Hyacinths for the soul

God I love spending time with Rob. Every time we get together, we always end up saying how we really wish we did it more often. There is this connection between us, it is something almost (dare I say it? *cringe*) spiritual, something on an 'energy' level rather than a 'chemistry' level. When we talk, we connect. I mean really connect. There are no misunderstandings. We speak in metaphors and similies, we talk of our abilities to reconsile paradox without rejecting it. We speak of living in the moment, of being aware, of being empathetic and contemplative, of being observers, of that self-awareness that makes us realize that even in a room full of people interested in engaging us, we can be alone, our own islands--entertaining our inner critics. We can use something from the Bagavad Gita, or the Diamond Sutra, or Nietzsche, Dante, Shakespeare, or Joseph Campbell to illustrate a point, without worrying that the other is missing it and needing an explanation. There is no need to talk down on a more mundane level. We can reach spiritual and philosophical heights that are just so rare in daily life. I almost always leave his company feeling uplifted, no matter how deep or dark the subjects of our conversations.

Rob and I talked tonite of many things. We talked about the difficulty of living a life (especially a rich internal one) that does not fit between the lines, that cannot be defined. About how disconcerting it is when you realize that, for most people, the answer to the question "What do you do?" is also the answer to the question "Who am I?" (What do you do? I am a lawyer/doctor/programmer)

We talked about just being what we are and our awareness that the world could benefit from more people who are process-oriented, rather than goals-oriented, people who are contemplators, rather than consumers. We are both life-long students, we both wish that it was possible, in today's world, to define one's self publicly as a philosopher or student of life without sounding absurd or lofty. We wish that it was legitimate to be a Thinker without having to be a member of the Academy or some Washington think-tank.

We talked about seeing the world differently, about noticing energy levels, about the consciousness we have that humanity is teetering on the edge of a precipice, and we need to leap into the next level of our evolution, or fall.

We talked about the undefinables of our more meaningful relationships, how, in describing our connections to our friends, sometimes people think we are talking about a lover. And about the pros and cons of taking friends as lovers. We talked about romance and love and how so many people have this idea that there is one perfect person out there who can be all things for them, connecting deeply on all levels: physical, mental, emotion, and spiritual. We've both found three of the four in one person, but we have no hopes or expectations of four out of four. We are both aware that one of the reasons why we have people in our lives is because the combinations of the different affinities fulfill us on all those levels, in ways that one person cannot.

We talked about how much we enjoy each other's company, and those who are like-minded, how renewing it is. And how sometimes we need it so desperately, because there is such a sense of separatness and detachment sometimes, and how it tends to grow as we realize how foreign we are to the mainstream. I told him he was one of my hyacinths. He asked what I meant and I quoted him this:

If of thy mortal goods thou art bereft,
And of thy meager store two loaves alone to thee are left,
Sell one, and with the dole
Buy hyacinths to feed thy soul.
(Sheikh Muslih-uddin Saadi Shirazi, The Gulistan of Saadi)


And finally, we talked about needing breaks, the need for solitude. Yes, the allure of solitude. But that is a post for another day.