People create the futures they inhabit. If you know a person to be dissatisfied in later life, it is rational to consider their earlier behaviors and decisions which led up to that point.
I always contemplate sexuality, and while the last few years of my life have led me to a few epiphanies in that regard, they've also lead me to a few big questions that I'm still trying to answer. For instance: is it actually possible to compartmentalize sexuality, and interact with it at a purely physical and/or egotistical level? My experiences and instincts, as well as my ponderings on the matter, have thus far convinced me that it is not. So far, the only pressure to subscribe to that belief comes from the fact that many people already believe it; it's a simple matter of environmentally-precipitated trends intersecting with peer pressure and monkey-see-monkey-do. In actuality, I think sexuality is an inseparable dimension of any person's overall self; it is intrinsically connected to all the other elements, just as they are all connected to each other both individually and as a unified idea. People can absolutely hide those other ingredients temporarily when, for whatever reason, the desire arises to have a completely superficial experience seemingly free of risk, exposure, danger, surprise - and when two people have that same goal, the interaction can feel light and uncomplicated... but I don't believe it ever actually is. My observations have led me to conclude that every one of these interactions creates cognitive dissonance, a clash of the instinct with the intellect, and that only one of two results seem possible: either the dissonance will become so severe that the subconscious eventually has to take action and implement a series of irrational behaviors or beliefs to obscure it somewhat permanently, or else it may serve as a catalyst for an epiphany of self that leads to a change in the inciting behavior and in the associated perspective.
I always contemplate sexuality, and while the last few years of my life have led me to a few epiphanies in that regard, they've also lead me to a few big questions that I'm still trying to answer. For instance: is it actually possible to compartmentalize sexuality, and interact with it at a purely physical and/or egotistical level? My experiences and instincts, as well as my ponderings on the matter, have thus far convinced me that it is not. So far, the only pressure to subscribe to that belief comes from the fact that many people already believe it; it's a simple matter of environmentally-precipitated trends intersecting with peer pressure and monkey-see-monkey-do. In actuality, I think sexuality is an inseparable dimension of any person's overall self; it is intrinsically connected to all the other elements, just as they are all connected to each other both individually and as a unified idea. People can absolutely hide those other ingredients temporarily when, for whatever reason, the desire arises to have a completely superficial experience seemingly free of risk, exposure, danger, surprise - and when two people have that same goal, the interaction can feel light and uncomplicated... but I don't believe it ever actually is. My observations have led me to conclude that every one of these interactions creates cognitive dissonance, a clash of the instinct with the intellect, and that only one of two results seem possible: either the dissonance will become so severe that the subconscious eventually has to take action and implement a series of irrational behaviors or beliefs to obscure it somewhat permanently, or else it may serve as a catalyst for an epiphany of self that leads to a change in the inciting behavior and in the associated perspective.
It saddens me to see so many people still stuck in the former, even very late into their lives.
It strikes me as unnatural and very contrived that many (if not most) men and women interact with the notion of sex as if it were simply an activity - a physical pursuit for entertainment, pleasure, etc., much the same way as football, knitting, cooking, or hiking. In fact, sex is a fundamental expression of a person's individuality and identity on both a conscious and biological level, and every interaction with it is significant somehow. I went through a very brief phase where, not wanting to succumb to intellectual arrogance, I allowed myself to approach sex through a simpler, more limited perspective. The common term for it is, I believe, "casual sex," or sex outside the context of any other sort of relationship. The result for me in every instance was that I felt that I was being both lied to and taken advantage of, while committing the same offense myself at the same time... but all in a context of mutual denial - so the experience was governed by a silent, mutual expectation that the other would simply accept their implicit resulting wound and proceed as if it didn't exist - as if denying it would cancel its eventual effect on the psyche.
I was aware that there was something fundamentally wrong about the interactions I was having, and at the time, that made it all the more confusing and frustrating to see my partners seemingly so immersed in it - relishing it, or at least believing that they were. At the same time, I could clearly feel that very awareness exerting tremendous pressure on me to emulate the experience that my partners were having: to close off my mind to the reality of what was happening beneath my physical self; to feign ignorance of the past and pretend there was no such thing as future; to allow myself only to experience this distraction passively, rather than fully comprehend it; to be in the moment - but only in a specific part of it. I was unable to achieve those feats of self-deception, but in the interests of preserving my experimental integrity, I was able to at least reciprocate their physical pleasure and behave as if it were the only factor or product of our intimacy as was the expectation. On the surface, I maintained the illusion of belief in the superficiality of our encounters. I learned much from it, though the knowledge was not without its price.
At one point I simply had an epiphany that snapped me out of my experiment: I realized that, while I thought I had no idea what my partners' internal responses (ooh, pun!) were to our casual interactions after they'd occurred, I had in fact been witness to those exact responses as a third party for my entire adult life. Nearly every woman I know has had one or several experiences with men who have never followed up with them after having "simply" had sex. The male friends I used to have earlier in life had experienced the same disappointment. Even when that was exactly their expectation going into these encounters, the result was always—on some level, somehow—still sincerely unexpected; there was a type of innocent shock and disbelief at the core of their frustration when they realized, often repeatedly, that yes - people actually do that. What they neglected to accept was the fact that all people can do that, including themselves. Irrational beliefs are almost always preempted by psychologically damaging experiences, and that first shattered innocence was exactly the trauma that was needed for further belief in the idea of "casual" intimacy to parasitize them and begin growing.
I saw the familiar falseness of theism in the eyes of the women I was with during this time. Our sex was their god, and they truly followed blindly. They had lost their conscious connection to this part of their reality, and they were attempting to recreate the closest approximation in its absence. They were lying to themselves and believing it, because the lie was complex and dynamic; it could expand to address and encompass new questions as they arose. It was distracting, too - as both pleasure and pain tend to be, drawing attention away from the ideas above and below them, the ideas that created them. The experience almost entirely obscured the reason for the experience. What could have been a lesson was lost in the semantics of hedonism, as is often true in human society today - not just in the case of this particular aspect.
What I think most people fail to consider is that, when they all return to their regular lives after this sort of encounter, they all feel exactly the same way... there's just no connection to facilitate the expression of that mutual pain, and so it's written off or chalked up to insecurity or traditionalism or closed-mindedness - when in reality it's just an absence of awareness that their hurt is universal. That reality is the staple of all psychological analyses of trauma victims, (which I have studied extensively), so I can only conclude that I missed such an obvious hint due to my proximity to the source of the conflict. Eventually, I realized that these people had become so desperate for connection that they were willing to pretend one existed... just to be reminded of what physical affection could be.
I'm still not sure I've gotten over that, completely. I feel like I should mourn for them, but it also bothers me that their actions perpetuate a type of sadness and disconnection that is already far too prevalent in the world. It really bothers me that I allowed myself to buy into it, even temporarily - even experimentally. I even sometimes wonder, still, a couple of years later, if my sexual psychology might have been permanently damaged by the experience, and I worry that I might bring it into a future relationship if so. I expect that the experience has a similar effect on everyone once they can look at it objectively, so I do know that I shouldn't worry - but still... it was unsettling.
The questions I find myself asking now are, among others, these: how much is reasonable to expect of another human being? How well must a person know him or herself before I should take them seriously when they claim to be "honest?" And, most important of them all: can I ever really trust somebody who either can't or won't both ask these questions of themselves and commit to answering them at any cost?
It strikes me as unnatural and very contrived that many (if not most) men and women interact with the notion of sex as if it were simply an activity - a physical pursuit for entertainment, pleasure, etc., much the same way as football, knitting, cooking, or hiking. In fact, sex is a fundamental expression of a person's individuality and identity on both a conscious and biological level, and every interaction with it is significant somehow. I went through a very brief phase where, not wanting to succumb to intellectual arrogance, I allowed myself to approach sex through a simpler, more limited perspective. The common term for it is, I believe, "casual sex," or sex outside the context of any other sort of relationship. The result for me in every instance was that I felt that I was being both lied to and taken advantage of, while committing the same offense myself at the same time... but all in a context of mutual denial - so the experience was governed by a silent, mutual expectation that the other would simply accept their implicit resulting wound and proceed as if it didn't exist - as if denying it would cancel its eventual effect on the psyche.
I was aware that there was something fundamentally wrong about the interactions I was having, and at the time, that made it all the more confusing and frustrating to see my partners seemingly so immersed in it - relishing it, or at least believing that they were. At the same time, I could clearly feel that very awareness exerting tremendous pressure on me to emulate the experience that my partners were having: to close off my mind to the reality of what was happening beneath my physical self; to feign ignorance of the past and pretend there was no such thing as future; to allow myself only to experience this distraction passively, rather than fully comprehend it; to be in the moment - but only in a specific part of it. I was unable to achieve those feats of self-deception, but in the interests of preserving my experimental integrity, I was able to at least reciprocate their physical pleasure and behave as if it were the only factor or product of our intimacy as was the expectation. On the surface, I maintained the illusion of belief in the superficiality of our encounters. I learned much from it, though the knowledge was not without its price.
At one point I simply had an epiphany that snapped me out of my experiment: I realized that, while I thought I had no idea what my partners' internal responses (ooh, pun!) were to our casual interactions after they'd occurred, I had in fact been witness to those exact responses as a third party for my entire adult life. Nearly every woman I know has had one or several experiences with men who have never followed up with them after having "simply" had sex. The male friends I used to have earlier in life had experienced the same disappointment. Even when that was exactly their expectation going into these encounters, the result was always—on some level, somehow—still sincerely unexpected; there was a type of innocent shock and disbelief at the core of their frustration when they realized, often repeatedly, that yes - people actually do that. What they neglected to accept was the fact that all people can do that, including themselves. Irrational beliefs are almost always preempted by psychologically damaging experiences, and that first shattered innocence was exactly the trauma that was needed for further belief in the idea of "casual" intimacy to parasitize them and begin growing.
I saw the familiar falseness of theism in the eyes of the women I was with during this time. Our sex was their god, and they truly followed blindly. They had lost their conscious connection to this part of their reality, and they were attempting to recreate the closest approximation in its absence. They were lying to themselves and believing it, because the lie was complex and dynamic; it could expand to address and encompass new questions as they arose. It was distracting, too - as both pleasure and pain tend to be, drawing attention away from the ideas above and below them, the ideas that created them. The experience almost entirely obscured the reason for the experience. What could have been a lesson was lost in the semantics of hedonism, as is often true in human society today - not just in the case of this particular aspect.
What I think most people fail to consider is that, when they all return to their regular lives after this sort of encounter, they all feel exactly the same way... there's just no connection to facilitate the expression of that mutual pain, and so it's written off or chalked up to insecurity or traditionalism or closed-mindedness - when in reality it's just an absence of awareness that their hurt is universal. That reality is the staple of all psychological analyses of trauma victims, (which I have studied extensively), so I can only conclude that I missed such an obvious hint due to my proximity to the source of the conflict. Eventually, I realized that these people had become so desperate for connection that they were willing to pretend one existed... just to be reminded of what physical affection could be.
I'm still not sure I've gotten over that, completely. I feel like I should mourn for them, but it also bothers me that their actions perpetuate a type of sadness and disconnection that is already far too prevalent in the world. It really bothers me that I allowed myself to buy into it, even temporarily - even experimentally. I even sometimes wonder, still, a couple of years later, if my sexual psychology might have been permanently damaged by the experience, and I worry that I might bring it into a future relationship if so. I expect that the experience has a similar effect on everyone once they can look at it objectively, so I do know that I shouldn't worry - but still... it was unsettling.
The questions I find myself asking now are, among others, these: how much is reasonable to expect of another human being? How well must a person know him or herself before I should take them seriously when they claim to be "honest?" And, most important of them all: can I ever really trust somebody who either can't or won't both ask these questions of themselves and commit to answering them at any cost?
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