Love, Forgiveness ⟸ Acceptance ⟹ Forgiveness, Love

Friedrich Nietzsche (15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, whose critiques of contemporary culture, religion, and philosophy centered on a basic question regarding the foundation of values and morality:

Ihre (Predigern des Todes) Weisheit lautet: "ein Thor, der leben bleibt, aber so sehr sind wir Thoren! Und das eben ist das Thörichtste am Leben!"
⟸—⟹
Their (the preachers of death) wisdom speaks thus: "Only a fool remains alive, but such fools are we! And that is surely the most foolish thing about life!"

Love, Loyalty, Mutual Consent = Making Love!

This will seem insane to many of you. It is thinking in duality and infinite terms that took a lot of consideration. It comes after a spiritual awakening of being "born again". Plus, language and time is limited. A slip of word-choice can let something of great beauty be tarnished by imperfection. I accept and embrace imperfection, part of the theme of Erotic Irony you find mentioned earlier on this blog.

At age 83, Joseph Campbell in 1987, who was a college professor for nearly 40 years in the USA:

Joseph Campbell: One must discriminate between the mortal aspect and the immortal aspect of one's own existence. In the experience of my mother and father who are gone, of whom I was born, I have come to understand that there is more than what was our temporal relationship. Of course there were certain moments in that relationship when an emphatic demonstration of what the relationship was would be brought to my realization. I clearly remember some of those. They stand out as moments of epiphany, of revelation, of the radiance.

Bill Moyers: The meaning is essentially wordless.

Joseph Campbell: Yes. Words are always qualifications and limitations.

Bill Moyers: And yet, Joe, all we puny human beings are left with is this miserable language, beautiful though it is, that falls short of trying to describe --

Joseph Campbell: That's right, and that's why it is a peak experience to break past all that, every now and then, and to realize, "Oh. . . ah. . ."

Love Comes First
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I do not want to have sex with someone I do not love. I had this once in my life. It was my second sexual partner. She took advantage of a breakup with my first true love and first sexual partner. I was 19 years old.

It was awful. I did not enjoy it! It was not the "rebound" aspect, I just didn't enjoy the unfamiliarity. I could not read the emotions, it took away the part of love making that I liked - the LOVE!

I can have a form of that experience, it's called "self love" - and it isn't very satisfying to me. If you enjoy it, knock yourself out. It leaves my emotional and spiritual self more lonely. It is nothing more than a physical and chemical hormone relief, it does not satisfy my love or compassion. There is no giving, no "unconditional love" in "masturbation" self-gratification. That doesn't mean I hate myself. I emotionally and spiritually love myself, as I Love all of The Universe. And for the record, yes, I masturbate, but I'd rather not need to. I'd much rather Love a woman and Make Love!


Loyalty
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I believe it's possible to fall in love with other women, but also not cheat! Cheating requires a physical act. Moving in with someone, sharing a bed, having sex. Is a kiss of another woman OK? In some circumstances, maybe. It depends how long it lasts. ;)

Love of more than one person, that's OK! Love, flirting, and Joy from another woman... I'm just going to bring that home to my chosen lady! That is loyalty! "Why go out for hamburger when you have steak at home?" I'll be in a good mood, isn't a good mood a good thing to share with your selected partner?

I'm not going to say more, it's that simple! Depersonalize...

Bill Moyers: Do you in your own life just leave it there as a mystery? Or do you think that one can successfully have a marriage and a relationship other than the marriage?

Joseph Campbell: Technically, one could say, "Why, yes, of course."

Bill Moyers: But it seems that whatever one gives to the love affair is barred from the marriage relationship and diminishes the loyalty to the relationship.

Joseph Campbell: I think one has to work out these things oneself. There could be a love seizure after you have a commitment to marriage, and it could be such a seizure that not responding to it might -- what can I say? -- dull the whole experience of the vitality of love.

Bill Moyers: I think that's the core of the question. If the eyes scout for the heart and bring back that which the heart passionately desires, is the heart only going to desire once?

Joseph Campbell: Love does not immunize the person to other relationships, let me just say that. But whether one could have a full-fledged love affair, I mean a real full-fledged love affair, and at the same time be loyal to the marriage -- well, I don't think that could happen now.

Bill Moyers: Because?

Joseph Campbell: It would break off. But loyalty doesn't forbid you to have an affectionate, even a loving relationship to another person of the opposite sex. The way in which the knightly romances describe the tenderness of the relationships to other women, of one who is being loyal to his own love, is very graceful and sensitive.

Bill Moyers: The troubadours would sing to their ladies even if there was very little hope of furthering a relationship with them.

Joseph Campbell: Yes.

Where am I going with this?
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For the past 3 years [well, my whole life], I have been working on:

1. Loving quicker and easier. Falling in love quickly. Love is self-sacrifice to me. It is giving of oneself to another. I have a "open heart". My heart is not greedy, it is not selfish, it is "unconditional love".

2. Letting go of the past, forgiving, absolute and true forgiveness. "Unconditional Forgiveness" is part of "Unconditional Love". The facts and details of a situation can still exist and be discussed, for the sake of historic record and learning, but the negative emotional and punishing side is entirely erased!

3. Mutual Consent. Understanding my feminine side, my male side. Focus on arguing, rhetoric, consent, permission, debate, discussion, talking, communications. Oh I love to argue with a woman. I'll gently talk to her while I give her back rubs, while I hold her hand. It's a form of arguing silently while I kiss her. We can silently argue all we want about which way to kiss - as long as we keep kissing! Oh boy, oh boy! I can argue in silence, I can argue without a word. Consideration, compassion, mindful, loving sharing. sharing, sharing, sharing. Mine is yours. "no expectations, no clinging, no attachment". Take me, only if you wish to have me. I do not want to be with someone who hates me or dislikes me!


Roundabout Way to One Night Stand?
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1. If a pure and entirely open and selfless heart can fall in love in hours...

2. I do not cheat, I am loyal... I have no record of this in my life, I am pretty confident on this.

3. We both consent? No drunk situations or rushed, just two people who do their best and both say "yes".

Is it possible to have a "one night stand" - that the first night I meet someone, I have sex with them? I suppose: Yes! Is it a goal? NO! Working together, Mutual Consent, both agreeing to details - that's what I'm after. If it's weeks of months, that's fine if that's what we both agree. Both parties have to consent, say yes, in a relationship! All aspects of a relationship!


The Morning After, Fear
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Now, a woman may say Yes at night then wake up with me in the morning - and like the famous "Coyote Ugly" reference, chew their own arm off to get away from me! But that is their own indecision and mistake. Remember my prior blog posting, "trust first, ask questions later..." is my approach.

I have been married only once. I did not get married until I was 30 years old. We lived together for 3 years before we got married. I knew exactly what marriage meant to me: unconditional love, unconditional forgiveness. I was loyal to her for 13 years. In the end, she pulled a "coyote ugly" act and chewed off my arms. All she had to do was leave, but she choose to burn every bridge into town... out of fear.

I've seen other marriages last for 25 years, and still end in horror. How long exactly is long enough? How long is too short? Where does eternity end and begin? AUM ॐ?

Adam and Eve? Garden of Eden? Joseph Campbell:

In the Christian tradition, Jesus on the cross is on a tree, the tree of immortal life, and he is the fruit of the tree. Jesus on the cross, the Buddha under the tree -- these are the same figures. And the cherubim at the gate -- who are they? At the Buddhist shrines you'll see one has his mouth open, the other has his mouth closed -- fear and desire, a pair of opposites. If you're approaching a garden like that, and those two figures there are real to you and threaten you, if you have fear for your life, you are still outside the garden. But if you are no longer attached to your ego existence, but see the ego existence as a function of a larger, eternal totality, and you favor the larger against the smaller, then you won't be afraid of those two figures, and you will go through.

We're [Adam and Eve] kept out of the Garden [Eden] by our own Fear and Desire in relation to what we think to be the goods of our life.

All about Making Love?
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Yes ladies, I can indeed fall in Love in a matter of hours, days or weeks. Don't be scared! I'm real, my Love is real! I will stick around and prove it. Drop the fear, please please please drop the fear. I will not be greedy with my desire, we work and discuss together.

Consent... I will Consent... if I Love you. I will be loyal and faithful. Do you consent to Love me?

Bill MOYERS: I've often thought that if you could get in touch with your feminine side, or, if you're a woman, your masculine side, you would know what the gods know and maybe beyond what the gods know.

Joseph CAMPBELL: That's the information that one gets from being married. That's the way you get in touch with your feminine side.

Bill MOYERS: But what happens to this self-discovery in love when you meet someone else, and you suddenly feel, "I know that person," or "I want to know that person"?

Joseph CAMPBELL: That's very mysterious. It's almost as though the future life that you're going to have with that person has already told you, This is the one whom you will have that life with.

Bill MOYERS: Is that something coming from within our inventory of memories that we don't understand and don't recognize? Reaching out and being touched by that person in a way --

Joseph CAMPBELL: It's almost as though you were reacting to the future. It's talking to you from what is to be. This has to do with the mystery of time and the transcendence of time. But I think we're touching a very deep mystery here.

Now what's this all about? Why am I always referencing quotes and Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung and Philosophy? Well, I'll let Joseph Campbell speak for me here...

[Regarding Carl Jung] And very soon discovered that through the realm of myth—of dream, rather, he was himself moving into the sphere of myth. This gave him a basic principle for the psychological work. And I think that it is one that we can all live with. He calls it amplification: Amplify your own fantasies by finding in the field of the cultural heritage of mankind analogous images. And these will pull you out; they will depersonalize your life. And that is what the function of myth is.

And some say I have no sense of humor. Aren't I such a disgustingly forward and aggressive man? It's all about Sex, I just want to Get Laid!

My Life Experience has shown me to not Fear Sorrow...

Kahlil Gibran, 1883-1930

Then a woman said, "Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow."

And he answered:

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.

And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.

And how else can it be?

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.

Is not the cup that hold your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?

And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

Some of you say, "Joy is greater than sorrow," and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater."

But I say unto you, they are inseparable.

Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.

Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.

When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.