Something strange about handstands, when you start doing them and get good enough to stay up for a little while, you start to see things differently. I wrote a book called “Being the Father I Always Wanted, Fathering Ourselves So We Can Father Our Children”. The book’s premise is that men feel, a lot. The only reason it seems like they don’t is because our culture trains male children to stop feeling, to fit in. Most men didn’t seem to like my book much. Women loved it though. I should rename it, “Why Men Hide Their Hearts” and market it to women.

This post is not about that but it is just as upside down, from a US cultural prospective. This post is about Puritan ethics and the resulting twisted ideas we have about love, beauty, touching (yes, including sex), and personal relationships in general. If you are wondering where the information came from, it came from a combination of handstands, singing bowls and The Eternal Perspective.

Did you ever have an impulse to say or do something loving to someone, then not do it. Maybe telling a complete stranger you think they are beautiful. Or listening to a good friend complaining about their stomach and wanting to just touch them gently and say how nice it really is. Or having the impulse to hug someone and then at the last second doing that sideways thing where there is only contact at one shoulder.

People express anger or frustration to strangers with ease. It is not okay in our culture to express love, especially spontaneously. I don’t think we planned to be so prudish when we were eternal beings deciding to come here. If a man sees a woman on the street and feels the impulse to tell her she has a nice ass, generally the woman reacts by feeling abused, like that man just took something without asking. What would cause a man to say something like that? Could it be love speaking?

We act as if people’s spontaneous love and affection is motivated by some dirty urge to do harm; as if we need permission to find each other attractive. We pretend that there is only one possible idea of beauty and the other 95% of us should hate ourselves and wear bags in public so no one has to suffer. If someone does dare to show a nonstandard form, they end up busted by the fashion police, ridiculed behind their back or to their face.

What does this do to our sex lives? Why do we even call it a sex life? As if sex should be separate from our regular life. As if sex is some necessary evil that should remain quietly in the corner until reluctantly called. What does this do to sex in our lives? We schedule it with our partners, after every other thing is done, if we have time. We avoid unscheduled contact because we “know” they only want sex. We hold our selves at arms length for fear of appearing too wanton. If we have a one night stand we chock it up to some primal need being fulfilled. We would never allow the possibility that that may have been an expression of love. Even within the act itself we are restrained, conforming to what?

Why should you hide if you have stretch marks, you earned them, working hard? What purpose does pretending I didn’t notice you looking at me serve? If you please me and I say so, why would you bring up my wife, as if that is going to stop me from having the genuine feeling I just had. What are we protecting? At what expense? What is the point of having this wonderful life in these amazing bodies if we are going to spend it in an emotional box? We are so careful that every urge to love is monitored, controlled, stifled and repelled. We allow loving expression only in the most ridged framework. Everything else is perverted, or they didn’t really mean it that way.

The love I feel for you is real. I know, I feel it. I approached you at an unscheduled moment because I was moved to. It wasn’t some savage urge seeking fulfillment. It was love. I told you I love you. It doesn’t mean run away. It doesn’t mean that I’m cheap or cheating on someone else that I also love. It means I love you, that’s all. You can’t stop me, or yourself, from loving. You can try to stop the expression but that will make you sick. You may as well enjoy it.

You are not going to be so individualized forever. When you’re done here, are you going to go back and say, “I was good! I hardly expressed love at all, and I rejected almost every expression of love that came my way?”

alternate ending

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 25th, 2010 at 8:17 pm and is filed under Healing, Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.