Hi again, Anita,

You must have posted as I was typing my “War and Peace” post above.  I didn’t see it until after I posted, left, and checked my email.

I think it’s a semantics quibble; my intent was to say that what we perceive is *our* reality, or reality as we perceive it to be.  I totally agree that what we perceive does not necessarily reflect actual reality-as-it-is.  Walk into the core of an atomic reactor; you see nothing, hear nothing, feel nothing – – therefore you perceive no danger.  All good; just a room full of machinery and lots of plumbing.  I think you can fill in the rest, and it’s not pleasant.

That’s why I feel that it’s not TOO far off base; but it’s also incomplete.  Serves it’s purpose as a ‘throwaway comment’ to drag in a point.

That’s what I keep telling myself: that had I had the chance to spend time with her, learned more about her, I could well have come to realize that although I might love her, that we were two *very* different people (as I already suspect anyway, even aside from the fourteen-year age difference), and may not have been compatible on anything other than a casual friendship basis.   I wonder if this situation was “meant” to work out like it did.  I gave something to her, she gave something to me – – and we both move on from there.  All this anguish is simply me, resisting reality, wanting what I want, and not just being grateful for what I was given.  Painful?  Sure, almost all spiritual development comes with pain as a cost (another saw… “no pain, no gain”).  Or even Dr. Suess: “Don’t be sad it’s over, be glad it happened.”  Or maybe that other chestnut: “Better to have loved and lost, than to never have loved at all.”  I find myself in the camp of Tommy Lee Jones in “Men in Black” on that one, though… “Try it.”

Your closing comment… well, I think I understand what you’re telling me.  I’m well aware that I tend to run awfully wordy; I think it’s the perfectionist in me that wants to be absolutely sure that I’m getting across what I’m trying to get across.  Pithy and concise is hard; hosing words at things is easier… but in the end, probably less certain.

I take your point, though.  I will try to do that going forward.  Can’t promise you anything, as I’ve been a “neck-up” pseudo-intellectual for the vast majority of my life.  My entire existence (until my lady friend came along and pointed out that I DO have a heart, and live in it, which was plain to her but not to me… she managed to make me believe it’s true – – her gift to me) has been from the neck up, strictly thought.  I’m quite literally a stranger to my own heart, emotions, and body.  Very much a “me and them” existence.  My heart (and emotions) have never been welcome at the table, and that’s going to be very hard to change.  I recognize that it has to, and that it won’t be easy (longest journey being from head to heart).  I’m not even sure how to go about ‘welcoming’ these strangers to the table.  My mind can come up with all kinds of things, assign/interpret all kinds of meanings to things like feelings, and no one seems any more likely than any other.

I just read “Emotional Intelligence” by Daniel Goleman; it’s not a new book, 1990’s, I think; but it was quite a revelation to me.  I always thought that having my rational thinking hijacked/overwhelmed by emotions was not normal, which is another reason I saw my emotions as a problem.  Never realized that this happens to everyone; why didn’t anybody tell ME?  Where’s my owners’ manual?  And I’m now reading “The Language of Emotions” by Karla McLaren, whose assertion is that our emotions are specifically trying to tell us something, but that we start learning to shut them off or minimize them when we learn to speak, and when we become more outwardly social  in the 3 to 5 year area.  I’m hoping she picks up where Daniel left off.  He describes, and offers solutions for kids, when the damage occurs (prevention as opposed to cure), but there’s nothing in there for those of us already damaged.  Maybe Karla has something.

And I’ll stop hosing words now 🙂