This is a pretty miraculous little article about relationships but moreso, about love, and about the limits of intimacy. It blew me away. She starts at a place that most people would consider pessimistic, but the older I get, and the more couples I have known, the more I feel that she is just stating the obvious.
So let’s take a hard look at why relationships never seem to pan out. I mean, really—have you ever seen a functional relationship? There are some that seem to be functional, or possibly even very good, but we never really get to know too much about them. Then later, we discover the seedy underbelly—often when the couple splits—and are disillusioned all over again.
This one had domestic violence in it. That one has been a sexless marriage for the past 10 years. This one had one partner lying and cheating on the other. That one was more of a business arrangement, waiting patiently until the kids were out of the house. The list goes on and on.
So, um, yeah. There’s that.
Then she talks more about the why, and here’s it’s not hard to tell I found this in a buddhist journal:
Relationships are based on the fallacy that I exist, you exist, and that my happiness, connection and fulfillment can be met by something from the outside—that there even is an outside.
That might sound esoteric, but stick with me.
When we look at our experience we can’t actually find a “person,” or even a “self.” In any experience we can find what we call color, the sound of a voice, the experience of a touch, etc. Without a belief in a self, other or time—which are all just thoughts and images in the mind and have no substance—all we have is this moment. Continue reading “This Just In: Relationships Fail.”
