This is a quote by a Holden Caulfield sort of character, in a short film I get to be making. It is offered as a way to unpack the term "Compulsive Coupleship," which feels helpfully important to understand as the present prevalent paradigm- for Relating- in our cultural collective conditioning. Helpful to de-condition ourselves.
(N.B. Coupleship is not the same as Partnership. We'll so gladly get to that.)
"i'm not a rabbi, hell, i'm not a jew, but i read too much and came across this in kabbalah, [which isn't a book by the way, itself. it's a word for like a mystical layer of understanding, and talking about it.] It means "receiving," - the word, kabbalah, like "yoga" means "union" but who even knows it?
So, in the beginning which doesn't mean another time, it means the root of every moment, is the void. ya know, like they're learning in physics, it all coming out of the void, the nothing.
And chaos in the void, a teeming of different potentials, infinite possibilities that could be born to form in each moment.
But let's just pretend it means the beginning in time, 'before creation.' And everything was just one- undifferentiated, like a greyness. And IT, containing everything, 'everything' contained the desire to be known seen and heard, but since it was all one, there was nothing ELSE to know it, see, hear it. And out of that desire to be known, sprang multiplicity, like a quickening, birthing vessels to receive the giving to. And so it is said everything in creation has the root of these 2 desires, to give of itself and be known, seen, heard. the natural flow of everything is the essence of all of us giving and being received. and receiving and giving.
And, and this is important, when there is an obstacle in the way of this natural flow('s) occurring. Something going unseen, a poverty making one unable to give of itself, love, to its children, something UNnatural happens. Unnatural- Depression, violence, evil, darkness, suicide, is born of the obstacle in the natural flow."
The antidote, then, is to go to the root.
Make one another feel seen, known, heard.
See, know, hear.
Offer the tools for people to give of themselves, the love that they are.
This restores the flow.
The natural flow for each of us is to walk down the streets allowing that which we are,
a Flow of unconditional love, to pour forth to be received as acknowledgement "hello"
of each and every being. This is natural.
Our conditioning within the paradigm of coupleship creates an unnatural hoarding
causing us to hold onto that which we are, this infinite wellspring of Love, eye each person and think - "Am i attracted or not attracted, do I look attractive right now, would that be rejected or received, would it be safe or unsafe, appropriate, not appropriate, what would my girlfriend say if she saw me smile at someone?"
stagnating the flow of energy creating Depression (Happiness is love exiting the body) creating a massive epidemic of
Loneliness in our time.
The least efficient and sustainably distributed resource in our time is
our selves, the unconditional love that we are.
A resource that is entirely infinite.
That is why the paradigm of coupleship is failing.
That is why it will not allow itself to be sustained.
Unconditional love is here to be maximized.
We were built for its purposes, not it for ours'.
It is what bodies are for.
(Soon - the differences of Coupleship and Partnership.)