How Being A Romantic Ruins Your Life

[Kazman]

The following is a text I wrote as a result of insights I had during an Enlightenment Intensive Retreat. Thought people here would enjoy it.

Howdy! Let’s jump RIGHT IN.

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has this to say about intrinsic value: The intrinsic value of something is said to be the value that that thing has “in itself,” or “for its own sake,” or “as such,” or “in its own right.”

In this text I will use the term instrumental to indicate the very opposite quality: that things, and I do mean all things, have an instrumental value, that is to say, that they may serve a purpose of some sort, and could therefore be considered desirable and useful to some end, but that ultimately, they are relative, and as such don’t qualify as holders of any intrinsic meaning whatsoever. And, it needs to be added, any purpose that one thing may be instrumental to, falls into the same category: it too is but another means to a non-existing end in an infinite chain of means without ends. No purpose holds any more value than what you subjectively ascribe to it. As soon as you make any one thing in particular your end goal, you put it on a pedestal above all other things, and then it automatically makes YOU ITS instrument. Those are the inevitable mechanics. When you no longer recognize that something’s importance to you is simply of relative importance, as soon as you consider it to have a meaning on its own, you become the instrument of THAT.

As soon as you think about your happiness as an end goal, you become the servant of your happiness. You don’t want to be the servant of anything! Not even to your desire not to be a servant of anything.

We always want to give things their own meaning, because after all, we “know” that WE are inherently important, that we as individuals are holders of intrinsic value. Therefore, other things must be intrinsically valuable as well. It is threatening to think that nothing matters absolutely, that everything is relative and subjective, because that might mean that *gasp* we don’t really matter either!

The world view I’m proposing is pretty much the opposite of the perspective held by a romantic person, which is something that I consider myself to have been all of my life. The main characteristic of a romantic is that he or she lives in the illusion that THE ONE PERFECT MOMENT will come. The moment that will make it all worthwhile. It doesn’t matter if you think it’s your holiday or when you win a competition, it can be your dreams of being a street musician in a picturesque setting or your fantasies of having amazing sex out in nature. Whatever it is for you, it’s that one moment you fantasize about, when everything will just be PERFECT. In other words: the romantic lives his or her life thinking that all of it is instrumental, that it is some kind of means to a chosen few perfect moments that TRULY MATTERS.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m no pessimist, you’ll probably have lots of those perfect moments in your life. They’ll be fun, exciting, ecstatic and all sorts of good things. But! Don’t think for a second that those moments are more important than any other moments. They’re not, because everything is instrumental, everything is relative.

I’m not trying to rain on your parade here, on the contrary! What I’ve seen in my own life is that the romantic paradigm is a bullet proof way to stay unhappy and confused, and I wish to help you avoid that.

Here’s an example of how it has played out in my own life that I see a lot of other people dealing with as well: I always took a great deal of pride in seeing myself as an artist. A lot of beliefs and values comes with the idea that one is an artist. One of the worst ones is that you think that art ACTUALLY MATTERS. That it is IMPORTANT. If you regard yourself as a suffering artist who is sacrificing your happiness and comfort for the noble sake of art, what I just said may provoke you. I’m not saying art matters less than anything else, but it certainly doesn’t matter MORE either!

If you’re a romantic you constantly become attached to specific processes. You can never focus on what truly matters because you always get caught up in superficial ideas of “the most intricate and amazing way” to do something. In my life, I’ve gotten in my own way again and again by thinking more about the APPEARANCE of my process than the reasons for why I’m doing what I’m doing. As soon as you get caught up in thinking about the appearance of a process in a romantic way, you can end up pursuing something that is not serving you, but you won’t stop because you love the beautiful IDEA of it. The beauty of the idea hypnotizes you to the extent that you become happy to be unhappy and put misplaced pride in your suffering.

Here’s a metaphor:

Romeo and Juliet go on a date and carve a heart and their initials into a tree as a manifesto of their infatuation. This has such an effect on Romeo that he falls in love with the carving itself. Juliet leaves him and he hardly notices. He has forgotten that the heart he carved into the tree is just a SYMBOL for love and not the real thing. This is the trap that the romantic falls into again and again. He falls in love with symbols of meaning and mistake them for the actual meaning, which makes him forget why he’s doing what he is doing. Sure, this is an exaggerated case, but it’s actually a lot closer to reality than you’d like to think.

Everything’s relationship with everything else and with the Absolute should always be sensed, ideally. That doesn’t mean you have to be spiritually detached or cold hearted. Just don’t think that things are important. That’s the only real danger. Let me repeat: things are not important. They’re not.

Everything serves a higher purpose, because everything we know exists in the relative domain. By definition any object or cause we can think of is included in a system or hierarchy or scheme where it plays a part of some sort. I don’t mean that everything serves the happiness of some supreme being who watches it all like a football game in his couch for entertainment. I mean that everything co-exists with everything else, and that any values or beliefs or judgements added on top of that is an unnecessary addition that can only distort what is already there. I mean that there cannot be any gods outside of the relative domain. If they’re anywhere, they’re in the game. They’re just other players on the football field, and so, they too must be means to a non-existing end.

Is truly EVERYTHING just of instrumental value? No. The very word instrumental implies a kind of subordination to some other thing, so what could that other thing be? Only one thing cannot be and must not be instrumental, and that is the Absolute. The absolute contains all possible events and at the same time the negation of that possibility. The absolute could be instrumental to no other thing, because it transcends and includes the relative domain. Anything you do or abstain from doing is still of instrumental value relative to the absolute. That is the meaning of the biblical command that you must serve God. It is not a choice, as in “YOU BETTER SERVE GOD YOU HEATHEN”, it is a law. It means that whatever you do, it IS ALWAYS instrumental to the Absolute by definition.

So what’s my goddamn point? WELL THIS REALIZATION WAS A BIG DEAL FOR ME, and it should be for you as well, if you’ve struggled all your life with confused romantic misconceptions that lead nowhere. The point is that you have to be actively cognizing why you’re doing the things you’re doing without glorifying the side effects of your pursuits, without falling in love with the surface manifestations that arise as a result of your endeavours. In other words, without worshipping false gods. That’s my goddamn point.

[vizual]

Of course, there is never going to come that perfect moment in which all your troubles will vanish like snow under the sun. That moment in which you will find happiness until you die. Everything comes and goes, just like the Taoists say. It's the flow of life. 

The happiness comes how you flow with life. And the flow is always here, and now. It's never in the future nor past, nor is it found in a certain relationship, job or object.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't be doing anything in life though, it doesn't mean we should just meditate all day long and be content. Nah, that's a stone Buddha. A true Buddha contributes in some way, whatever that way may be.

[YaNanNallari]

Romantic relationships shouldn't be considered a miracle not to be questioned. Applying meditative perspective to them is important if you want them to be truly good relationships.

[Kazman]

@K VIL very good way to put it!

@vizual You say of course, but is it our everyday experience that the perfect moment won't come? Or are we rather typically looking forward to things as our normal state, deemphasizing our life as it is? Are you? Right now? 10 seconds before you read this?

@YaNanNallari This point was not meant to be about romantic love, but rather on a romantic outlook on life can cause troubles. But I should have been more clear and precise in my use of the word, I can see how it could cause people to think I'm talking about something else.

[vizual]

@Kazman Yes I am perfectly aware the perfect moment won't come. But I have experimented in the past of trying to get rid of striving for something, and it doesn't work. It just leads to nihilism, anxiety and depression, at least in my case.

Getting rid of desire does not work. Rather I have found to enjoy the feeling of anticipation itself, even if the anticipated object never comes to actual fruition. I know that my expectation of the perfect future of my mind will not correlate with the actual reality, that's the power of the creative mind. In the creative mind everything is always way more "rosier" and romantic than actuality. But that does not mean that your inner romantic creativity is evil and useless. Rather, I appreciate it as a source of inspiration and beauty, not as an actual expectation of manifestation in which I link my self worth to. 

Romance is not dead. It just needs to be placed in the right perspective.