Letter 5

Dear No One, Looking through post outlines and essays I have planned out but still to write well I reflect on why I haven’t finished them. The biggest change which has occurred in my life has been my relationship. Being honest this has been the first committed relationship I’ve ever had. It took until this one to realize that I’ve never been in mutually loving relationship. Besides poor prior experience I had other reasons for not dating. I won’t make stories or beat around the bush. For a long time I really just did not have the self-esteem to reach beyond myself. In my early youth I focused on self-improvement for growth and reaching my potential. But for many years I simply felt like I was not ready to be with anyone. See the work became more important to me than relationships romantic or even with friends. To be involved with anyone else is to reach beyond yourself; you learn this persons mind, their temperament, their spirit, and a relationship makes the demand that you care about them to learn all that stuff. Does that make me sound terrible? To admit to not caring enough about people to become involved with them. It is something that sounds bad but I would rather think it’s better to be honest that deceitful. I never pretended to be anything more to a person than what I was to them. Now I do have friends and I do care about them. But for the most part I’ve found people to be more exhausting than enjoyable. Needless to say that my friendships have suffered over the years due to my disposition and lack of enthusiasm. Again I did not mind this all too much because the work was what was most important. What was the work: the practice of daily self-improvement and my desire to write. Now I have come to the point of understanding that the work will never be finished and I have come to embrace that with love. There is a part of me that wishes to retire from the crap of modern life into a monkish habit of seclusion, study, and contemplation. In fact that is perhaps my most earnest wish. But I’ve also wanted to share love with someone. I can be grateful to have experienced both these things I wanted. Connecting with my partner was very different than my meeting of women in the past. The short of it is we were two friends who started dating. But recall what I’ve written and no I was not a close friend. Perhaps that allowed there to be mystery about me. I’ve been surprised to have connected so well with someone. But I also wonder about myself, my feelings seem unknown to me in ways that are both disheartening and confusing. I wonder if I’m psychopathic. No I don’t want to harm anybody. I just don’t want to deal with their shit. This the problem inherently with relationships and myself. How do you tell your partner that you just don’t want to deal with them? Or that you don’t really care about these things they tell you? It makes me wonder why I get involved with anyone if I care for awhile but stop later on. It makes me wonder why I ever walk away from the work. This is the predicament that I’m in right now. My feelings ebb and flow like the tide and some times I’m filled with love and caring, while other times I’d rather be alone. Time is the most precious resource and rather than choosing the work I’m choosing her. I’m not doing anything wrong. I’m living life. Realistically I couldn’t be much of a writer if I do not know love. Many of my first encounters with love have showed me the foolish side of it, have taught what unrequited love actually is, and allowed me to understand powerful heartbreak. Now I’ve been able to share a great gift, share my love with another and be loved as well. My mind always wanders back to the work, to my many projects which have been on hold. I remind myself that I wanted to devote myself entirely to my craft. But again how would I know art if I do not know humanity. As difficult as it may be regarding the demand on my time, this is part of the writing journey. No individual can be completely secluded, completely isolated, there is no sterile lab to grow a writer in. To write, to have art, is to experience human life and the world. If you are unaware to tastes and smells, the touch and feel, all the wonderful sights, if you do not experience the beauty of phenomena and feel the awe of existence how could you create?