finals. Then there is Chester, who is the very best hairdresser in San Francisco. You remember the last time you looked over her shoulder and said that he was probably gay.
That was a mistake. Actually what you do is go forward and look over her shoulder trying to appear to be interested, while looking and the young chicks who are also in the picture. But don’t ask who they are, because she will tell you she doesn’t know, that she is a bitch, that she is married with four kids or that she is a prostitute in Miami because her husband left her without a brass nickel with three kids to support.
So say nothing, my friend, and let her do all the comparing she wants.You on the other hand know better than to bring to light any of the names of your old flames. Certainly you don’t have photos. They were all torn up in a rage shortly after you got together and showed her a photo of Raquel Welch that you knew in San Diego State when you were a student there.
She looked for your treasure trove and found it.
You had to assume the pose that they meant nothing to you.
Nevertheless somehow she knows about all of them and their faults or else she will clearly say, “I don’t know what you saw in her.” Actually she was the most beautiful chick you ever went out with. Her other ploy is to say, “Hmmm, I don’t know what she could have seen in you.” Brother you cannot win.
You can’t even talk about it, for the next problem is Communication. There is none and when there is it is one-sided. You know who will be doing the talking and who will be doing the listening. Communication is used to win arguments, that is the way it is. You can’t win so say nothing. You may try telling her that communicating is just letting the other know how you feel.
She will say “I know how you feel, but you don’t know or care how I feel.”
You try to say that communication is not about feelings. That is a mistake, because it is certain that you will hear that that is because you don’t have any.
Then you will hear the list of all the things that you don’t care about. That is communication.
Talking is also in this world communication. But what do you talk about?
She knows nothing about sports or politics except that she likes Bill Clinton for his looks, or hates Bill Clinton for his morality. She doesn’t need to know if he is a Republican or Democrat, because they are all the same. Finally that is something that you can agree on.
Actually communication doesn’t exist, because that is just a word.
Communication only exists when there is a lack of it.
Otherwise there is natural interaction at all levels with and without words.
The next problem in relationships of importance is the idea that one is not receiving enough attention from one’s partner. Now what attention do you need? Really comfort is what your attention is all about.
Your house is at least theoretically your castle. What a nice idea, but it has been quite some time since his home was a man’s castle. It went through a time when a man had his “den”. Hardly a castle, but it was at least somewhere where he could put his feet on the table, leave a few things in a mess and generally feel like a lion king at least. He could enter with his pipe and slippers and with a good book relax.
She had the kitchen, and of course the rest of the house. The garden was yours if it was grass, but you had to cut it. Flowers were hers, but you had to plant them. Vegetables if there was space was your territory. But it was pretty peaceful for all that because you were there somewhere. But if you are not somewhere near then where are you?
That is the question. You are not with her. She measures the time and decides eventually that you are not with her enough. That enough means physically. You see, your time is hers. She can say which part, after the work and duty part is sectioned out. It is interesting, is it not, that when you are present you are a problem, but when you are not there and you should be you are also a problem.
Do you, the man of the house (when there is an external problem) feel her absence? Yes you do. Why? Because she is not with you. Now you would assume that if there are two people who feel neglected when their partner is not with them enough would be “together“ when they are together. But that is not the case. You see it is not that either wants the other to be there. Each just wants the other to not be somewhere else.
Doesn’t that seem a little mad to you? But then everything that men and women do under the spell of Identity madness is insane.
But being there means for her that you have to be available to listen… really listen to what she is saying. Which you never can do, because you understand hardly anything that goes on in her head.
Science tells you that the brain of a dinosaur was about the size of a walnut. Sometimes you think that there was a mix-up somewhere.
That is the size of her brain, yet all those words can come out of that little thing.
You would at least thing that she would be there for you. You don’t need a brain for that. All that she has to do is listen and do what you want. “Bring me a beer, love”. Does he think that she has nothing better to do than bring that lazy fart a beer? She will, of course, thinking all the while that he should get it himself.
“Honey, (and the voice is sweet) I need you for a minute."
Does she really think it is easy to get up from watching a game on TV, to do something stupid like stop the tea from boiling over while she is making sandwiches?
Finally there are the everyday hassles and problems that persons deal with every day. It is surprising that children, if they are free from grave problems, are seldom a major issue except as part of this concept of daily hassles.
But the problem is that children are often weapons of warfare, and you know who owns the children...
Actually nobody owns children, but there have been a mother and a father.
Presumably you are the father, but that means little, because you did little except plant a sperm. She did the rest and until science permits man to have children without women you will continue to be a second-class citizen in this respect.
She knows what is best for them. Your responsibility is to pay and be a good father.
But what is a good father? That is where many hassles begin. Who sets the standards and rules? You? What a laugh that is. There was an old program in TV called Father Knows Best, but in reality you know who knows best, she and her mother. Yes, it is a pity to bring her mother into the conversation, but there it is.
Of course it is important to be a good father and a good mother. But do you believe for a moment that you or her know better than your true nature what that is? If the Identity gets in, you will both make a hash of it and really the hassles only show that.
The sad truth is that men and women can live in a sane relationship without living on separate islands with a small rowboat as the only access to either. Yes, two can not only meet but meld.
But don’t talk about proper communication and how to get what you want. Listen to the healthy voice of your true nature inside. If you do that, then a relationship will not need to exist.
It will be.