A Platonic Struggle

Moral Nature and Decay

Its been a curiosity for some time …  platonic relations I mean. Certainly I've had several in my experience … and it made me wonder where does the sexual drive go? We are in the normal course of social conventions … practiced in our suppression of the sexual drive … in unappropriate situations. And then the man comes to middle age … and suddenly … it flares like a comet … mostly directed at the man himself. Self vanity? … Narcissism? … in a life that's been regimented and orderly? Where did it come from?

 

But before heading in that direction … its important to reveal the content of the vanity … when it comes on later. It comes riding on the back of a mule … with no rhyme or reason … is prone to the slightest things … and generally behaves like an ape on a swing. My sainted mother in heaven … would not have believed that her son harbored such deviant sexual notions. But incredulous though it sounds … in the way it rips apart the man's well manicured moral nature … it leaves no doubt in the mind … that its hell's angels on a rampage.

 

I surprised myself by my own willfulness not to give in to it. And then the mind broke … and I was left like a toothless wolf … looking for lost sheep. Ever had the feeling sometimes … when fighting a fire … that right after you have put one out … it starts some place else … and then again somewhere. Its embarrassing … but I figure I was saving myself from a greater embarrassment … that uninhibited philanderers deny … in front of the television cameras.

 

So I practiced the meditative arts … yogic discernment … and stayed on a bland diet for a while. But the passions are willful … and they carry away the strongest will … that is not tethered to some sort of anchor. I first kept my faith with God … then Arunagiri … then Carlos Castaneda … but it passed through them like a tornado … in a field of straw. And then I met the man behind the passions … and he simply told me … he is what he is … and our moral conventions sometimes … amidst a life focused on career achievement … made his role difficult.

 

He was the human animal … wild as a mustang … untrained in parts of the mind that deals with society. I figured I had to break him … hopefully without too much fuss … and without creating a scene. He comes from a former time … when the passions ruled … and the mind was as yet unknown as an instrument of  any significance. He was the lifeline to the soul … and he was viewed as the greater viability of life … compared to someone like me … who was relying on knowledge … as the instrument of choice.

 

So I spent my time understanding him … and found that … he was allied to a bunch of forces … that had a long line of successes in life … was savvy about the ways of the world … and had satisfactorily earned the patronage of the Gods … as someone to be relied upon in life. But I found out that he had been stealing from me … I mean … he was engaging the mind in ways clandestine … to assign to himself … the laureate of knowledge. So I contested that … and we became divided … as to mind and passion.

 

He had worked the mind to be identified with passion … so I turned that around … to identify mind with reason. It was a fight to the finish … on a daily basis … and it was a kingdom divided for some years … but it also became a learning lesson for both of us. Gradually it turned into the good fight … and we came to appreciate how each is an indispensable instrument of life. Thereafter … we identified our common goal in some way … and merged our purpose into that which serves life … in a wholesome way.

I found to my surprise that both of us hail from a background that's non-sexual … that was cultivated with dreams and the realms of the imagination. However in these times … we seem to have been thrown into the same soup of sexual drives … that we are grappling to deal with. Obviously with regards to sexuality … there's much in the way of physical natures and drives … that coerce … force … and sometimes simply push and shove for gains.

 

There was … as I recall … great angst of rages … that threatened physical calamities … injuries … hasty reactions … and the usual fights. But we had one thing going for us. We made a deal one night that all these … ' Its a matter between the two of us … and it doesn't have to involve anyone else.' And on all occasions when somebody … tripped the rules … like someone jumping the queue at the 7-11 … or the cashier in the restaurant short changed me … or the car runs out of brake fluid in a traffic jam … I refer the issue to him to deal with.

 

In exchange … when the media plays up some racial issue about Indics… or the newspapers report on some poorly investigated news about our favorite politician … I step in to deal with the logic and reasoning of the issue. In such a way … we managed our affairs … with a regard for the passionate appeals of the other … and he came to appreciate the value of knowledge in open society. It was a friendship with a man you'll love to hate … but is opening our eyes to issues that are real. It is the female genius for solutions … verses the male gentlemanly logic.

 

The divide between the mind and the passion is a serious one … and when it first occurred in human history … from the time man learnt to speak … there's been an uneasy alliance on the issues between the two sides … that sometimes divides society into haves and have not … male and female … racial stereotypes … and the differences in perception about the value and quality of life. It finally comes to a matter of the individual … to stand up for what he considers is true … and right there … he finds that … there are two ways of representing that.

 

The course of civilization sometimes lulls us into a security with medical advancements … education … wealth … and fashion … and rolls it into a blanket of ideas about progress and how we are going to leave the primitive behind. That's not quite accurate. Our bodies are the most primitive thing there is … a little above the anima … but not much more. Someday we meet face to face … and set the record right. Later of course is better than sooner … and that's something we might both agree with.