A Certain Love

With a Capital R

One of the greatest gifts I received last year was a new revelation about my relationship with Romantic Love.

While I always had enough savviness to know that there were logical errors in thinking of an individual person as “the One,” especially when I’ve been with more than One, I still didn’t fully comprehend my projections, assumptions, and unspoken (and sometimes ineffable) desires which were preventing me from even the capacity to co-habitate or share companionship with a partner in a Romantic union.

(I’m capitalizing “Romantic” here intentionally not to associate the word with the greater Romantic movement in philosophy and aesthetics — even though my favorite poet Coleridge does come up with terms like “soul mate” and does much to shift our Modern sense from medieval courtly thought — but because the word does still [yes, even this late into ethical polyamory as a popular term in common parlance — at least on Instagram] engender deep significance which is instantly recognizable even in the most recent complex representations in television, film, music, and other arts.)

For a long while I attempted to replace ideas of Romantic Love with a more or less evolution-minded version of materialism that tried to explain my lost loves away using psychological jargon and diminutive reductions.

But this wasn’t enough, as I came to Believe.

The problem wasn’t that Romantic Love didn’t exist, but that I needed a far greater foundational spirituality that allowed me to already find meaning and beauty in the cosmos so that I could be a properly virtuous partner should the opportunity come along.

As such, I’ve been giving myself a long leash to reasonably expect the possibility of such an earthly, human love by the time I’m 50 (I’m soon to turn 45), provided I continue to make strides on my current mystical and spiritual path.

Although it’s not guaranteed, and I’m not expecting it. And that is another fallacious aspect of my previous thinking — that it was somehow likely to happen, that I deserved it, or that it was somehow the natural order of things.

This is certainly not universally the case. The most important thing is for me to cling tightly to my rosary and focus on my prayerful life — the most powerful psychotechnology I know of — and adore the One in All and the All in One as I experience the Cosmos in participatory, procedural, and perspectival knowing.

The Logos will reveal itself as it will, and it is in my mystical union with the impossibility of ever truly grasping this that I am free to fully Be as creature (read:creation) in nature.

“Relationships” of the monogamous Romantic variety tend to be very challenging circumstances for me and, even when paired with the most compatible partner (as I’m certain I have been), I face a real risk of slipping into pattern behaviors that in many instances resemble addiction (in both its alluring and dissuasive characteristics).

So I leave the option open while not pursuing it — instead pursuing the Good, the Beautiful, and the True in this, my Year of Love and Beauty.

May my endeavors make me a better man, one hopefully of service to you.

With much Affection, I am

Yours, Amorously, 

Aaron