The Two Arms of Intimacy
Or
A Long Waltz on the Bridge Between Mystery and Revelation
“To not have is the beginning of desire.”
Love is, perhaps, the last, best mystery we have access to. Some might say this honor belongs to death. But love, at least, is something we know a little about, and it doesn't involve leaving one’s body to explore further.
Much of the world has been traversed, its depths and contours mapped in detail, its body photographed and sketched. But our pursuit of one another, especially within our closest bonds, can potentially hold a lifetime of both mystery and revelation, two things irresistible and forever linked, and two things we cannot live without if we are to know ourselves, our world, and one another more intimately.
There is a bridge between mystery and revelation that leads directly through the center of our existence. It runs between the allure of all that is unknown and the ecstasy of finally knowing. This liminal realm is where we spend most of our time while we're still vertical, and this applies to all corners of life. The pursuit of understanding and experience is one that never ceases so long as we draw breath. But I want to look, today, at how this plays out in our relationships with one another.
Seasons and Easy Solutions
On our way toward places of greater understanding and deeper connection, we sometimes experience seasons of life where we seem to have less patience for the mysterious, no heart for the search, temporary waiting rooms where we fortify ourselves against the reality of life’s more dynamic and shifting aspects, even those that lie within other people.
While rest and recuperation are good things, hiding is not. The tragedy here is not simply that while in this state of mind, the answers we settle on are usually over-simplified, but we reduce not only the knowledge we gain, but worse, our connection with others, to mere solutions, streamlined answers to whatever is frustrating us the most at the time.
It would seem fair to respond, then, that conversely, there must be other times when our longing for the mysteries of life is too great. But that wouldn't be accurate, since anyone ignited by the fires of the unknown naturally pursues revelation to close that loop, at last fulfilling its psychological, emotional and metaphysical promises.
No, what nips at our heels the most is our desire for instant gratification and immediate information, along with a growing impatience with the complexity of others. These lead us down paths holding far more harm than good, and abbreviate certain learning opportunities we may have shared with those closest to us.
The Fermentation of Life
The pursuit of love and relationship, like every other human endeavor, is subject to the inevitable nature of change woven into everything we experience. All things, including ourselves, are in a constant state of flux, either moving forward and expanding outward, or contracting back into ourselves. Almost always, it is a combination of both, growing in some areas even as we diminish, or at least, sidestep in others.
Because of this inherent variability, we might say there are no rules when it comes to how something or someone develops. It's more accurate, though, to say there are rules, but simply too many of them, and their manifestations too overlapping to make complete sense of.
Leave a bottle of regular grape juice in a basement and it will inevitably spoil, maybe even ferment, but not in the way you'd like, eventually forfeiting all its possible nuances and pleasures to the ravages of time and invasive organisms. Take another vessel of pressed grape juice, ferment it with just the right yeasts and environmental conditions, and then place a bottle of it in the same basement and it will grow in both quality and complexity with each passing year.
The interesting thing, though, about wine, is that as the years roll by, the effects of this time, and of both the subtle and overt influences of its genetic makeup and environment, make the finished product something of a mystery. The variables from vintage to vintage and barrel to barrel can be subtle, barely recognizable, or dramatic, embodying aesthetic and sensual traits that one can never fully predict.
So, relationships, not unlike wine, are subject to the profound effects of constant change and a sizeable measure of unpredictability. A winemaker must pay attention, think on his feet, stay engaged with everything going on around him, and be decisive. Developing intimacy with another human being, something infinitely more complex than wine, requires a level of awareness and engagement that nothing else in life demands.
Given our innate predilection and necessity for change, both parties in a relationship are essentially moving targets. But this is no unfortunate thing. It may sometimes make life harder, but it also makes it a great deal more interesting.
“Love must be upheld because of its dynamic nature, not merely tolerated, despite the very same.”
Because love is never inert, it being a living thing made up of both individual and mutual decisions, and something infinitely layered, comprised of myriad emotional, psychological, physical, and spiritual experiences, it must be embraced for all that it is and all it can become.
Equally, it should also be respected for what it isn’t (more on this in a forthcoming post). Love must be upheld because of its dynamic nature, not merely tolerated, despite the very same. If we are to love well, we must learn to find satisfaction in the way intimacy continues to change us from the inside out. Our brand of love must be defined by action and growth, not by resignation and self-imposed ignorance, which too many relationships eventually fall victim to.
The closer two souls become, if this is within the context of at least a relatively healthy relationship, the further out they will expand. Intimacy initiates and maintains a growth process inside each of us. This is automatic and most of it unconscious. And it leads us down paths we'd never have known existed without the influence of someone else in our life.
We sharpen one another, but only if the invitation to that refinement is already on the table. You must possess at least an unspoken agreement with the one you love, to allow their influence to rub off and yours to do the same for them. Love may involve strong feelings on some level, really a whole series of ecstatic, overlapping emotions. But love is, at its core, and most essentially, not merely emotions, but a ongoing pattern of decisions based upon a deep conviction to recognize, honor, protect, sacrifice for, value, serve, witness, inspire, and sow into, another person’s life. It is a kind of mad but grounded exploration into the very core of another person and a sacrificial mission to help them flourish on every level by taking tangible steps toward that end every day.
Love sees truth inside another being, sees a gateway to a hidden world, and deems this new landscape worthy enough to explore, understands that any pain or sacrifice inherent in the journey will be worthwhile and a reasonable price to pay to be part of the slow unveiling of another human soul. As it has been said, “The juice is worth the squeeze.” That’s one way to know love is real, when it makes choices that lead toward the greatest amount of good in the life of someone else. It should go without saying that this mindset must run in both directions for our relationships to remain successful.
The Search
Love's natural desire to search out what is hidden is not only the earliest spark in the initial flames that burn between us, but makes up much of the fuel that sustains this fire over the long haul. It keeps us interested and attracted, keeps us coming back for more. And while these two forces, mystery and revelation, tied together by primal necessity and spiritual curiosity, ignite much of the interplay between lovers, friends, family, and even creative and professional colleagues, they can sometimes become imbalanced, forgetting that the one needs the other for life to flourish.
When we're young and we fall in love or meet a promising new friend, the mysterious potential within this person is a prime mover. The allure of the unknown within the mind, soul and often the body, of another human being is something almost insatiable. It's no secret that what is unknown to us will always appeal to our pursuits.
Yet, more than this, we are geared toward seeking the deeper truths, unveiling the hidden places bound up in each person we long to know, things that are often far wider, darker, more complicated, and ultimately, more majestic than the aquisition of pure information and a pedestiran level knowledge alone. This is partly what the image of the marriage veil represents, the hidden within one another being revealed and exchanged in the most intimate of human relationships.
What's even more fascinating to consider is that while we long to know, to forever be figuring the other person out, if no mystery remained, would we remain? I know; that's a pointed question, and one you might say has already been answered innumerable times by everyone who has ever left a marriage for reasons other than unfaithfulness, neglect, or abuse. But there is a great deal more to understand about this force, perhaps a few things that just might compel us to look deeper at the one we love, even the one we've given up on.
Mystique, Attraction, and the Fear of the Familiar
Years ago, during an interview for the 20th Anniversary Edition of the movie Aliens, the late Bill Paxton said something that got me thinking about this mechanism within us, this penchant for always needing a remnant of the unknown to stick around when it comes to our relationships. By the time director James Cameron reached out to Bill to see if he’d be interested in playing the role of Private Hudson, they’d already been friends for several years.
Bill wanted the role and had hoped to work with Jim again but worried that when he went in to read for the part, the allure and artistic attraction would be gone because of their familiarity. I like how he put it; "It’s tough auditioning for your friends because you have no mystique with them." This may have sounded like vanity, but it's really an acute observation that shows a great deal of awareness on Bill's part.
When we're trying to attract someone, or keep them interested, whether it be for love, work, a creative endeavor, or something else entirely, mystique seems a necessary component in that equation. Bill worried that the inevitable dissipation within the realm of the unknown between them would serve to diminish the power of his performance, at least as James Cameron might see it. It may have. And if another mechanism of long-term relationships hadn't kicked in, that lack of mystery between them may have cost him the part.
But mystery isn't the only thing sparking attraction and pursuit. With time, we uncover something even deeper, namely intimacy. We probably wouldn't think about an infrequent friendship and a working collaboration like this one as being something that involves intimacy. But there are many levels of knowing. Not all intimacies involve the dance of flesh. Some remain in the realms of the mind and of creative and intellectual pursuit.
Doors and the Dynamic Nature of Intimacy
There is a common pattern in our relationships - that as intimacy increases, mystery decreases. If we are watchful and awake, this should only be for a season, as long as both parties desire to keep searching. If we still desire to grow in connection with this person, we learn to trade mystery for revelation, the allure of the unknown for the dynamism and solidity of the known (the intimate). And, while revelation is perhaps not as sexy as mystery, it is more life-affirming.
Mystery is that which rattles, that which calls us to take on the quest before us. Our visceral travels through the center of the mysterious are what carve us out, the struggle that shapes our personality, our morality, what fashions our resolve and our character, what forces the soul to come alive. Our struggle with mystery is the change agent, pushing us from the realms of naivety, self-protection, and passivity toward risk, maturity, understanding, and growth.
“it is within the wild, intoxicating arms of intimacy, which is the ongoing revelation of love, that the change we experienced in times of mystery, grows into a higher state of being.”
On the other end, revelation, what we dig up from the caverns of the mysterious, becomes our eventual home. Revelation confirms and solidifies. It is both the spoils of our war with the face of the unknown, and the adhesive that brings together the disparate parts of our wanderings.
If revelation is such a firming and solidifying force, why do I also mention its predilection for dynamism? That's because, while mystery feels at first more immediate, more electric, it is within the wild, intoxicating arms of intimacy, which is the ongoing revelation of love, that the change we experienced in times of mystery grows into a higher state of being, where it comes together to form a state of grace. And this newfound state allows us to experience greater levels of change with less work.
Simply put, the more revelation we experience with one another, the more useful future mystery becomes. The two feed one another in love and service., as long as it is love we are talking about and not infatuation or a resigned sense of duty. The more that is revealed, the more we want to plunge back into the unknown to uncover greater depths. This is not unlike the confidence and proficiency we find in other parts of life, where a repeating pattern of curiosity, study, application, and accomplishment leads us to greater levels of success, confidence, and ease on future attempts.
“The answer to a great exploration is partly to find the destination, but it is also to uncover deeper questions we have not yet learned to ask.”
Knowing someone else at this level opens doors into the core of our being we hadn’t realized were available. If our relationship remains healthy, this radical new vulnerability initiates a cascade effect in the exchange of unique but interdependent traits and choices between us. The point of seeking isn't simply to know a thing, but to widen our boundaries. The answer to a great exploration is partly to find the destination, but it is also to uncover even deeper questions we have not yet learned to ask, ones that only reveal themselves at progressive stages along our path.
Part of revelation and its resulting intimacy, with its innumerable doors to understanding, takes shape in the wake of mystery's fading song. This is inevitable, since the two need one another. Without mystery there can be no revelation. The former begets the latter. And in the absence of any revelation, the beauty of mystery begins to fade, giving way to the frustration of constant disappointment and unfulfilled hope.
This isn't to say that mystery should be subsumed by the knowing ways of intimacy. If that were so, it would not be intimacy we were discussing, but consumption, the disappearance of one person into the other. Down that road lies co-dependency and relational death.
No matter how old we are or how familiar we become with another soul, there should remain some semblance of the mysterious in those we mean to love. Some of our eventual disconnection to this mystery is our own fault. We tire, become apathetic, demand much while offering little, and tragically expect that others see us as eternally interesting and endlessly complex, while we assume they have no more secrets to reveal.
We believe that we have already uncovered all there is to know. This is an incredibly harmful mechanism within each of us, our predilection for over-simplifying others and perceiving them as agents to fulfill our needs instead of the complex beings they are. There is no limit to what is searchable inside another human being, no walls on their potential, save for the limits and boundaries we place on both them and ourselves.
This is often why we don’t support the new passions and goals of those we love. There are times when we feign support just enough to not seem like a jerk but not enough to be a real inspiration in their endeavors. Perhaps we even struggle with a measure of jealousy or resentment toward the change they are experiencing. But while there exists a potential inside each of us for poor decision-making and change in the wrong direction, the majority of our valued pursuits are simply new ways to unfold and reveal greater parts of ourselves to those around us.
It’s important to ask ourselves, “How am I going to love those I care about the most?” “Will I love them the way they need to be loved, or simply the way that retains the most comfort for me?” “Will I not only allow but encourage their growth, or dig in as hard as I can?” These choices fall upon each of us every day. When we ignore this invitation we not only harm those we love, but do great harm to ourselves, since through our stubborness we will limit the heights and depths our relationship might have otherwise attained through a more open, more expansive model of love and reality.
What Will Become of Us?
Revelation is not simply the end result of secrets revealed. It isn't just a finality, in which, within the act of opening certain doors, we do away with our need of and our desire for the search. This is even more important when it comes to our closest relationships, since in love, the journey toward intimacy and understanding is as much, if not more, a character-sharpening and soul-refining process than the destination itself. As Socrates once said, "Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel." This holds true for our relationships as well, and in the way we run toward, run from, and ultimately uncover greater levels of understanding.
“We’d be wise to examine the condition of our heart...to see why we’re digging around for the sacred knowledge inside someone else without also looking to draw nearer to them.”
What we uncover in one another is not merely the answer to a question but a catalyst for a greater search. A thing revealed should engender the desire to know even more, not cause our passion to evaporate. If it does, it was not intimacy we were seeking but knowledge alone. And if that's the case, we'd be wise to look at the condition of our heart and psyche to see why we're digging around for the sacred knowledge inside of someone else without also looking to draw nearer to them.
As time goes on and the list of what we know increases, wisdom will usually assume the old adage that "The more I learn, the less I realize I know." If wisdom, not simply knowledge, is increasing within us, this truth should manifest itself more often in our lives. The more I learn about my lover or my friend, the more I should assume I have not yet learned. For what is more complex than nature in general, but human nature.
So, if mystery leads to revelation, and revelation to intimacy, then what does intimacy lead to? The most obvious answer is pleasure. But more specifically and more lasting than this would be fulfillment, wisdom, ecstasy, joy, and meaning. And these are enough on their own, since most of us find precious little of these in life, and many hearts waste away for want of them. Yet, in finding new places of nearness, new seasons of intimacy, these prizes naturally lead us back through the forests of mystery to look once more for the various treasures found on our way to a new kind of closeness, a new brand of knowing. At each new turn of our growing sense of closeness and meaning, we rediscover how sublime is the fragrance of the unknown, and how sweet that taste will be when we unveil a new layer of the world between us.
If we continue to look, to keep both our external and internal eyes open to the vast world inside others, and continue to choose the highest good in the way we seek them, this ancient pursuit, a pathway criss-crossing the sacred and profane alike, will sustain and ignite us for all the days to come.