Decisions

Accepting a proposal from a beautiful girl to embark on a casual relationship is an invitation that's impossible to resist despite all of the warning signs that come attached to it flashing bright. Maybe it really is extreme hubris to tell yourself that you're somehow psychologically hardened and evolved beyond most people and capable of maintaining such a tricky connection to another and drawing warmth from it without letting it inevitably crash you into the rocks to bleed. But in another light, isn't just such an opportunity exactly what would be encouraged by Miyamoto Musashi to strengthen a samurai's control over his will and control by forcing him to master and break his emotions so that he can enjoy and banish them at will? It is common knowledge that Miyamoto as well as countless warriors walking the path had intimate long lasting relations with specific Geishas and prostitutes without ever forgetting that it was so very temporary and ultimately expendable before duty if called upon. Such an arrangement with a lover is perhaps the perfect embodiment of the core of the way that we walk. And that way tells us to never forget that all is temporary and fighting this knowledge will only pain and destroy you.

If you are two people so lucky to find one another and with your youth, a strong mutual attraction, and a rare curiosity to know more about one another and share yourselves, then wouldn't it be foolish to not embrace these moments and not poison them by wasting time obsessing on what happens outside of your time together? You belong to nobody and nobody belongs to you. It is an impossibility that our species has fabricated along with gods to avoid the future. I think the joke lies in the fact that we can only truly appreciate the company of one another when we clearly see how fragile and short-lived the bonds are. Maybe then the time shared in these spaces can grow our souls instead of play out into monotonous cycles.

Our illusions of control are simply grown from seeds of fear that each of us are riddled with all the way through. Perhaps avoiding a relationship of any sort due to your weariness of the repercussions is in fact the unhealthy choice because it is based in fear?

'Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon.' - Ernest Hemingway