Comments on: These Cunning Fetters

By: Stuart Greenhouse

Stuart Greenhouse — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

From what I understand, you do not ^want^ to lose the production of testosterone etc, even in the most esoterically asexual traditions. You want to sublimate that energy towards a spiritual life. To cut it off is to cut off what is part of the ’spiritual’ equation, in my understanding (which is, admittedly, grounded in a specific cross of traditions). Think of it this way: let’s say someone has a high credit card debt, and decides the best way to pay it off is to stop buying so much junk. Well, getting laid off may result in them spending less on junk, but the net effect will ^not^ help them pay off their credit card debt.

Like anything in life, ‘enlightenment’ is not a binary situation. Freeing yourself from desires shouldn’t be a matter of cutting things off, at its root, but of understanding where those desires come from and resolving those impulses into their spiritual essences, thus freeing you from the compulsion of desire. Depending on which tradition you follow.

Hope this helps.

By: Harry

Harry — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Damn, and damn. Damn, first, about your health situation. Cancer isn’t a welcome guest in any circumstance. And damn, second, because you’ve verbalized something that I think has been going on with me. A feeling of wanting to have, or missing, a desire that I think should still be there, even at 50. I’ve just recently had my “50,000 mile” physical, and everything was great – cholesterol, PSA, all those numbers, were well within the range you want those numbers to inhabit. I don’t feel 50, I feel 35, except that sex seems to have become more “so what” than I’m ready for. Such cunning fetters, for sure.

But I love the Santas you carved!

By: Ron

Ron — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Sounds like a seventies bumper sticker:

“Enlightenment is not all it’s cracked up to be!”

Alas, though, I am sorry for your loss and discomfort. I can certainly identify. As Bette Davis said, “Getting old ain’t for sissies.” Yipes. And here I am, a sissy of the first water!

By: dale

dale — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Whew. Yes, the fetters may be made of desire, but that’s not what they *are.* They’re habits of mind, and robbed of one stuff, for a home, they’ll just inhabit another. Though I wish you could have had a less jarring way of experiencing that truth.

I know, I too have looked forward to getting older as a sort of automatic escape from these particular nets, only to find — that no, it doesn’t quite work that way. Doesn’t work that way at all, in fact.

(Cool Santas, by the way!)

(And hey, I finally found my way here!)