Dear
Viny,
An
unexpected thing happened to me a few weeks ago, and I would
appreciate your take on it. My three year old Rock of Gibraltar poly
romance experienced a tiny earthquake, and ever since then I find
myself mentally wearing a hard hat and carrying emergency supplies. I
usually feel delighted about my partner's experiences with other men
she finds interesting. So after a recent occasion I was most
surprised to discover other feelings gradually welling up in me,
namely anxiety, insecurity, and a certain obsessiveness about their
interaction. This was totally unexpected. What the hell?
-Seismic
Quandary
***
Dear Quandary,
Did
you know that the Rock of Gibraltar is home to a few hundred Barbary
macaques, the only population of wild monkeys in Europe? These Old
World primates
are quite unusual: they don't have a tail; their social structure is
matriarchal; females mate with most of the males in their social
group, apparently giving preferential treatment to those who are most
parental; and males take an active role in caring for infants, even
though their paternity is highly uncertain.
Unbeknownst
to these macaques, the rock upon which they have built their poly
paradise is actually a highly faulted limb of an
overturned fold – its sedimentary strata are upside
down, with the oldest layer on top. Basically, what this means is that different layers of
rock gradually built up, over the course of eons, as oceans advanced
and retreated – and then, one earthquake at a time, over the course
of more eons, the whole structure gradually flipped over. From a
geological perspective, then, the Rock of Gibraltar is a perfect
example of how the earth is constantly changing, shaped by dynamic
processes that we usually don't even notice, given our puny human
timescale – except on those rare occasions when we are shaken, quite literally, out of our illusion of safety and security by some
cataclysmic event.
As
you have no doubt figured out, the point I am trying to make is that
the only certainty in this world is impermanence. Nothing is truly
solid, not even the earth beneath our feet. There is no rock on which
to rest. We know this instinctively, and it's terrifying. The Holy
Grail we seek in life is freedom from this fear. And that is why we
adore the people who bring us temporary respite – and also why we
often come to resent those same people when it becomes apparent that
the key word was temporary, rather
than respite.
There
are a number of possible reasons why your reaction to your partner's
interest in someone else felt different (and considerably less
delightful than usual) this time. Perhaps there was something qualitatively
different about this particular interaction: your partner's level of
interest seemed unusually high, the other person's level of interest
seemed unusually high, your partner and/or the other person behaved
unusually
toward you afterward, etc. Or perhaps you were merely
predisposed to interpret the
situation differently because you happened
to be feeling more insecure than usual – for reasons that could have been entirely
unrelated to the event, your partner, and the other person. Whatever
the cause, something shifted, just the tiniest bit. You felt the
earth move under your feet, and that reminded you
of your fear – the very same fear you depend
on your partner to help you forget.
I
could offer you some tips on how to alleviate your
feelings of anxiety, work
through your jealousy, and regain a sense of trust in your partner's
love for you. However, you don't seem to be asking for practical
advice. You seem to be posing a bigger, more existential question – which is why I want to leave you with this quote from Pema Chödrön's
book Comfortable with
Uncertainty: 108 Teachings on Cultivating Fearlessness and
Compassion:
As long as we believe that there is something that will
permanently satisfy our hunger for security, suffering is inevitable.
The truth is that things are always in transition. “Nothing to hold
on to” is the root of happiness. If we allow ourselves to rest
here, we find that it is a tender, nonaggressive, open-ended state of
affairs. This is where the path of fearlessness lies.
Rocks & Macaques,
Viny
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