the objectification problem

sometimes the songs on the radio catch me by surprise, i realize that i didn’t really pay attention to the lyrics of songs i have been singing along with many times. today it was “that don’t impress me much.” catchy fun tune… but if you really listen, it’s a very snooty person who just is not impressed by brains, looks, talents- anything. she is just not impressed. there’s a rejection of whoever she is singing about, almost like the purpose of the “other” is to impress her. the “other” is treated as an object that either impresses or doesn’t. even the “don’t get me wrong, yeah I think you’re alright” was difficult to palate… it may say more about the unmeetable search of the singer than the lack of impressiveness of the other.

but this is not the only song. “you’re mine” and “i’m nothing without you” and “save me” are recurrent themes… it is not hard to see how we as a culture are so confused about relationships, and their purpose. on one hand we want to be rescued, on the other hand we want to be independent, honestly it is hard to know what we want.

we may have objectified relationships and our significant others into need-fulfilling-entities for arbitrary needs. we all have deep needs to connect and be loved. however what transpires in relationship is far greater than that. “i need you to make me happy” “i need you to make me feel complete” “i need you to excite me and love me and be loyal to me” “i want excitement and i want stability”… the list goes on.

however this desire and expectation to be fulfilled by another person is often what gets in the way of being content with relationships. we hunger for more, we hunger for different, we hunger for sameness. we are hungry beings. and that’s not to sleight us in any way. longing is very basic to us.

but what happens when we do this is that the other becomes an object in our mental games. we try to get certain things, and if we don’t we manipulate, or we make up some reason in our heads of why. usually these reasons make us or the other look pretty bad, and often they are far from accurate. it makes sense why that is not helpful.

but there is also another side of objectification we don’t talk about… objectification hurts not only the one being objectified, but also the “objectifier.” whenever we objectify, we reduce ourselves to being impoverished and in need. the “object” becomes critical in our survival or happiness, leaving us with an implied incompleteness. our agency/prowess becomes severely limited.

no one benefits from this.

i’m new to gardening, and i was reading care instructions for petunias. after petunias blossom, if you want the plant to keep flowering, it is best to pinch off the flower bud. if it is not pinched off, the flower “sets seed” and the plant doesn’t grow more flowers. the job of the plant is done. i found this very intriguing… it’s like the plants long to flower and set seed so it can pollinate and continue its genetic survival. once its purpose is fulfilled, it doesn’t need to do that anymore.

i wondered if our hungriness, our sense of perpetual longing, is similar to these flowers. almost like an impetus for life. that life, flowering, all means being on the edge of not complete fulfillment as that will take away our purpose. perhaps the purpose is greater than just feeling safe or rich or pretty or not-alone or impressing someone. perhaps that’s why life does not let us become complacent even when we have “everything we want” because what would be the point of that?

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on leaving our bodies

the body is a vehicle for the soul, for awareness, for “me” yet it is also a cage, a room, a  house that holds in the spirit. without the body we cannot seem to experience and see things and travel, yet due to the body we cannot move faster and we have to compromise and take care of aches and pains. no wonder our relationships to our bodies seem forever paradoxical, loving and strained, punitive and rewarding, all at the same time.

our bodies have limitations, they hurt, they age, they become infected, they stop working… in a spiritual sense perhaps birth and death are coming into and leaving from the body.

consciousness and awareness seems to be ahead of the body, it is not separate, yet it seems to be able to transcend the body. we can imagine running even when we’re not, we can fantasize about intimacy even when there is none physically, we can invent scenarios and react to them.

yet we suffer when our mind is where our body cannot be or our body is where our mind doesn’t want to be. suffering happens when we are in a place we don’t want to be.

so it makes sense that when we get caught in suffering, we want to abandon our bodies. we want to abandon “reality”- the solid material-ness or is-ness of things that cannot seem to change as easily as our souls can dream. perhaps that is what suicide is.

yet it is this act of  wanting to leave parts of ourselves, of fighting with out inner selves, of abandoning either our souls or our bodies, seem to create even more suffering. after all a civil war always depletes the country and leaves it weaker, or split into multiple parts. integration, with all parts intact, is what jung would call individuation. embodying our bodies and materializing our souls seems to be the spiritual quest.

From world weary woman,  

 

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to evolve or to stabilize

the problem with having an interesting inner life where flow is not impeded by human limitations is that it becomes difficult to adjust to reality with its limitations. it’s like the phenomenon when your mind is faster than your words. it’s important to ask which frequency to adjust to. one one hand we may be focusing and holding on to lower frequencies when we don’t have to but the alternative means leaving behind a sense of stability and pace that we are accustomed to. is it a disservice to all to stay in a low energy state, as in this way no one gets to grow, is it a safety mechanism to blame others for not being able to take off when the fear is our own, is it selfish to follow one’s instincts regardless of who comes along or not, or is the stability of life dependent on settling and adjusting? it’s difficult to answer because we never get to know one side when we choose the other. a system that doesn’t evolve or grow is dead whereas one that evolves too much is chaotic and unstable. but how do we know where that line is that we’re neither crazy nor dead? must we err on one side?

but is the challenge to grow or to adjust? or can adjusting be the biggest opportunity to grow! does it depend on what one is working on? the middle way metaphor comes to mind, despite my wishes that everything wasn’t so paradoxical. when we are trying to be buried in the heaviness of limitations, perhaps we should shoot for transcendence. whereas if we are feeling so light that we want to fly away, perhaps we should try to touch back.

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finding our stream

there are times in our lives when things just seem to flow. homes get sold, jobs get found, friends appear, and there is a sense that the universe is conspiring to make things better for us. i’ve wondered if these are just random chances, and i’ve dabbled into concepts of fate and karma.

there are also times when it seems like our lives are staggered with obstacles… when nothing seems to go right and there’s something “bad” lurking in every corner.

i’ve heard theories about how raising one’s energy allows us to find what is energetic and joyous in our environments. even when “bad” things happen that are outside of our control, from a centered higher energy state, it is all more “grist for the mill”… there is no separation of good or bad.

in this state, feeling really sad or heartbroken is a chance to feel another high energy, not so different from joy and ecstasy. another chance to get in touch with the core, another chance to be vulnerable and realize i’m not separate. the image of a ship in a safe harbor in contrast to one that is free to roam and be one with the oceans comes to mind. being one with the energy of the entire ocean is scary, and powerful, and even exhilarating!

the skeptic in me calls this energy stuff “new age mumbo jumbo” whereas the part of me that has been able to ride these streams of high energy feels there is something deeper to it. i can try to explain it, with theories of self-fulfilling prophecies. it also makes sense that when i’m more energetic, i am more likely to see the more energetic possibilities. it is more likely that people want to spend time with me more in these states than when i’m being glum and judgmental or restrictive. it makes sense that i experience more when i am open to more experiences.

my suspicion is that the stream i’m talking about “finding” is always there and sometimes we allow ourselves to tune into it while at other times we restrict ourselves from it. it is hard for me to believe this when things are “not going well.” when i’m sad and i cannot imagine the possibility of having the option of not suffering. but at those times i believe my resistance to feeling what i’m feeling, and my efforts to stop what is happening, is what makes me suffer.

like a fly banging its body on a screen again and again and again, without realizing it is not trapped. fly little fly.

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