Other than Fucking

My ten days of vacation have dwindled to one, and my mind is drawn toward familiar anxiety-ridden places. I seem to be losing the ability to heft myself up and pummel myself into acting like I enjoy my job. I don't really see an answer in sight for that dilemma, so I will ignore it. Yes. Pretending it doesn't exist is surely the answer.

I guess I'll write about something that has been on my mind lately other than fucking. How about The Dalai Lama?

I have been very critical of the institution of marriage in this blog, and have seen it as a coercive model that oppresses women. (Hell, it is probably in a biological sense more coercive to men, because it forces them to contain their seed-spreading to one woman.) Generally it is considered the only acceptable way to live your life in our culture, and to promote that belief system, a mythology of romance has been built, fortified and maintained to support it. For instance, the romantic notion of love says there is one true love (soul mate) for each of us, and we just need to wait for that person to magically enter our lives to be emotionally happy. Maybe Walt Disney is the worst culprit in perpetuating this in popular culture. New versions of Cinderella are regularly animated and spit out for new generations of starry-eyed girls. But it goes far beyond Disney. There are Cinderella stories everywhere, from Pretty Woman to Maid in Manhattan to Bridget Jones to.....

If it wasn't so sad it would be funny. Millions of people are scanning the horizon, waiting for that special person, the ONE other person in the world who can make them happy. Heterosexuals, homosexuals, black, white, whatever, all humming various versions of "Some Day My Prince Will Come". My god, talk about setting ourselves up for disappointment! Have we learned nothing from JLo? Our cultural princes and princesses drop like flies when it comes to marriage.

We long for human connection and intimacy, and since we are not taught to question our subjective belief systems, we buy into that impossibly flawed fairy tale. And now, due to high divorce rates some Christians are promoting a more binding form of marriage called a covenant marriage, along with laws that provide slightly more limited grounds for no-fault divorce. But is making marriage harder to leave the answer? Sounds more like prison to me.

Howard Cutler, co-author of the book The Art of Happiness asks the Dalai Lama, "...in Western culture, it is not just the physical sex act but the whole idea of romance - the idea of falling in love, of being deeply in love with one's partner - that is seen as a highly desirable thing. In movies, literature, and popular culture there's a kind of exaltation of this kind of romantic love. What's your view of this?"

Without hesitation, the Dalai Lama said, "I think that, leaving aside how the endless pursuit of romantic love may affect our deeper spiritual growth even from the perspective of a conventional way of life, the idealization of this romantic love can be seen as an extreme. Unlike those relationships based on caring and genuine affection, this is another matter. It cannot be seen as a positive thing," he said decisively. "It's something that is based on fantasy, unattainable, and therefore may be a source of frustration. So, on that basis it cannot be seen as a positive thing."

The Dalai Lama sees our cultivation in the west of the idea of one special person to share our deepest feelings, fears, etc, as one that leads to problems if a person is deprived of that kind of intimacy. He never felt deprived because he didn't develop intimacy with one special person such as a spouse. He had intimate relationships with all sorts of people in his life, including the person who swept the floor during the threat of Chinese invasion of Tibet, with whom he would share his disappointments or unhappiness. He has an expanded vision of intimacy.

He describes a new model for intimacy (new for western culture, that is) that begins with compassion. We are totally interconnected with and interdependent on all other beings, and if we can realize that, and walk through our lives with an attitude of friendship and warmth, he believes we will have enough interaction with other people to enjoy a happy life. Instead of focusing on one person as the cure for our lonliness the Dalai Lama recommends maintaining closeness with as many people as possible.

The Dalai Lama isn't against marriage. He says, "Now, I've heard many people claim that their marriage has a deeper meaning than just a sexual relationship, that marriage involves two people trying to bond their lives together, share life's ups and downs together, share a certain intimacy. If that claim is honest, then I believe that's the proper basis on which a relationship should be built. A sound relationship should include a sense of responsibility and commitment towards each other. Of course, the physical contact, the appropriate or normal sexual relationship between a couple, can provide a certain satisfaction that could have a calming effect on one's mind. But, after all, biologically speaking, the main purpose of a sexual relationship is reproduction. And to successfully achieve that, you need to have a sense of commitment towards the offspring, in order for them to survive and thrive. So developing a capacity for responsibility and commitment is crucial. Without that, the relationship provides only temporary satisfaction. It's just for fun."

Our romantic notion of that 'One Special Person' with whom we have a passionate intimate relationship is a product of our time and culture. As the Dalai Lama says, it can be a proundly limiting viewpoint, cutting us off from other potential sources of intimacy, and the cause of much misery and unhappiness when that Special Someone isn't there.

Maybe if we were to take our eyes off the horizon and look around, we would see others with whom we could open ourselves, "forming genuine and deep bonds based on our common humanity." The Dalai Lama is telling us that we will not find happiness in our romantic myths and that on the contrary, they create distance around us that make us lonely.