Your Redemption Doesn’t Come Easy
Moments roll by when I wish I could have someone else’s life. I don’t mean that I am envious of wealth, looks, or general good fortune. I mean that I wish I could be entirely enveloped by another. The idea of being a part of a larger whole. No, more than that, being part of a whole suggests that there are elements of heterogeneity remaining. I want to be subsumed entirely and not just so that I become indivisible where my parts are evenly distributed amongst the whole, but entirely non-existent.
I just think that sometimes, life would be just, easier. No decisions, no effort, things would just be. The other side, wherein I am, I am not. However, the logical, well-educated, well-read me knows that the I not is impossible.
There are those who actively strive for the I not. I’ve read the blogs of mostly women and a few men who are living a life of I not. Or rather, attempt to live a life of I not. I read with gluttonous rapture, like wild dogs cleaving meat from a dead carcass, trying to understand both psychologically and spiritually how some can be not just subordinates but properly subjugated.
These blogs retell with bravado and glory the extent to which they are not. They revel in the degree of nothingness they are able to attain. Accordingly, I know that Truth (with a capital T) seems to have very little interference with these blogs. The reality of surrendering control to another looks great on paper but lots of things look great on paper (Tara Reid, I’m looking at you). Also, so many of these bloggers seem so entirely damaged in a way that therapy and sedatives will never cure what ails them that I doubt they could be what they say they are and not then require a trip to Bellvue for a frontal lobe retune.
Whether the accounts are true or not, just as the moment came upon me in which I wish for the complete relinquishing of control, the next hairline fracture of a second rolls on and I realize that I am too much my own person to ever fall so entirely into a someone else.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 09/20 at 09:46 PM
“Moments roll by when I wish I could have someone else’s life. I don’t mean that I am envious of wealth, looks, or general good fortune. I mean that I wish I could be entirely enveloped by another. The idea of being a part of a larger whole. No, more than that, being part of a whole suggests that there are elements of heterogeneity remaining. I want to be subsumed entirely and not just so that I become indivisible where my parts are evenly distributed amongst the whole, but entirely non-existent.”
Isn’t that called marriage?
Posted by
DQ on 09/21 at 10:27 AM
Only when the marriage has gone terribly wrong.
Marriage should be a unification not an homogenizing solution.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 09/22 at 04:58 AM
To me, the idea of marriage IS horribly wrong. I don’t want unification with someone - then they’ll be linked to all the ugly things that I don’t like about myself.
Posted by
DQ on 09/22 at 10:21 AM
oh DQ, you seem to be referring to your avoidance of relationships in general, not just the vague concept of marriage (it IS just a word, a representation of something, not a thing in and of itself - look up “how to do things with words” - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._L._Austin) :)
SG - responsibility of the self is a pain in the ass. the easiest thing to be in the world is a sheep, but that’s only if you have no concept that you ARE in fact one of those sheep. once you become one of those people who have the perspective from beyond, well, you’re fucked. lovely ain’t it? i know what it feels like to want freedom from that. i also know i’d never have the patience for it. bleh.
i’d write more but someone’s snoring is distracting me… ;)
Posted by
lividia on 09/23 at 04:39 PM
The fact that I’m not in a relationship is more testament to my inability to find one, rather than my avoidance of one. And if marriage be just a word, then that’s all the more reason not to join such an institution. Imagine living in a society that places economic and social advantage in the hands of those following the dictates of an empty word. That could be the reason that people do smother each other in marriage - because they are chasing an empty idea.
Posted by
DQ on 09/24 at 11:09 AM
Indeed people who smother each other in marriage may be chasing an empty idea, but people who shoot, stab, bludgeon, gas, shock, and burn each other in marriage are usually chasing other things, like maybe insurance proceeds.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 09/25 at 07:50 AM
Whoa-
okay DQ…“they’ll be linked to all the ugly things that I don’t like about myself”
Some of those ugly things that you don’t like about yourself are some of the things that attract us (girls) to you (boys). I know that doesn’t make sense, but what I really mean is that you are harder on yourself and catalogue your faults differently than your partner. The adage that no one is perfect rings true here and honestly, knowing what I know about you, your perceived bad habits are a cake walk when compared to so many of the men I dated in the previous year.
Also, um, maybe a little less Drama and Whine with your posts. This is merely a friendly e-slap upside the head. You are not the scary beast that lives in darkness for fear of showing his scarred visage to the villagers who live in constant guard for sightings of the monster that lives beyond the city limits. You are not some terribly twisted character. If I were not happily ensconced in Bruce’s life I would totally be flirting with you.
And DQ redux- “people do smother each other in marriage”
Dude. Not all marriages are like this. I grew up in a broken home (I love that expression, as if some super glue was all that was needed to fix what was wrong) and I’ve seen enough marriages implode and explode to know that marriage can go terribly wrong. However, I’ve also been able to see some really health and happy marriages. Your lack of current relationship is not entirely because of a total lack of skill. There are times and places in our lives when we just need to not be in a relationship. One day you’re going to have the odor of someone happily loved-up and move with the distinct swagger of someone who is getting action. And I’ve heard your arguments, and they sound logical, until you meet THE GIRL. And THE GIRL tells you that she wants to have children and that she wants children within the bonds of matrimony. You may decide that you must stand your ground and refuse to acquiesce. OR you might just join the ranks of people who fell to that crazy little thing called love, get shacked up, trade rings and live happily ever mother fucking after.
Liv- Snoring from beside you indicate things are going well. Yay! Glad to hear that I am not the only smart girl with these thoughts. My friends would never believe me if I were to confess to them my great desire to relinquish control. Bruce has an inkling (he does read this, but moreover, I tell him these things well before I post). I don’t think Bruce would enjoy life very much if I disappeared into a Stepford Wife shell, but I think that on some level, there is a time (approximately 3 weeks from now) when I can vacation from being me. My move across country is becoming handy for several reasons, beyond getting to see Bruce on the regular, I get to recreate the girl. Sure there are going to be the standard chock-a-block facets that remain the same, but the potential for change is enticing.
Posted by
Some Girl on 09/25 at 07:56 AM
yes, the snoring indicates good things. sort of. except when I am trying to sleep and I end up punching him.
it’s funny though, I miss the me-space (not to be confused with myspace, which I don’t really miss because I can’t remember the last time I felt like OMFG WTF LOLOLOL!) - the minute he rolls over I am smooshing my body into the space, and the minute he gets up his pillow is ALL FUCKING MINE and suddenly, even if still asleep, I am like diagonally splayed and he can no longer even sit on the edge the edge of the corner.
more seriously however, the more I feel those moments of losing control, the more I end up reaching for things to sabotage the whole gosh darn thing. things feeling too easy? too normal? too comfy? hey, why not bring up that whole ex-wife situation! I AM SO SMART LIKE THAT.
constant battle.
DQ - as for marriage being an empty word and whatnot, I think the point is more what definition you give that word. Society places a certain chunk of meaning to it, people in reeeally unhealthy relationships give it another meaning (ownership? belonging? acceptance?) and others can really find something in there that appeals to them despite all the fuck-ups who screw around with the concept. well, sometimes. and if not, well, there are always those insurance benefits (woot! I likey how Brucey thinky!).
but anyway, avoiding it as a concept is therefore not really necessary and with you it just came off sounding like “girls have cooties go away”. and that leads us to bigger issues, like MAYBE YOU HAVE THE COOTIES.
I’m sure I had a point but I think it went for a coffee break.
(equally bad is the other side, the disturbed women who chase the concept of Marriage as a possession or status instead of as some part of a Real Relationship - and I specify women because that’s what I know, from my friend Ring-Chasing-Gigi to those commercials for Season 18 of The Bachelor and HOLY CRINGE-FACTOR I can’t even bear the 30-second adverts it’s so frickin’ awful).
Posted by
livi on 09/28 at 09:05 AM
Livi-
I had a response, but then I hit the wrong button, so to sum it all up, in this day and age I don’t think people have the same expectation of privacy. Employers are googling people before interviews, there is no reason to expect that if you knew that so and so had a blog that you wouldn’t go read it all. Bring up the ex- is something that needs to happen anyway because you don’t want to be the girl who is with the boy who is chock full o’ anger toward the ex.
DQ may or may not have the cooties, but I would guess that it’s not the cooties that scare him. I think that some people (ahem DQ) buy into some socially prevalent misconceptions that are propogated by media sources (I’m talking to you Britney Spears) that marriage is a business arrangement that ends with people trying to screw each other out of vast sums of money. If that’s what marriage is, that’s only because of the type of people in the marriage.
There ain’t nothing wrong with forever binding yourself to another person, forever and ever and ever until you run out of things to say to each other and the sound of their breathing makes you want to smother them in their sleep.
Posted by
Some Girl on 09/29 at 02:19 AM
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