Admiration: The Deep and Practiced Courtesy of Appreciating from a Distance - Distance (Part III)
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The Addicted Lover For the man possessed by the Addict, there are no boundaries. In their seminal book King Warrior Magician Lover, Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette write of the dangers involved in the shadow side of the Lover, "The man under the influence of the lover wants to touch and be touched. He wants to touch everything physically and emotionally, and he wants to be touched by everything. He recognizes no boundaries. He want to live out the connectedness he feels with the world inside, in the context of his powerful feelings, and outside, in the context of his relationships with other people. The man under the influence of the Lover does not want to stop at socially created boundaries. He stands against the artificiality of such things. His life is often unconventional and "messy" - the artist's studio the creative scholar's study, the "go for it" boss' desk. Consequently, because he is opposed to "law", this this broad sense, we see enacted in his life of confrontation with the conventional the old tension between sensuality and morality, between love and duty, between, as Joseph Campbell poetically describes it, "amor and Roma" - "amor" standing for passionate experience and "Roma" standing for duty and responsibility to law and order... Artists lives are typically, perhaps stereotypically, stormy, messy and labyrinthine - full of ups and downs, failed marriages, and often substance abuse... [The addicted lover] is possessed by the very energy that could be a source of life and well-being for him if accessed appropriately... The most forceful and urgent question a man identified with the Addicted Lover asks is: "Why should I put any limits on my sensual and sexual experience of this vast world, a world that holds unending pleasures for me?"... How does the Addict possess a man? The primary and most disturbing characteristic of the Shadow Lover as Addict is his lostness which shows up in a number of ways... He has an insatiable hunger to experience some vague something that is just over the next hill. He is compelled to extend the frontiers not of knowledge (for that would be liberating for him) but of his sensuality, no matter what the cost to the mortal man who badly needs, as all mortal men do, merely human happiness... Here's where we see the Don Juan syndrome... the man moving from one woman to another, compulsively searching for he knows now what, is a man whose inner structures have not yet solidified. Because he himself is fragmented within, and not entered, he is pushed and pulled around by the illusory wholeness he thinks is out there in the world of feminine forms and sensual experiences... What the Addict is seeking (though he doesn't know it) is the ultimate and continuous 'orgasm,' the ultimate and continuous 'high'... This is why he goes from one woman to another, Each time him woman confronts him with her mortality, her finitude, her weakness and limitation, hence shattering his dream of this time finding the orgasm without end - in other words, when the excitement of the illusion of perfect union with her (with the world, with God) becomes tarnished - he saddles his horse and rides out looking for renewal of his ecstasy. He needs his 'fix' of masculine joy. He really does. He just doesn't know where to look for it. He ends by looking for his 'spirituality' in a line of cocaine... Psychologists talking about the problems that stem from a man's possession by the Addict as 'boundary issues.' For the man possessed by the Addict, there are no boundaries. As we've said, the Lover does not want to be limited. And, when we are possessed by him, we cannot stand to be limited... But boundaries constructed with heroic effort are what a man possessed by the Addict needs most. He doesn't need more oneness with all things. He's already got too much of that. What he needs is distance and detachment... The man under the power of the Addict is still within the Mother, and he's struggling to get out. [He] must learn about the usefulness of boundaries the hard way. He must learn that his lack of masculine structure, his lack of discipline, his resulting affairs, and his authority problems will inevitably get him into trouble. He will be fired from his jobs, and his wife, who loves him dearly, will eventually leave him... The Love without boundaries, in his chaos of feeling and sensuality, needs the King to define limits for him, to give him structure, to order his chaos so that it can be channeled creatively. Without limits, the Lover energy turns negative and destructive."
Admiration: The Deep and Practiced Courtesy of Appreciating from a Distance - Distance (Part III)
Admiration: The Deep and Practiced Courtesy…
Admiration: The Deep and Practiced Courtesy of Appreciating from a Distance - Distance (Part III)
The Addicted Lover For the man possessed by the Addict, there are no boundaries. In their seminal book King Warrior Magician Lover, Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette write of the dangers involved in the shadow side of the Lover, "The man under the influence of the lover wants to touch and be touched. He wants to touch everything physically and emotionally, and he wants to be touched by everything. He recognizes no boundaries. He want to live out the connectedness he feels with the world inside, in the context of his powerful feelings, and outside, in the context of his relationships with other people. The man under the influence of the Lover does not want to stop at socially created boundaries. He stands against the artificiality of such things. His life is often unconventional and "messy" - the artist's studio the creative scholar's study, the "go for it" boss' desk. Consequently, because he is opposed to "law", this this broad sense, we see enacted in his life of confrontation with the conventional the old tension between sensuality and morality, between love and duty, between, as Joseph Campbell poetically describes it, "amor and Roma" - "amor" standing for passionate experience and "Roma" standing for duty and responsibility to law and order... Artists lives are typically, perhaps stereotypically, stormy, messy and labyrinthine - full of ups and downs, failed marriages, and often substance abuse... [The addicted lover] is possessed by the very energy that could be a source of life and well-being for him if accessed appropriately... The most forceful and urgent question a man identified with the Addicted Lover asks is: "Why should I put any limits on my sensual and sexual experience of this vast world, a world that holds unending pleasures for me?"... How does the Addict possess a man? The primary and most disturbing characteristic of the Shadow Lover as Addict is his lostness which shows up in a number of ways... He has an insatiable hunger to experience some vague something that is just over the next hill. He is compelled to extend the frontiers not of knowledge (for that would be liberating for him) but of his sensuality, no matter what the cost to the mortal man who badly needs, as all mortal men do, merely human happiness... Here's where we see the Don Juan syndrome... the man moving from one woman to another, compulsively searching for he knows now what, is a man whose inner structures have not yet solidified. Because he himself is fragmented within, and not entered, he is pushed and pulled around by the illusory wholeness he thinks is out there in the world of feminine forms and sensual experiences... What the Addict is seeking (though he doesn't know it) is the ultimate and continuous 'orgasm,' the ultimate and continuous 'high'... This is why he goes from one woman to another, Each time him woman confronts him with her mortality, her finitude, her weakness and limitation, hence shattering his dream of this time finding the orgasm without end - in other words, when the excitement of the illusion of perfect union with her (with the world, with God) becomes tarnished - he saddles his horse and rides out looking for renewal of his ecstasy. He needs his 'fix' of masculine joy. He really does. He just doesn't know where to look for it. He ends by looking for his 'spirituality' in a line of cocaine... Psychologists talking about the problems that stem from a man's possession by the Addict as 'boundary issues.' For the man possessed by the Addict, there are no boundaries. As we've said, the Lover does not want to be limited. And, when we are possessed by him, we cannot stand to be limited... But boundaries constructed with heroic effort are what a man possessed by the Addict needs most. He doesn't need more oneness with all things. He's already got too much of that. What he needs is distance and detachment... The man under the power of the Addict is still within the Mother, and he's struggling to get out. [He] must learn about the usefulness of boundaries the hard way. He must learn that his lack of masculine structure, his lack of discipline, his resulting affairs, and his authority problems will inevitably get him into trouble. He will be fired from his jobs, and his wife, who loves him dearly, will eventually leave him... The Love without boundaries, in his chaos of feeling and sensuality, needs the King to define limits for him, to give him structure, to order his chaos so that it can be channeled creatively. Without limits, the Lover energy turns negative and destructive."