“I’ll stop the world, and melt with you”

–Modern English

Learning how to deal with other people is no easy task. Once a person breaks free of solitary confinement, there are three general types of relationships that can develop which characterize how others appear to us, and even more importantly how we comport ourselves with others. All of these possibilities are preferable to the initial state of being alone. This is not to say that this form of loneliness should be reduced to being single in the sense of being unmarried. For instance, there are unfortunately many married people who feel ‘alone’ at times in the context of their marriage. On the flip side, each us may maintain a multitude of meaningful relationships that are ‘sacred bonds‘ throughout our entire lives. Nonetheless, the bottom line model of marriage remains just as relevant. In light of this, our real purpose is to demonstrate how all our states of being (including being alone) have to be uplifted and sweetened by added new layers of understanding.

As our analysis progresses we shall endeavor to show how there are four ‘postures’ vis-à-vis relationships that are reiterated in several ways: 1) between ourselves and others in the interpersonal realm (marriage being the operative model in the simple sense) 2) between me and myself in the intrapersonal realm (where marriage becomes the operative metaphor for inner integration with ‘oneself as another’: ‘I am peaceful co-existing with myself with minimal internal conflict’) and finally 3) it will shape our relationship with the Divine (another figurative ‘marriage’ that represents mystical ‘unions’ and transcendental states of consciousness).

Beginning with the interpersonal, our encounter with the other (especially our ‘significant’ other) must prioritize the type of relationship according to the order of solutions to the loneliness problem that appears in the verse from Genesis 2:18 “…I will make for him a helper opposite him.” In Hebrew “for him” or “lo [לו]” implies that my marriage partner was created just for me. In contrast to the ‘one size fits all’ industrial model of consumerism, this relationship was ‘manufactured’ by Divine intervention using cosmic scale forces for a market of one. Looking for a mate? Accept no substitutes! There is only one for me. This is a custom job, a personalized non-transferrable relationship that will only work for me and me alone.

If we are playing the Adam part, then we should regard our spouse as ‘the one and only,’ that person of whom we say ‘we were made for each other.’ While we will address the masculine formulation of ‘lo’ (why to him and not to her?) later on in our series, for now, assuming we trade places with our partners in reading ourselves into the various roles, we can assume that ‘I am for this person’ and ‘this other person is for me’ with the deepest conviction of belonging together. ‘Lo’ can also mean ‘to him’ implying that I need to go out of myself towards the other or that, facing the other, I am pulled out of myself. The ‘to/for’ combination in the word ‘lo’ (to/for him) establishes a relationship based on selfless dedication. I am not concerned with myself and my self interests. All I care about is you. My ‘I’ is fulfilled in ‘you.’

Melting and fusion are common terms for either the dissolution of one’s independent self or (more positively) the transcendence of the self which occurs by virtue of the other. ‘You make me into more than I could ever be on my own.’ ‘I’ve become a better person because of you.’ There are many fine points of selfless dedication. Moreover, this will have to be differentiated from its negative twin–the subjugation of the self or the total negation of self in the other.

Melting can turn lead into gold or it can end a relationship if there is nothing left of me to give over to the other. Burnt up I may end up burning out. Perhaps the critical difference lies in the distinction that the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas makes between ‘totality’ and ‘infinity.’ My ‘total’ love risks either my own self-destruction of the dissolution of the relationship. Because I was totally for you, I realized that I was not there anymore. By contrast, having an infinite love always has infinite reserve that can give endlessly without expending all that I have at any one time. This form of selfless dedication might be likened to the famous Burning Bush whose fire did not consume its substance. The passion and intensity of the relationship is self-refueling–that is, it produces as much energy as it consumes so that the ‘interaction’ can be maintained forever. It is stable fusion.

My participation in the world carries with it ‘other others.’ When one’s significant other becomes one’s entire world the whole world falls by the wayside, concentrating all of its significance on my significant other as far as I am concerned. So too, when ‘I’ myself am swallowed into the singularity of the relationship, then, as the popular song goes “I’ll stop the world, and melt with you.”

Skipping over for now the two lesser relationships where I am relating out of self interest (where I’ll support you if you support me), and conflict based realities (where we exist to oppose each other in a world fraught with friction), we can briefly peek in on the inflection of these relationships as they are inscribed intrapersonally.

In the intrapersonal, the absence of a relationship can certainly be experienced amidst a relationship (the relationship of non-relationship) and we might even think that this ‘time to myself’ will afford me the space ‘away from it all’ whereby I can get in touch with myself. Me finding myself converts the ‘sterility’ of alone time into something productive in that I enter into a relationship with myself, I keep myself company, I learn about who I am from listening to my silent voice. Within such a situation we can detect an echo of the encounter with the other that is predicated on selfless dedication. I feel naturally at home with myself without becoming self-conscious and letting my ego force it’s alternative agenda on me. Me given over for or to myself is registered as peaceful ‘flow’ and psychic harmony.

However, if I am disconnected from my own inner being, estranged from my own soul, lost in an inauthentic shell of a pretend self, then I am internally isolated–the symptom of which is that I am most uncomfortable in my own skin. I don’t recognize the person staring back at me in the mirror. All self-reflection such as this always entails a doubling: the subject as knower and the subject as the object of inquiry. Introspection makes sense of the odd impulse of needing to ‘find oneself.’ If I turn myself into an other, then the person I that meet (who is me) may be a source of internal unity (corresponding to the selfless dedication of being to or for an other in the interpersonal realm) or mutually beneficial support (as in the second relationship configuration–in this case I find myself ‘negotiating’ with myself so that I will back myself up–I ‘second’ my own motion in the congressional sessions in my mind) or I am filled with conflict and turn into my own worst enemy. The last type of relationship helps explain how our ‘internal affairs’ can get out of order, how I can betray my own best self-interests or undermine myself.

In Part Three we will examine our external and internal ‘support systems’ and the contracts that establish them more closely.

http://www.interinclusion.org/inspirations/relationship-differences-fusion-and-defusion-part-3/

http://www.interinclusion.org/inspirations/quilt/relationship-differences-fusion-and-defusion-part-1/

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