Truth VS Seduction

 " I want this music and this dawn and the warmth of your cheek against mine" Rumi

       So I am reading this truly amazing book called if the Buddha dated: Finding love on a spiritual path. The book contains rumi quotes, Buddhist principles, and the concepts of loving kindness mashes it all together and bam your romantic views are changing. The main idea is Truth- Truth to you and what you are feeling and openness to all sides of yourself and the other person. That all sounds pretty frickin stellar to me. However it generally directly clashes with everything we are raised and programmed to believe since birth.
          For the past 2 years I have been on a path of self reliance and independence. I knew I would never be able to be in a strong stable relationship till I knew I could 100% care for myself and live joyously completely alone. "More then anything else, I want myself. I want to live with integrity and truth. I am not going to hide the jewel of who I am, nor will I mask my imperfections" (6). I became financially independent paying all my own bills and found ways to truly love myself when it's just me alone in my room thinking. It was hard work but essential to find my own unique standard that I want for my life.
       The problem then is finding the person who can fit into this life we have created. "Too often, we try to mold people into what we want them to be rather then honoring them as they are" (11). I am so beyond guilty of this- your trying to warp the person which never works... you either love all of someone or you don't really love them at all. Their light and their dark and all the grey in between bits. If you are uniquely you and they are uniquely them and together you uniquely match then everything finds it's harmony. Easy peasy right???
     The opposite of this idea of truth and open communication is mind manipulation and the art of Art of Seduction. The premise being that people fit into categories and you can easily get the result you would like by doing certain key things depending on what the person secretly desires for instance play the Coquette. They "are the grand masters of the game, orchestrating a back-and-forth movement between hope and frustration. They bait with the promise of reward the hope of physical pleasure, happiness, fame by association, power all of which, however, proves elusive; yet this only makes their targets pursue them the more. Imitate the alternating heat and coolness of the Coquette and you will keep the seduced at your heels." Wow not only does it explain "the type" it tells you more or less how to do it. 

       Think of Barney's playbook from How I Met Your Mother and you got a pretty good idea of what the book would look like played out in the real world with maybe a little more subtly because after all subtle suggestion is key to a seduction. An innocent example: I was new at my job and I new counselors were suppose to write no show receipts for their clients if they did not show up for their session. Knowing I needed Person A to write one but afraid to demand things on day 1 when he said "I can't believe my client didn't show!" I responded sweetly "isn't there something you need to do when that happens?" I looked over in his direction. "Ya write a receipt" he remarked I smiled "oh, oh! I see what you're doing there sneaky. well aren't you the queen of subtle suggestion." Yes, yes I am.
   The thing about playing little mind games is that there is no "truth" what so ever... except the truth that people are very mailable to being drawn in, persuaded, and seduced in general. Think of any major women in history or any great man and there was someone at their side whispering many ideas into their ears. Ya know what they say-behind every great man there's an ever greater woman and that's because one person in the relationship is always going to be one whose a little bit better as getting what they want. Games games games the book says “Desire is both imitative (we like what others like) and competitive (we want to take away from others what they have). As children, we wanted to monopolize the attention of a parent, to draw it away from other siblings. This sense of rivalry... makes people compete for the attention.”  So manipulation, games, and competition....damn that seems like a lot of work. It does "work" it really can (proof not discussed on the internet) but is that the kind of relationship you really want?
     So what appeals to you more truth or seduction???? Either way I got an amazing book that can lead you down the right path. Personally I'm torn I think one day when there is one person who I can truly trust and open up to and they in turn are willing and ready I will be all about truth. However now in LA when I'm looking for something more fun you may catch me in a small little flirtation that involves a small degree of manipulation- maybe.... i'm not admitting to anything!     ;)

Love Letters: The Most Romantic Thing in the World

     Ever since I was little I have had a fascination with letters. I remember being taught how to write a formal letter in school and I was so excited! I was even more excited when it came time to learn cursive. Now at the ripe age of 25  I've realized that cursive writing and especially letter writing are a lost art form.  I think letters have a way of communicating ideas and feelings that an email can just not completely convey. When I was backpacking in Europe I wrote letters to my friends back home and it was actually fun not to mention the excitement of actually receiving a letter in the mail! Men make a mental note this can also be quite romantic... so next time your considering sending and email think about maybe sending a letter to the girl you like- she will adore it... trust me.
       One of my favorite books The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is written as letters. There just something about writing one that gives you a feeling of openness like you can say what you really feel.  I am notorious for writing letters when there is something that I really need to say but can't seem to say face to face. Persuasion, most likely my favorite book in the world, has one of the most amazing letters ever written:

"I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant. You alone have brought me to Bath. For you alone, I think and plan. Have you not seen this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes? I had not waited even these ten days, could I have read your feelings, as I think you must have penetrated mine. I can hardly write. I am every instant hearing something which overpowers me. You sink your voice, but I can distinguish the tones of that voice when they would be lost on others. Too good, too excellent creature! You do us justice, indeed. You do believe that there is true attachment and constancy among men. Believe it to be most fervent, most undeviating, in F. W.

I must go, uncertain of my fate; but I shall return hither, or follow your party, as soon as possible. A word, a look, will be enough to decide whether I enter your father's house this evening or never."

       A scholar write this about the letter http://www.utexas.edu/features/2010/02/08/love_letters/   Another popular love letter is talked about in Sex and the City from Ludwig Van Beethoven to his "Immortal Beloved" which reads :  Good morning, on July 7
Though still in bed, my thoughts go out to you, my Immortal Beloved, now and then joyfully, then sadly, waiting to learn whether or not fate will hear us - I can live only wholly with you or not at all - Yes, I am resolved to wander so long away from you until I can fly to your arms and say that I am really at home with you, and can send my soul enwrapped in you into the land of spirits - Yes, unhappily it must be so - You will be the more contained since you know my fidelity to you. No one else can ever possess my heart - never - never - Oh God, why must one be parted from one whom one so loves. And yet my life in V is now a wretched life - Your love makes me at once the happiest and the unhappiest of men - At my age I need a steady, quiet life - can that be so in our connection? My angel, I have just been told that the mailcoach goes every day - therefore I must close at once so that you may receive the letter at once - Be calm, only by a calm consideration of our existence can we achieve our purpose to live together - Be calm - love me - today - yesterday - what tearful longings for you - you - you - my life - my all - farewell. Oh continue to love me - never misjudge the most faithful heart of your beloved.
ever thine
ever mine
ever ours
From Jane Eyre this quote makes me cry:

"I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you - especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous channel, and two hundred miles or so of land some broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapt; and then I've a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly. As for you, - you'd forget me.”

If you are a girl I am sure your heart must have melted by now but in this day in age can so much lovely sentiments really be appreciated for it's beauty? Watch this more modern love story here: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/love-letter-finally-delivered-60-years-first-written-165305864.html?fb_action_ids=833708419975&fb_action_types=news.reads&fb_source=other_multiline&code=AQDs5OfLwWojenSg-RuINKuqklYSBBdz_6KQGNOBo7nFdkrbSjyOSzIF9sN3205m3zz0x7wFyB-ZhDwgkVIdC4m4Gl3w4_2E_OIohtvwaH53dODCccrGeWizNIk8SOzH-bO9m7SkJvzLNk2oRanpoKJ194r7ePp1RQvjGdTNWTX11LWWn1xxQI28c-xFLDHQtTA# 
In closing I must say throughout time the love letter is still the most romantic thing in the world and if you ever are lucky enough to receive one be thankful you got one of the good ones ~S~