Introduction
Well hello there, I am currently in a bicycle themed cafe sipping on a S$5 flat white even as I write this.
It’s an attempt by yours truly to escape the incessant construction noises at my apartment.
Today, I shall be talking about love and madness and the intersection where they embrace.
On love
It’s been a nice 3 weeks. I’ve had meaningful conversations with 3 of my one-time crushes, a lovely Japanese lunch with one, a farewell ramen dinner with the second, and a lovely birthday phone call with the one from USA.
I’ve also downloaded Hinge and it’s got so many attractive folks that I’m having dreadfully difficult time choosing, so I don’t. Lmfao.
I think I’m a rather old-fashioned person and prefer organic interactions. Well, I am doing well going to all sorts of events, aren’t I?
Dating apps really makes me feel like a piece of meat on the supermarket aisle, for people to prod and select. Dehumanising. Have tried most of them and am on the verge of giving up on Hinge too.
I also realise and am reminded about how being too attached to the concept of getting attached is rather unhealthy.
One must learn to love oneself.
Instead of using their partner to fill the void within.
For that is a void that no human can adequately fill.
In that vein, I was very struck by this one of Nick Cammarata’s recent tweets:
On madness
In cell group last week, some people joked about someone who made an incomplete suicide attempt. I thought I’d be by now immune to things like that, but I guess I am not.
I just sat there, paralysed, as the banter went on, unable to speak up about how horrifying their jokes were.
I went to cell group on a whim. Was depressed and passively suicidal, so I thought seeing my old friends would cheer me up.
Ah well.
Such is life.
They talked about how it was better that the partner was right to leave her. Someone sang Taylor Swift’s “I knew you were trouble when I met you”, and it was just so unfortunate.
Especially when I uncovered how hurt I was during therapy when my ex told me about “how difficult it is to be with you because I can’t predict your moods”, and after a visit to the psychiatrist quipped that “see you can ‘control’ yourself, can’t you?” when I was mildly manic.
I thought being in the country’s most progressive church would do me good. And it has, but sometimes I am reminded that humans are flawed, even in a church like ours.
To my credit, I finally summoned the courage to speak with one of the protagonists of the above conversation and she took the feedback rather well.
I’ll leave someone else to speak with the person who insisted on joking unrelenting about it.
The embrace of love and madness
My uncle divorced my aunt, partly because of her madness.
Perhaps that’s also why observing that conversation struck a chord.
“I cannot protect you if you do this to yourself,” said the partner.
I suppose no one needs protecting.
I certainly don’t. (Also one of the reasons of my breakup, I was too fiercely independent.)
We each live our own lives. Are we really our brother’s keeper? One is after all, ultimately responsible for one’s own life. One’s should realise that impermanence permeates everything instead of trying to hold on so tightly.
Grasping causes suffering.
Is this a fatalistic way of looking at things? I’m not sure.
I think most people just seek a constant, live-in, companionship that a regular friend cannot quite provide. Oh and the sex of course.
Hmm.
I think one of the more admirable things my dad did was not divorcing my mad mom in the worst of her schizophrenic manifestations.
Someone commented that it probably might have been a better thing if he did?
I’m not sure.
The one thing tricky about a lot of life is that there is no control like every good experiment ought to have. There is only one of us. And even if there weren’t, it’s unethical to subject a human to less than ideal condition in an effort to see how they would respond to adverse situations. That’s why psychology experiments are tricky and the best ones are the most creative and well-designed.
In other related news, I think I need to read some of Jung’s treatise on the Anima and Animus after a dream interpreter friend of mine recommended it after divining what my recently weirdly horrific and bloody dream meant.
Conclusion
Well then, I really ought to get back to my article. It’s been patiently waiting for me on my desktop after being neglected for almost 2 weeks.
Till next time then, my friends.
Peace.
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