Practice makes master

or my measly attempt to comment back to Chi.

I have to admit, this is a hard one to comment back on, mostly because, even if I can see a lot of truth in what Chi has got to say, I find it hard to completely agree with it, so I am somewhat split in trying to figure out what to say, and how to say what I want to say without having to sound either overly wishy-washy on one hand, and dry and cynical on the other.

It makes complete sense that it’s much easier to choose not to get angry, to consciously avoid anger, or reject it completely in the first place, which is what I try to do, otherwise I would not have survived at the jobs I’ve had for as long as I did. However, for some reason, it’s harder to do it with people that you love and as negative a feeling as anger is, it actually indicates to nothing more or less than the fact that you care. People who you love most, hurt you most and the only explanation I have been able to come up with both in the past and right now is because you care. Because you love them. Because they’re important. Because you in that relationship are important. Because the relationship itself is important, and because the other one is not merely just another guy who you met at a bar and took home with you for a night, to part ways the next morning without having a second thought or a single sigh of regret.

“Real love is love with no strings attached. When there is attachment, there are expectations. And when there are expectations, there are disappointments, pain and anger…”

Love in itself is unattached, free, unconditional, without contingencies, without any logical explanations, it’s there, just because. However, love is not the only thing that’s important in a relationship. It takes a whole lot more than love to build a relationship, to make it work and last. Attachment. Attachment is important. To build a relationship is to grow attachments. You grow into someone, into the relationship and let them grow into you. You’re still you, you’re not a second half of something, but you’re attached. And perhaps that’s one of the most important things that makes a relationship so much worth it. This fearless, open, unrestrained attachment that I have come to really and truly appreciate.

I used to think that nothing good would ever come out of attachment. That attachment created dependency and I dreaded my own dependency to others in any shape and form as much as I dreaded others’ dependency on me. Most of my conscious and adult life I’ve been striving to be free and independent with an almost compulsive, sickly obsessive urge. Being independent in every possible meaning of the world was perhaps the most important thing for me. And yet, not all that long ago, after I had proved to myself and everyone else around me over and over again that I was, in fact, a free and independent human being, I suddenly realized that this almost delirious obsession with being independent was nothing but a cover-up for a very deep and well hidden fear – the fear of rejection. I used to think that if I put myself under someone else’s care, if I as much as let myself become even a bit dependent on someone other than myself, I would make myself vulnerable and inevitably end up being hurt, disappointed and rejected. Likewise, if I got attached to someone, and if that someone ended up leaving, the amount of pain inflicted upon me would be impossible to bear. That I’d rather choose distanced, calculated “exchanges” with people around me, rather than opening up and letting myself get attached. IN A WORLD AS TERRIBLE AS THIS LIMIT EMOTIONS. Which would result in this and this and subsequent bitterness and quasi-real, unemotional existence. Emotions are there for a reason. They are to be felt through fully and ambiguously, because the only other alternative to it is death. Because emotions are what make you alive and human…

This obsession with being free, independent, unattached has never let me be completely open in the past and learn what I perhaps value most at this point – trust. Trust is unconditional and free. It’s an absolute. It’s either there or not, you either trust someone (yourself included) or you don’t. However, there is always a risk that you will be let down, rejected, disappointed and hurt when you choose to trust. But you do it anyway, unconsciously or consciously, because what you gain in return is so much better compared to the only other alternative that you have – this shielded, guarded, detached and calculated exchange with everything and everyone around you.

A relationship is your conscious decision to trust someone. When you get into a relationship, there is always that risk that you will end up getting hurt. Not necessarily because the other person is out there to screw you over, use you or hurt you, but because there’s always that risk when you choose to be open. Without attachment there is no relationship, it’s merely a thing, a fling, which does, in fact, have it’s certain advantages, but is uninvolved, uncomplicated, fun and most of the time lets you get out of it emotionally unaffected. Relationship, on the other hand, is about attachment. When you get into a relationship, you inevitably, consciously or unconsciously get attached, or like the fox said to the Little Prince, you let them “tame” you and you “tame” them in return. “To tame someone means to establish ties”. And because of these ties the other person becomes someone “special” or “unique”, instead of being “one of the million of little boys…” You do, in fact, put your own, subjective meaning into that person and the relationship. It, in itself, becomes “special” and “unique” even if it is like millions of other relationships. That’s how even the most trivial, smallest things in a relationship suddenly become important, meaningful. Because you care. That’s why you get hurt. And pain, together with anger, is there for a reason – to show that you care.

And lastly – expectations. As much as I say that I don’t believe in expectations, that they are a doom for disappointments and hurt, when in a relationship, you always have certain expectations. Some are unreasonable – like expecting the other to be able to read your mind, or expecting certain behavior, some are quite reasonable – such as expecting certain amount of trust, respect, consideration. You don’t ask for them, don’t take them as givens, and never take them for granted, and always, always show appreciation, but you do expect such things in a relationship, otherwise we’re back to the guy you met at a bar and went home with for the night, and even in this case there’s got to be certain amount of respect, trust and consideration (at least for the time being you trust the guy/or your own judgment, so that you don’t end up cut up in little pieces and scattered all over the place – morbid, I know). You expect to be treated the way you want to be treated. The way you think you deserve to be treated. And that’s because you love yourself enough not to want to settle for anything less. And if you don’t, it’s either time to reconsider your expectations or the relationship itself and if nothing else, at least communicate it with the other, because, really, the guy is not a mind-reader and you cannot clearly expect him to behave the way you’d like him to. Practice makes the master, for now to master the skills of communication.