To MFASRF: "Life partner" is an interesting concept, isn't it...
...especially since each of us lives at least a few lives simultaneously and a few serially, and some of us lead many lives simultaneously and serially. At any rate, I stopped, a while back, looking for a life partner, so my guess is, based on the aphorism that one finds that for which (and whom) one is looking, I will not be finding that for which (or whom) I am not looking. My perception of life partnering was taught an interesting lesson, lately. Last month someone who sends me books for informal review sent me a copy of Dr. Philip McGraw's "Self Matters". I wasn't familiar with the show or the writer but I scanned the book and thought, from my book provider's perspective it would be helpful. When I read a book I always read the dedications and thank-you's when I have enough of a sense of the book so that these have meaning about the author and the circumstances surrounding the writing. This book is a pseudo-psycho self-help book; axiomatic and full of exercises designed to help one discover and recreate one's own beneficient "authentic self", in part, so that one isn't stuck waiting for someone else to grant a benevolently motivated self-concept. Thus, the following dedication and thank-you surprised me: "To my wife...without whom I would not be living my best life;" and "Thanks first to...my wife and life partner...you have been an inspirational and guiding force in my creating my own life from the inside out. It is your belief in and support of me that gave me the courage to step out and find my way back to my authentic self; back to being who I truly am instead of who others might want me to be. Without your spirit of adventure, I would to this very day be stuck in a life I did not want." Suddenly, everything fell into place. Self and other do not exist in mutual exclusion, even in the popular venue of "authentic self actualization". When we think we must and/or are doing it "alone", and we think this is wise, we aren't, and the concept of wisdom isn't applicable; doing it alone is impossible, even when we think we don't have "life partners". Which throws both the concepts of "authentic self actualization" and "life partner" back into their rightful ambiguity. In fact, when I read this dedication and thank-you, the first thing I thought was, "Doesn't he listen to himself?"
    [MCF's father] is still alive, at least as of a half hour or so ago, and still in the Arizona Heart Hospital. How do I feel about him dying? Settled. More settled than he, apparently. I am amazed at what one person can go through, physically and psychologically, and remain alive. I feel, sometimes, as though I am in class observing him. Although there are some deaths I know will change my perceived structure of the world, I have only experienced one of those deaths (not MDL's and not my father's) and I don't expect MCF's father's to be one of them. I will miss him when he dies but, now, I don't consider him dead; in fact, right now, he is startlingly alive to me in his ambivalence about his situation.
- posted by gail rae @ 14:46   email...this post