Acceptance

The theme of the past few weeks continues, about love and relationships. This time with complete bluntness and honesty - about what we want, our values and that "fuzzy" feeling called love.

Acceptance
I recently shared a book with my ex, for the sole purpose of sharing extremely good prose and writing that don't occur often in literature. I've always admired short but brilliant writing, and I wanted to discuss some of the book's thoughts with him, given how we've both survived our break-up to remain as friends.

Perhaps what my heart wanted to do that my mind had to catch up to, was that I was looking for acceptance. I wanted him to accept that my ideas, thoughts, feelings about the book, to have co-passion about those ideas and find that connection that one can only obtain from shared insight.

I was looking for someone to accept who I am, how I thought, and I cared that someone who once loved me would at least understand some of my passions about the main thesis of the book. I cared that he approved of my tastes, about my braininess. I still yearned for his judgement.

I stopped.

And walked away mentally from that space.

I didn't need him to love the book, and indeed he felt it was simply about 2 incompatible lovers. I felt remorse that his interpretation of the author's complex thesis was as such, at the sake time he probably begrudge that "as usual", I read too much into the text. It reaffirms how much we do not give way to each other. We both wanted the other to change into what we both felt was best for the person. We didn't love, we didn't have our freedoms to express our inner-most vulnerabilities because we were too busy telling each other what was best to do.

It's my fatal flaw, that pride and ego, that over-confidence in my own thoughts that I am the best person that knows what's going on. We love because we accept that part of the other who is not perfect, we come to realise our own imperfections are no larger or worse, just different and it's okay. We are all human, and find resonance and dissonance in different things. Beethoven have already shown us how dissonance is beautiful, and diminished 7ths, are no uglier than perfect 5ths.

Ironically enough, my very attempt to seek approval from my ex about the book, is the very thing that draws me further away from him.

Being judged positively, to be placed on a pedestal, is as pathological as being judged negatively. Both represent 2 sides of the same coin. It is the positive expression of ego, it places people in an impossible space, that constant fear of disappointing you. They try harder, it becomes extremely stressful, extremely soul-ripping because humans are not meant to be Gods. We find mutual company in the mundane weakness of our peers. They may have fucked up lives, and some more fucked up than most, but nevertheless, we are all cut from the same cloth. A lover, once saw me as a god-sent, this unique individual, worshiped the ground I walked on. As flattering as it is, it also felt extremely lonely. You are not walking with a person on this journey. You're walking on top of that carpet they have laid down with their innards, flesh, heart, blood....

That devotion is stiffling, and it also starts from the "I". I feel you're too good for me, I feel you are my only, only YOU understand ME. It's equally toxic, and phrased in certain contexts these words become poison. I don't want to be worshiped, I want to be pinned under, with the weight my partner's flaws, insecurities and dreams.

God or dog, acceptance is something that is increasingly lost in the ego-centric world. A friend once told me my values are old, archaic, even extinct. I don't disagree, and I am actually now more okay that I may never find someone who shares these values.

Yet interestingly when I talk to people, we all want these for ourselves, and distract ourselves with so much frivolity, fringe benefits that we forgot at the core of what we want that is Love. So if this is what we want, why don't we be more honest with ourselves and pursue the very thing that is important to us. We complain incessantly, yet have no moral courage to do what we want because we want someone to blame for the speed bumps that come up later. We'd rather hate our partners when we're 45 for not being the partner we want, than to do something now.

This sense of accountability is also an acceptance that we are fallible, to accept that we have to face to consequences of our actions. That everything we do has repercussions of our lives and those around us. We need to take blame for our choices, as much as forgive ourselves for circumstances we could not have controlled. Self-blame, the "oh it's all my fault" is equally egoistical as blaming everything else. It proves that we assume everything was under our control in the first place. Many times the illusion of control is really, it's not.

Perhaps to love ourselves, starts by first removing any judgement that is directed inward, to remove all barriers called lies and comforting "self-talk". To be brutally honest with ourselves, find ways to change those we can change, and let go of things that we cannot. Perhaps when we drop impossible standards held to ourselves, can we come to accept and later love.