Relationship Manifesto

I have this inexorable urge to try again to explain myself. And to explain perhaps, the core - the volcano if you will - of conviction and drive that fuel my questions and my life.

There are all kinds of reasons to live what I call an ‘un-examined life’. Our culture is full of the resultant damage. It is - without question - easier, socially acceptable and generally ‘what’s done’. Many of us choose to live without questioning the underbelly, the meaning, or the point of origination that fuels our actions.

I do not choose this life.

[choose meaning to pick out
or select from a number of alternatives]

When the choice is made to not look - not see, not ask hard questions, not have difficult conversations – it seems to me a life posture that moves one inevitably towards the experience of having been ‘done to’ rather than ‘doing’. It places us safely in the seatbelt on the passenger side. Here, even if the scenery is lovely, the driver gets to choose the left turns. Riding through life like this allows us to pretend we hold exactly zero culpability for anything. And like the ‘litterbug’ we used to sing about in grade school, it portends an utter lack of responsibility to future generations.

I am beginning to think, though, that what I’ve always thought might not actually be correct. I’ve just assumed that all people are able to engage in introspection and conversation regarding life’s questions. I’ve held tightly to the notion that when people don’t, it’s simply because they do not want to. I call this a ‘won’t’. I’m thinking now though that it’s possible that some people simply cannot. If this is true then the not-engaging is a ‘can’t’. And if not questioning and not interacting is a ‘can’t’ then it would mean that these peoples’ ability to see, to understand, to meet me where I am and exchange ideas and talk, just plain isn’t there. It would mean that it isn’t teachable, coax-able or possible to bring about by pleading, anger or even the most succinct trying.

If it’s truly ‘can’t’ and not ‘won’t’, it seems a loving act for both people to recognize the disappointing fact of it. And if being seen, met, and understood in this way is truly, life sustaining-ly important, then it seems an act of generosity to name it for what it is and let it go.

Maybe this all has to do with where we dwell inside ourselves. Some people need to be able to recognize a familiarity of soul in order to walk a lifetime with a partner. And maybe for these people, living an examined life alone, is less lonely, feels more true, than living an un-examined life together.

I do not want to have to beg for understanding. I do not want to have to beg for someone to ask me questions. And I do not want to have to beg for interactive communication.

I want a person who has their own set of hopes for a relationship. A person that is willing to search for and communicate and define what it is they want, in all the ways that wants can change through the course of a life story.

It could be that the scars we build in response to our life-story wounds actually form a crust of scar tissue that strangles the heart, unless, in adulthood, we question and explore their efficacy. How we accept and make meaning out of the people we’ve become, in response to our life stories, sets the stage for a future.

I want a relationship to be what I’ve hoped a relationship can be:

One where the person I love is driven to self exploration – to looking at the full 50% that is theirs in any interaction – to be looking to struggle and engage with the hidden guts of a matter, regardless of how hard this may be in the moment.

I want the person I love to be a person who cares deeply about words, about stories – to want to dissect and discuss ideas, hopes, books, thoughts about life, mortality and ways of living.

I want the person I love to be a person who wants to communicate.

I want the person I love to be a person who loves having conversations and asking questions so that two people can journey in their heads and hearts, farther and past where either of them might have gone on their own.

I want the person I love to be a person who is interested in thinking things that feel like they’ve never been thought of before.

I want the person I love to be a person who wants to have conversations where each person’s perspective is considered and sometimes alters the way things continue to be thought of, instead of the original conceptions being the only things that stick.

I want the person I love to be a person who is driven to create, and who honors my drive as a ‘maker’, and to have it all deeply matter to both of us.

I want the person I love to be a person who wants to learn and/or who intuitively understands the creative process. I want to spend my time with someone who understands what it means and feels like to live it. And to in fact, love that creative process with all its quirks and idiosyncrasies.

I want a rest-of-my-life relationship with someone who shares a similar sensibility about the world and about one’s individual life. I want someone who doesn’t feel like life just happens to them. One who tries - wherever and however it is possible - to put their mark and their carefully examined choices onto the paths they walk.

I want to love someone who thinks to the positive first. One who, despite the stories life may have netted, tenaciously treasures being a person who trusts and believes in the good of people.

In summary, this relationship manifesto states that I want to dwell in, communicate from and share the moist fertile loam of the non-material.