Friday Pragmatism | Complexity, Simplicity

The full title is Density, Complexity, Simplicity.

Once again I feel I’m getting to the point in my life where my experiences, emotions and thoughts are so dense and so complex, that I may well not be able to share them with anyone with any degree of intimacy. That’s a slightly broad statement; as it is now I do share many dense experiences and reflections with those dear to me, but of-course today’s musing relates specifically to the subject of partnership.
Once upon a time I had the energy and enthusiasm to go through things from base-principles, from primary concepts and personal histories, and go through them from the very beginning. These days though there’s just so much to it; so much to my life, so much to the things I have experienced and to the thoughts I have as results of those experiences that I’m beginning to doubt I will have any capacity to describe them. That description of-course doesn’t just happen in verbal language, it is translated across to all behaviours, but there’s so much to it that creates a lot of subtlety, multi-layered meanings and textures so complex and so beyond any single form of communication, that it may well have formed something of a Byzantine labyrinth in which even I myself am lost.
Happy lost, or not lost at all.
I can easily navigate it, but leading someone else in? Plunging into their own labyrinth of thoughts, dense experiences, emotions? I’m not quite sure I can do it.

The truth is that this is a general principle that can be applied to all humans and all human experience. What varies is each individual’s desire or necessity to share it, to have certain crucial things understood. There are certain things that at this point in my life, I don’t ever want to have to explain ever again, and there are other things that I will want embraced and discussed without question and fear. I don’t expect everything to be easy, I’m known for enjoying fighting for things, but there are certain first-principles that I believe one should mature into entirely on one’s own, and if they are still challenges for certain individuals, then such issues need to be addressed before engaging in deep emotional intimacy. It sounds harsh perhaps, or far too ideal, and to a certain extent that’s true. If two people truly love one-another, then that love can indeed overcome any obstacle; I’m a firm believer in that. That statement in itself though, if people truly love one-another, and all it entails including the willingness and desire to actually overcome those challenges, are in themselves first-principles. If two people grow to love one-another, then outside of directly malicious behaviour, we should implicitly trust that just because one makes a mistake, it does not immediately invalidate or jeopardise the love and affection shared between them. I’m beginning to grow tired of people not understanding that it is perfectly natural and human to make mistakes; it is neither an ultimate failure, a lack of ability to love nor actually a weakness. There is actually a difference between a weakness that has to be addressed, and making individual mistakes, though I don’t have the time, space or inclination to go into it here.

I stop myself now, because I feel weary.
I feel tired at the prospect of having to talk that through – such things are natural to me and I don’t want to have to explain them. I actually don’t want to have to go through the motions of re-affirming someone else’s self-confidence while delicately tip-toeing around their fragile ego. I know I’m unfairly harsh on meek people, but I’m simply not the right person to bolster them in a useful and constructive way. I am by nature a combatant and an explorer, and people are often disarmed not only by my agility to discuss and challenge, but my agility in acknowledging my mistakes and the enthusiasm I have for recompense. I don’t seem to follow the usual ritual of needing to remain obstinate for some unspecified period of time before accepting an apology; I simply don’t believe in punishing people I love in this manner, and find the practice both absurd and alarming.

Once again… I stop myself, I just don’t have the energy to explain it.

On-top of all of these very normal issues that we struggle with as people I have my particular illnesses to also contend with. These are difficult enough for me as an individual, I cannot imagine the change in dynamics they would bring to a relationship that may already be struggling with base-principles.

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And yet in everything, there is a simplicity to my life, something I often celebrate in art, and in the way I live. As much as I thoroughly enjoy a long, dense verbal exposition, I am as much in-love with non-verbal communication which I’ve discussed in this diary, as well as many forms of subtlety and patience. I celebrate simple and seemingly mundane things, though ‘mundane’ seems like a misnomer for such elements in life. I guess in many ways, I marvel at the ‘everyday’ things, for lack of a better term. It sounds so terribly trendy and Zen, but I’ve never wasted any time with pop-psychology, it’s simply something I developed on my own, right along side the density of my experiences and the traumas of my illnesses. There is in me some strange, tiny fragment of faith that there will be people out there, much like those already dear to me, who will have the agility to not only keep pace with my life, but also to provide their own complex set of experiences, thoughts and emotions for me to bury myself into. I hunger for that complexity, I crave it. I don’t always spend every minute of every day pondering the mysteries of human behaviour, but often I do, not even as a challenge, mostly because it’s just so much fun. The complexity also is part of what makes minimalism, subtlety, slow behaviour and celebrating the commonplace so rewarding.

I have no doubt that my flaws will annoy any prospective lover as much as it annoys those already dear to me now, and I have no doubt that I will feel much the same. The key is I’m not interested in loving someone despite their flaws, I want to love them because of their flaws, as much as I love them for their strength, agility, creativity and beauty. To share the remainder of what life we are fortunate enough to share together with someone who never loses site of equality and justice, who speaks without fear of reprimand nor of getting it wrong once in a while and looking a little sheepish; affections between people provide exactly the right grace to forgive such things, and it’s all part of the complex and miraculous dynamic of love.

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Once again I stop myself.
Irrationally – selfishly – I wish for someone to listen to my rants, my passions, read my work and share my experiences and simply say ‘Yeah, I get it. I think you’ll get me too.’
Is that so much to ask?