Over the past few days I've seen a lot of stories about heartache and loneliness mostly from men so I feel the need to say something about this...Yes others can make you extremely happy, and show you emotions you didn't even realize existed...
However there is a romantic narrative in our culture that tells us we can never be complete, or feel wholeness without an ideal romantic partner. This narrative goes on to say that attaining this goal is the hero's task, usually it falls to the male protagonist to overcome the initial reluctance of the idealized woman. Perhaps because in this culture, the one place its considered ok to be vulnerable for a man is with his lover... not with his friends or at the workplace, or in public. This narrative is a false dream, and if you don't reject it you will find happiness fleeting and difficult to sustain.
The key is self-love, and gaining that is your hero's task... finding ways to love and nurture yourself in an era when everything in society is telling you that you are not enough, is truly a Herculean endeavor. Know that your task is difficult, and that it might even be easier to fulfill the false promise of the sexual/emotional cop-out of making a lover responsible for your sense of well-being... however not only is this unfair to her and does not respect her journey... but it wont work without self-love. The only one who can fill the void is you, and when you look closely enough at the w(hole) you will see yourself smiling back at you.
I'm not saying you shouldn't find lovers or pursue relationships, by all means you should, but understand that they cannot bear a responsibility which is ultimately your own. If you have trouble imagining this simply imagine the situation is reversed, and someone is depending entirely on you for a sense of well being. Even if you truly love that person it is a huge responsibility, especially when you are trying to take care of your own life!
What if you didn't really know that person well and you felt they were making you responsible for their happiness, hanging on your every word, action, expression? What if you felt nothing for that person, and they clung to you like a lifeboat that would save them from drowning in despair. I know that for many of you who feel this loneliness that this is how you approach relationships, as the one who is drowning. I know because I have been there, and I want to tell you that there is a better way. You feel trapped by your loneliness, looking around up and down and all around for the answers your culture has told you are there, but which slip through your grasp; no matter whom you sleep with, or how good-looking you decide you’ve become. Whether you sit in loneliness at home or go out and have one-night stands, or stay with someone who is “good enough” ... but the answers to your internal state do not lie without.
All that lies without is a reflection of that which lies within. The romantic troubles you keep having, the feelings you have of being trapped by your loneliness are accurate. But you do not see the reason you have been trapped, you are trapped from without, to force you to look within.
It may seem cruel to force you to gain understanding in this way. But this kind of understanding is actually natural for us; it is the culture that pervades our existence which is cruel. It is cruel to say to someone that their right to love and happiness lies with a disinterested party whom they must convince of their worthiness. It’s cruel to preach justice and fail to serve it. It’s cruel to poison in the name of health. It’s cruel to pretend to externalize costs in a closed system. It’s cruel to preach tolerance and embody separation. It’s cruel to hoard abundance that is crying out to be shared. It’s cruel to work you, train you, bend you, break you, to serve ideas that don’t really serve anyone.
Think of this life as a crucible for your spirit. Where the pressures of such cruelties and wrong thinking prevalent in our culture force you to confront and release your impurities, burning or melting them away. For some of you, this impurity is a self-imposed loneliness, which is at a deep level, a separation from self. You don’t need to forget her, or win him back. You need to remember yourself, the deepest parts of you are cheering you on, and they want you to win yourself back!
ANDREW HAKOMAKI GRANGER
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