something i didn’t write that summarizes a train of thought i’ve been riding on (pts. 1-3)

something i didn’t write that summarizes a train of thought i’ve been riding on (pts. 1-3)

1

3rd-Dimensional Relationships
The way relationships normally work with us here in our 3rd dimension.
SEPARATION
Separation is only an illusion. Separation from the God Source. Separation from each other. And separation from aspects of our self.
SECRECY
Witholding information from my partner & from myself. With secrecy, my partner never gets to know who I truly am. Keeps me separated from the greater portion of myself.
FEAR-BASED MONOGAMY
Through my monogamous relationship, I am "separated" from the vulnerability of having to deal with any other relationships.
Therefore, I feel "safe" (separate and safe).
CONDITIONAL LOVE
I will love you, only so long as you fulfill my needs and expectations. I will withdraw my love, if you do not satisfy me.
COMMITTMENT
I need committment, in order to avoid my fear of having to deal with other relationships. Committment is a 3rd-dimensional illusion. Committment never insures my security. Committment only makes me think or feel that I am secure.
EXPECTATION
I want, expect, and try to get my partner to fulfill my expectations and needs. I use my partner to satisfy my needs.
MANIPULATION
I use obvious or hidden manipulation so that my needs will be met, and so that I can remain protected from my own fears. I only see my partner as who I need them to be, not who they really are.
THE NEED TO CONTROL
I do not trust that everything that occurs is for my highest good. Therefore, I need to control and shape the relationship, so that it will take the form I wish it to be. I feel like I "own" my partner.
RELATIONSHIP takes Precedence
to PERSONAL GROWTH
DEPENDENCY
I depend on and need someone outside of myself in order to be happy.
A PERSON CAN NOT FULLY LOVE MORE THAN ONE PERSON.
3-D emphasizes Duality. If my partner begins to also love another person, that means he/she will have
less love for me. (This is an illusion.) My partner spending LESS TIME with me is not good.
PAIN
There is always pain when I function from the 3-D relationships "mind-set".
ENDING A RELATIONSHIP creates PAIN & LOSS.
FEAR or PAIN of LONELINESS
Loneliness, like separation, is a 3-D illusion.
ANGER AT ANOTHER
(Externalized anger) I am angry at my partner for not meeting my needs!
VICTIMHOOD
"Hurters" & "Victims" I sometimes hurt others. I am sometimes hurt by the comments or actions of others. "Hurters" & "Victims" is an illusion. There is no victimhood, since each one creates their own reality.
FEELING RESPONSIBLE for
the NEEDS of my PARTNER
My partner is seeking to have their needs met externally by me, but a person's needs can never really be met by anyone else, so they are bound to eventually get angry at me, for not fulfilling their needs.


4th-Dimensional Relationships
The way relationships normally work on the 4th dimension.
INTEGRATION + REINTEGRATION
Everything and everyone are really all connected.
HONESTY + OPENNESS
Total honesty with my partner. With honesty, my partner gets to know who I truly am. Honesty means being 100% who I truly am.
I do not withold a comment or information just to avoid hurting my partner, or to control the relationship.
I can never really know or predict what will hurt another or how they will react to my honesty. Therefore, I should stop assuming responsibility for the other person's emotions, growth, & reactions to my honest non-manipulative communications.
RELATIONSHIPS BY CHOICE
Monogamy-by-choice or Poly-Fidelity-by-choice.
There is no inherent "right" or "wrong" to any type of relationship: They are all inherently neutral. Any type of relationship is "okay". If I choose monogamy, this does not mean that I expect or need my partner to also choose monogamy.
UNCONDITIONAL LOVE
Even if you don't fulfill my needs and expectations, I will still love you. I love you for who you are without trying to change you.
BEING IN THE PRESENT
Committment would take me out of the present. I stay in the present, and I do not need a committment, because I trust that the future will take care of itself.
NO EXPECTATIONS
I trust and have no expectations from my partner.
I enjoy my partner, but without expectations.
ALLOWINGNESS
I allow my partner to be who they need to be. Only then can I see who they truly are.
ABSOLUTE TRUST
I trust that everything that occurs is for my highest good. Therefore, I have no desire or need to control my partner.
PERSONAL GROWTH takes Precedence SELF-SUFFICIENCY
I recognize that I, and only I, am the creator of my own reality. Therefore, only I, am the generator of my own Happiness.
A PERSON CAN FULLY LOVE
MORE THAN ONE PERSON.
4-D emphasizes Multiplicity. No matter how many other people my partner loves, this does not diminish at all, in any way, how much love he/she has for me. No matter how many other people I love, this does not diminish at all, in any way, how much love I have for my partner. My partner spending LESS TIME with me is fine. If I truly love myself unconditionally, then the time spent with myself is equal in value to the time spent with my partner. I love myself as much as I love my partner. Therefore, the time I spend alone is just as enjoyable as the time spent with my partner. Therefore, it's okay if I spend less time with my partner.
HAPPINESS, PLEASURE, & ECSTACY
There is never any pain, only happiness, pleasure, and ecstacy, when I function from the 4-D relationships "mind-set".
ENDING A RELATIONSHIP
does not create PAIN & LOSS.
In realizing that this relationship is no longer serving us, we choose to harmoniously end it. We recognize that the relationship is going in different directions, and so we allow it to end, without any hard feelings. Only with love.
FEELING CONNECTED
to SIGNIFICANT OTHERS.
Even if my partner is far away (in space), or even if I haven't seen my partner for a long time (in time), I still feel very connected to them. Whereas separation is an illusion, being actually connected-together is the reality.
ANGER AT MYSELF
(Internalized anger) I am angry at myself for creating a reality that I do not prefer.
I CREATE MY OWN REALITY.
Self-Responsibility
Self-Empowerment
I create my own reality, and this even includes other people's reactions to my actions. I can never be hurt by another person. I can never hurt another person. Only I am responsible for my reactions to other people's comments or actions.
BEING RESPONSIBLE for
what I would like to GIVE to
My PARTNER & our RELATIONSHIP
I am pure in my intention in my relationship. I am 100% who I truly am with my partner. I am responsible for what, in my integrity, I would like to give to our relationship.


2

(the reply in a salon.com since you asked... article)
How do you and I, with our myriad difficulties and lack of understanding, our lack of connections and affability, our inner machinery of self-defeat, how do we reconcile this? How do we reconcile creativity with the practical requirements of living?

To be blunt: Maybe we do and maybe we don't. But we start by being honest. We start with a self-correcting catechism of ego deflation: The world doesn't owe us a living. Instead, we owe the world. We have been entrusted with something.

This is not easy. We are beset with problems. We are grandiose and irritable. In certain ways, we are the worst of people. We do not make especially good members of the community. We do not put out fires or save babies from pneumonia. We spend our days messing with paint or digitizing sounds. We are often egotistical and secretive, inauthentic and emotionally starved. We are not particularly good friends because we think mainly of ourselves. We do not necessarily make great parents or teachers.

And we get bored easily. We create artistic business ventures and have difficulties with them. We pay insufficient attention to the matter of revenue. In short, we act as if the world owes us a living. We say, "Come out and support the arts!" And then we sit on a Tuesday night in an empty club feeling betrayed and confused.

But the whole premise was wrong from the start.

The big picture is this: The debt is ours. We got a little extra soup. We found money on the beach.

Of course, we can deny this debt. We can avoid the situation altogether. Many people do this -- gifted with angelic voice or poetic storytelling ability or fine natural draftsmanship, they go into bond trading or auto repair. And why not? Nobody is offering them a job as a singer or storyteller or artist.

So welcome to the world. The world asks more of those in whom it has entrusted its gifts. It asks that we maintain a healthy standard of living plus devote many hours to music, practicing scales, and to art, drawing from life, working with color and meditating to keep the demons from revolt, and to writing nonsense that must be written, reading in search of wisdom or God, thinking, thinking, thinking -- and sometimes to more and stranger things: sleeping a lot to find peace, going on retreat, flirting with madness.

It is our responsibility to ourselves and to the world to do these things, to find ways to take care of ourselves, not to become a burden but to offer what we have. Toward that end, there is much to be said for scaling down our ambitions so that we can practice our art or our craft or our calling in a way that is regular and routine. We must work hard at it. We must work steadily. But we must not expect to be rewarded overmuch for this, any more than someone who works for 40 years in insurance should expect to gain worldwide fame for structuring annuities in original and brilliant ways. We work quietly and steadily on our craft.

Consider this as well: We know how but we don't know how we know how. How do we know how to do what we do? How do we know what we know? We don't know. We don't know how we know.

The trapeze artist flies through the air and says, Like this! Do it like this!

But how ... how ... how? We can barely follow her movements with our eyes.

We don't know how we do it, so often we cannot teach it. All we can do is offer the structure in which others may learn; we can maintain the space in which the practice can be learned. We can sweep up after class and answer questions. We can say, Keep going! Keep going! Keep going! Do not be afraid!

So I don't know exactly what you ought to do. I think mainly your task is one of managing and distributing your creative endeavors, and also managing your money so that you can support these endeavors. In doing this, I suggest you try to separate your ego needs from your artistic needs. They are not the same thing. Your ego, starved as it is for support and encouragement, may well be the source of your grandiosity and hostility, the far poles of egomania and debasement between which the unmoored ego swings. So think of this, if you will: Your ego hunger is not your creative side. Your creative side is that which actually works -- the joy you feel when listening, your actions, your performances, the things you actually create. If you are like me, you may often fantasize in impossible ways; perhaps you have fantasized since you were a young person that your creations will gain you worldwide adoration. I find myself -- ashamed as I am to say it -- fantasizing in this way. It has a childish quality to it, this fantasy. It feels like a narcissistic fantasy to some extent, the child imagining himself admired, like the baby Jesus, a hero born to a virgin.

This is crazy stuff, of course. That is the point. There is crazy stuff going on inside. But that is the deep structure speaking. And that deep structure is where we work. We try to create surfaces whose roots can be felt in that deep structure.

Have you ever seen kelp on the surface of the Pacific and marveled at how deep it goes, how far down in the dark, cold waters it is anchored on rocks and reefs and, who knows, sometimes on the hulks of shipwrecks? What we try to do is create surfaces that one feels are anchored deeply. You see the kelp bed, undulating in the waves, and you sense the depth of the water.


3

The Invitation

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon...
I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened by life's betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
"Yes."

It doesn't interest me
to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like the company you keep
in the empty moments.

-Oriah Mountain Dreamer