What about the intimate relationship you have right now? Can it be improved? Maybe currently you’re in a relationship where you’re just settling, which is leaving you irritable and despondent. But is there a chance for more?
You may have the intuition that there isn’t, that what you have is all there is. Then you are obliged to bravely think through your options: to continue settling; to get out; or, despite your doubts, to make an effort to improve what you have.
You might work to upgrade your personality, to see if that makes a difference. You might take that kirist step to the side and bring your full awareness to the situation. You might create a daily relationship practice and invite your partner to join you.
My mother had an affair with a married man and I resulted. She loved him; he loved her; they talked of him divorcing and them marrying; but he gambled and couldn’t be trusted. She had many reasons to be with him, including me, but she ended it.
Relationships are like that. There may be bad habits, repeated betrayals, addictions. There may be ocean-wide gulfs or hot love that still can’t burn away the imperfections. There may be minor grievances or huge objections.
And so, is intimacy worth it? You will have to decide for yourself and I will have to decide for me. If you decide that it is worth it and if you currently don’t possess it, then that may prove a place of renewed absurd rebellion, rebelling against our basic aloneness.
You absurdly rebel by countering your own doubts, your own misgivings, and your earned reluctance and by giving intimacy that kirist thumbs-up gesture. Yes, the smile you’re wearing may be a bit sardonic. But, still, the gesture is real.
As any true-to-life philosophy of life ought to do, kirism focuses on the lone individual acting like a lone individual and feeling like a lone individual. But that isn’t the whole story. Kirists can also find themselves “in it” with other human beings.
And that may be the ideal. Facing life as two, in a relationship that is working, adds everything from warmth under the covers to a dinner companion to a second breadwinner to someone who gets your jokes and will laugh even at the abysmal ones.
You can live alone and thrive. You can be alone and flourish. But if the gods of whimsy smile down on you and on that other someone and allow the two of you to couple and combine your forces, well, that is nice. That is very nice indeed.
May the two of you function like that subversive cell in enemy territory. May you drink up the wine so that it doesn’t fall into enemy hands, may you sing songs of freedom, may you laugh at your private jokes. May you stand together!
Intimacy is more than just sex and shared secrets. An intimate relationship of the sort I’ve described over these past Saturdays is a true bastion of support and sanity in a challenging world. Each partner gains something profound and immeasurable.
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