Putting it back together, but SSM issues linger

[TeaEarlGreyHot]

Hope you have a good trip.

You're confronted with the illogic of your wife's requests or the apparent contradiction of the books you've read. To use a metaphor from my generation, its a bit like "f**king for virginity."

With regard to change and acceptance, there is a bit of a mind game and it can be tough to see how it can work (it does not always work out the way you might think). You have to look at this through the eyes of language.

Language (specifically your language) gives you an "occurring world." How the world occurs for you, how you categorize and catalog it, tell yourself what is happeneing and what it means, all of it occurs only through language.

No language, no occurring world 9at least for you).

So, let's tackle "change." Whenever "change" is what is needed (I selected the word "need" intentionally which I will get to in a second), it is always change from something (the past) to something (the expectation of a result different from the past). This change has a common thread...the past.

"Change," as a specific outcome, causes persistence. By referencing the very thing to be changed, that thing tends to persist. The expectation can be a killer when it is unfulfilled (no change or not enough change).

I selected the word "need" intentionally for two reasons. First, you have described your POV as a "need" for sex. Actually, no it isn't really. You need sufficient oxygen, you need sufficient water and you need sufficient food without the presence of contaminants to survive. Even though there is a sexual drive hardwired into your lower brain functions. You can survive without sex. The choice of the word gives you a way the world occurs for you.

Now what about "acceptance." It is allow things to be exactly the way they are and exactly the way they are not. It has nothing to do with "change" or the past or even some future expectation. In acceptance, the "problem" and the need to change disappear.

I'm going to leave it at that so you can think about that.

The Captain