Development and abandonment

I think there is a wonderfully abandoned element in human nature that we have been taught to repress, perhaps because it frightens people who need to have everything in order in their lives. We certainly have a long history of attempts to fit us into a mould that suits those who have power to dictate, whether from marauding tribes or 'civilised' government. Today, though we have relative freedom it can be restricted by our own attitudes and any need an individual has to fit in with the group they're in. I see each life and the whole of time as a journey towards becoming natural and truly free, not to hurt others but to feel and express all we are, without fear. To be. There are as many facets to human nature as nature itself, your post identified two parts of which both are one part of all the possibilities in each. The areas we explore the most we understand the most. Sometimes. Sometimes analysis can lead to misunderstanding and confusion of course.

I often have to resort to imagination about some things, because I've only been awake for a relatively short time in my life. I've never had a relationship where I've been fully awake or fully natural, because of fear; it's as if I have been prey to people's wishes rather than having any direction myself - always running away from rather than going to. Each journey though, each person I've met, has given me more awareness, found through a lot of soul-searching afterwards] and I hope that they have found something positive in their memories too. This corresponds to the progress of mankind I think; there's an emergence of being that is moving - from the tribal community who were very reliant on each other, through to the dictatorships of frank Imperialism to the remnants of it now, but with people having a larger say in relative terms than before, but always having to fight oppression of some manifestation or other. The true individual is one who lives the life of their choice, not without regard to others, but not with fear of them either. They are aware of and accept all they are, nothing is hidden for fear it is too ugly and nothing needs to be pretended to compensate. There's nothing ugly in human nature, I believe, but it can and has been distorted in the very attempt to 'civilise' and educate, and also through frank and disguised abuse.

We can't have a gain without some loss, but conversely there's no loss without some gain. We gained more choice but we lost the natural ability to enjoy it perhaps - I could write forever on that subject.

Sexuality has been the most repressed part of nature, sadly. I am convinced it is a most sacred aspect, full of symbolism, full of reconciliation, healing, joyful expression of two minds and bodies fully engaged and abandoned to one another. I always imagined it could be a form of transubstantiation where love was fully realised. But due to years of repressive attitudes, leading to hidden ventilation of forbidden fruit which inevitably leads to desperation and a seeking to quell or a breakdown of quelling which then leads to all manner of violations. Rape is, perhaps the sexual equivalent of an emotional outburst after years of repression, an unhealthy katharsis in that it leads to guilt and punishment in both the victim and perpetrator. A few are blatantly violent - property gets destroyed, people are destroyed too; sexuality becomes a desecration of all it should be, but this is the dark side to the moon and never the whole story.

Unattended, unresolved trauma tends to fixate a person's development, or at least hinder it, and the journey takes a while longer, with a few u-turns, like wandering a maze with no guide - no sun to act as a compass. I can see that mirrored in mankind's progress too. The natural flow must be that of nature-in-the-sun; to embrace an expression of love that involves the most intense feeling mankind is given is the most natural course - to go where love takes you in all the different moods we are able to experience - from tenderness to a wild abandonment. It only becomes aggression when it is forced on someone; that is not love, has no relation to love, unless in play-acting! My very first awareness of erotic feeling in myself was at 14 when I had this beautiful but odd dream where I was tied to a tree, looking at a knight on a horse who appeared out of the forest - I felt no fear! Sadly that was the year I was assaulted - that, and and  the sadness and harshness in my childhood and 'marriage' - which crushed my senses so much I don't think I have been able to retrieve them fully. Certainly I can dream and imagine how life and passion could feel, but in reality, mostly, it is not important to me, I just have an occasional sadness, regret, for what was lost. This is the way.... -

"Thus shall ye think of all this fleeting world:
A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream,
A flash of lightning in a summer cloud,
A phantom and a dream."
The Diamond Sutra: Section XXXII. The Delusion of Appearances

And there are many truths, and much that is wonderful under the sky.