I’ve just struggled through a pretty intense book, and pulled out some interesting gems which I’ll quote here.

At the end I’ll ask:

What are your thoughts? Do you resonate with any of this in your life? How have you learned to overcome it?

“(Most people spend) the bulk of their journey suffering the loss of relationship with their own best selves.”

“Who among us (can be) capable of agape or “disinterested love” i.e. love wholly invested in the well being of the other, without the shadow of self-interest cruising beneath the surface like a surly shark?”

“Consider the courage of those truly willing to look within and own what they find.”

“It is the nature of our condition that we long for the Other. As life began with the primal separation from the Other, so we seek, for ever, to return. In our age we may even be said to have a culture of longing. We long for the Gods who went underground. We long for connections, the fixes. We are all addicted, seeking connection through chemical substances, money and power, and most of all through the Magical Other. We long for nurturance, for safe harbor, for completion.”

“…has left us stranded on an isle of narcissism, alone, afraid, self-absorbed, and longing for some Other to save us.”

“More people look for salvation through relationship than in houses of worship.”

“…At least one partner must be extremely and overtly needy, with the other needing to be needed – thus
co-dependence, a state in which both are emotionally constricted and developmentally stuck, fused in the
psychologically naïve fantasy that the Other can truly take care of them. Welcome to ‘happy neurosis island.'”

“…and yet he refused commitment, for therein lay the profound abyss of his childhood fear of being abandonded.”

“Rarely is this progression (in the later stages of relationship, when projections dissolve) welcomed as a
chance for personal growth, or as an opportunity to know who the Other really is, if not the one we thought we’d hooked up with.”

“…where he can move into uncharted territories to seek and find the anguish and terror of total realization and discover that he can survive.”

“But when we can comfort our frightened child, stand watch on the ramparts of our own soul, then we may experience transformation.”

“We may even come to bless those who have most hurt us, for they have most contributed to our transformation. We may even love them, allowing them to be who they are, even as we struggle to be ourselves on the journey toward our own destined end.”

* * *

I’d like to hear your thinking on this:

What are your thoughts? Do you resonate with any of this in your life? How have you learned to overcome it?

Taken from “The Eden Project: In Search of the Magical Other” by James Hollis