"They've got a cave troll"

Just finished watching LOTR for the billionth time. I still can't prevent myself from crying when Sam runs into the water at the end.

On Friday night I went to a total dive to watch Duke play some classic rock. I loved it. It brought home to me how I'm just not a "cool" person. Listening to the band play Burning Ring of Fire and the small, poorly dressed (except for the waitress whose luscious breasts were heaving forth from her top), drunken crowd yelling at the lead singer to take off his clothes - I felt at home. Rockin' good times. Not that I don't have fun at regular clubs, but sometimes the pretension can be a little too much for me at the popular clubs.

Speaking of pretension, my Pickle comes back to me tomorrow! I can't wait. Even though I'm really tired right now I just can't sleep because I keep thinking about him getting here. Which kind of brings back the whole question I brought up earlier about couples losing their single selves within a relationship.

And yes, I realize the concept of "self" is a tricky one. The few long term relationships I've had have actually made me disagree with the whole Zen idea that there is no self - not that I could argue this point well enough. Okay, let me rephrase, I think the concept of self is important to having a healthy relationship with a partner. Maybe the self is actually our connection to the universe or whatever, but that's a little too intangible for most people. The idea of the self is good because it is only in recognizing that we have a "self" that we can become conscious of having lost it. And whatever you want the "self" to mean, it's not good to lose it. Man, I'm sure anyone studying zen could kick my ass about this, but it's my blog so bite me.

I can't help but agree with Miss K. Lo's earlier statement that being with the one you love is simply the best way to spend your downtime. And I think in a healthy relationship, that's what spending time as a couple is all about. Miss K. Lo goes out and parties with the best of them when given a night off, so I don't think she's got anything to worry about. I feel sorry for those of you who haven't seen this girl get her groove on, actually. However, I've been given a few quotes from books about this, and I think they're worth contemplating. Even though I have a healthy relationship (and all the couples I know have healthy relationships! WooHoo! First time that's ever happened) and I do have a pretty firm grasp on my"self", I think it still behooves me to look at potential pitfalls...and since I'm looking at them, guess what??? Yep, you all have to look at them too.

"Unconscious cultural assumption: couples must be as one person with two heads; nothing is to be done without the approval of both parties; couples must present a common "front" to the world, lest it appear that something is "wrong". Result: facets of self not in common with partner wither and die; both become half-people with little but the other to invigorate them; both wonder what happened to the person they fell in love with... (Open Marriage, by George and Nena O'Neill)"

Well, since I don't really like doing what society expects of me, I don't think this really relates to me. I guess there are still a lot of people who care how the rest of society sees them. They must care so much that they'll lose their real selves in order to create a more convincing false image of themselves. Though I have gotten the "what happened to the girl I fell in love with" I agree with Kanga when she says this usually happens when the individuals change (and all people change, it's necessary) and the relationship doesn't change with them. This is one of the most difficult parts of long term relationships, because hopefully you grow and learn all your life and so your opinions and goals and outlook on life change, but sometimes the relationship doesn't grow in the same way and it's hard to tie the two together again. Maybe some people don't go out because they fear this change and they fear that it will end the relationship?

The whole diatribe about co-dependency: both partners depend on the other as the source of their vitality, resulting in eventually neither of them having any. (The Road Less Travelled, by M. Scott Peck)

Someone who isn't a whole person, who isn't conscious of their relationship to the universe, who isn't secure in their connection to the infinite source of energy must rely on other people as their source of energy. Thus they will wander around like a "C" (a half-circle) looking for another "C" to Complete them (form an "O"). They will fall in love and it will be beautiful, but eventually, because there is no external source of energy, it will become stagnant and the couple will start to compete (bicker, play subtle mind games) over control of the ever-dimishing pool of energy (cf. American foreign policy). They will break up, and go looking for another "C" to get back that loving feeling. Someone who's figured out how to be a whole "O" on their own can share their life with another "O" without having to depend on the other for energy, and so there's no need to manipulate, control, or otherwise limit that person to secure a source of vitality. The relationship with the partner without is an expression of the relationship with the divine within. (The much-maligned Celestine Prophecy, by James Redfield)

Much maligned or not, this makes sense to me. Learning that you are complete on your own is hard to do. A long process. Hopefully we know we're "O"s and the person we choose will encourage us to realize we are "O"s and only be useful in developing that individual "O"ness. But sometimes we choose a person in order to make us "O"s, because we don't think we can be one on our own. It's difficult to tell the difference about which choice we've made until...well until we dump the person and realize how unwhole we feel and how dependent we had become. Or when we dump them and realize how whole we feel without them, and figure out that we'd actually been feeling like "C"s for the last 5 and a half years... oops, was that too obvious a reference to my own past? Oh well.

And if you're wondering why I'm writing so much, it's because I know that once the job starts, my blogs will get a lot shorter and infinitly more boring. I'll just be complaining about students and my non airconditioned classroom.

With the Celestine Prophecy quote above I've decided the rest of the blog will be dedicated to getting your second wind while jobless. I've been jobless for an awful lot of my life, so I think I have some insight here. Joblessness can get you into funks. Highness is in one of those funks right now. Work is the way most people spend their days. We connect with society mostly through our work environment (coworkers, clients, dude at cafe who gives you your lunch, complaining with friends after hours) and when we don't work, it can be hard to feel like a part of the human community. We aren't producing anything that people pay us for, we aren't being productive. It feels a little isolating to say the least.

But I think time spent jobless is a great time to figure out how to connect with humanity on a level outside of the work sphere, to figure out how to feel productive in different ways. To see that we are all connected to the universe, not through our jobs, but through ourselves. Hopefully your individual quirks that you have to offer will be part of your jobs, but they exist and are valuable outside the job too! Figure out what those things are, do them, find a way to connect with the world around you without getting paid for it and I guarantee you'll get your second wind. How can you not be productive when you're reaching out to the universe?

Well, blog has made me sleepy. Tomorrow there will be much rejoicing,cuddling,talking,sex,sex,sex,eating,reading,moviewatching as us two "O"s cut ourselves off from society completely. What can I say? Sometimes it's a good thing.