Ideal Relationships Don't Rely On Ideals.
An ideal partnership rests on real compatibility, compatibility of realities, including our imagined realities.
In this ideal reality, there's no need for ideals. What we have here and now is unimaginably good already
Compatible partnership generates energy—in fact, many relationships which seem incompatible are simply using the energy they generate to pick apart the relationship, making it seem incompatible.
Compatibility is quiet and effortless. If I am committed to "working on" this relationship, I will not experience the compatibility present. I might not allow myself to be in these effortless compatible relationships, in my romantic or friendship spheres, if I am committed to “the work” relationships take.
“The work” is what I do to suffer when I am unwilling to receive with ease.
I see people do it with money all the time. Only the money they EARN counts, in their mind. Resources and money they receive through relationship or otherwise with ease are a source of shame and inadequacy. What is this attachment to suffering for what's worthy?
I also value medicine that hurts more than medicine that does nothing. Does ibuprofen even work on a headache? Slowly, easefully, over time, so I barely notice it happening. But that spicy peppermint oil on my temples! It actually hurts more, but probably because it is HEALING me.
Possibly we would not categorize suffering as an ideal, but is it not? Do I or do I not value a satisfying effort/reward circuit? Do I not wiggle with pride at sitting in my own clean space right after I cleaned it?
Yes, work, effort, suffering, may be an ideal of mine. The trick is not to eliminate ideals nor to overrely on them, but to seek to live into a here and now practice of my ideal ideal.
The fastest way down the stairs is to fall down, but, what with the risks, I think we could all agree maximum speed is not maximum efficiency.
Like making my intentional, stair by stair descent, applying the effort relationship requires is a quiet and mundane affair.
The yearning rises in me for there to be SOMETHING HAPPENING, for it to feel big and thrilling and important! Give me a reason to fall down these stairs!
The effort here is to reclaim my own reins, the effort is to apply this exuberance to something here and now, rather than meddling in the abstraction of partnership.
I know I am a good partner because I practice partnership as a verb. I practice it all the time, with everyone close to me. We are in this together. We are here and now collaborating on this moment, shoulder to shoulder. We are here to have a damn good time, to appreciate one another, to make it easier for each other to be in life.
When my yearning claims it yearns for something in or of partnership in one specific fractal (the lovership fractal) I politely disbelieve it.
Partnership is here and now, even when I am alone. To allow it to serve me, I offer that my yearning imagine that partnership is fully intact, humming along like a charm and then ask it "what is there to do right now?"
