Read more on intergenerational play & the value of play as a whole.
No Contact
It had been years.
Long years.
So I wont lie.
I swear,
in that final moment we shared:
I lived a thousand lives,
a hundred thousand,
a hundred, hundred thousand.
And there,
I knew all the faces and forms
of what our love could have been–
powerful love
whole love
infinite love.
But the moment ended
And the path was set
where I would not see you,
nor know our love
in any other shape but
sorrow
-Cpontrella 2017
Smorgasbord
That night,
I remember it so clearly.
our appetites were enormous
Creamy words, earthy laughter,
Sweet, small glances
stolen when no one was looking
for our own
private delight.
It was a smorgasbord
and I felt bottomless.
Insatiable.
then, the Lovemaking.
A final course, the night-cap.
phenomenal.
How else could I describe it?
Intoxicating.
Lyrical.
Animal.
Raw.
Sublime.
There are no words.
I have been hungry every since.
-Cpontrella 2017
“If you are unsure of a course of action, do not attempt it. Your doubts and hesitations will infect your execution. Timidity is dangerous: Better to enter with boldness. Any mistakes you commit through audacity are easily corrected with more audacity. Everyone admires the bold; no one honors the timid.” -Robert Greene
How much?
How much do you miss
By paying attention
How much do you lose
By finding what you are looking for?
-C. Pontrella
2017.06.01
“While investing deeply in one person, one place, one job, one activity might deny us the breadth of experience we’d like, pursuing a breadth of experience denies us the opportunity to experience the rewards of depth of experience. There are some experiences that you can have only when you’ve lived in the same place for five years, when you’ve been with the same person for over a decade, when you’ve been working on the same skill or craft for half your lifetime. Now that I’m in my thirties, I can finally recognize that commitment, in its own way, offers a wealth of opportunity and experiences that would otherwise never be available to me, no matter where I went or what I did.” – Mark Mason
“You are all afraid of being intimate with yourselves – of being alone with the self. Once you develop an intimacy, a silence, a self-love, and a containment of your energy, then you will want to make that aspect of intimacy your standard of intimacy with someone else.”
Barbara Marciniak – Bringers of the Dawn
“Many people try to avoid pressure, yet the absence of any tension or pressure usually creates a sense of boredom and the lackluster experience of life that so many people complain about.” – Anthony Robbins
Life doesn’t require ideals, it requires standards of action.
Freedom and Discipline
“Freedom is not the absence of commitments, but the ability to choose – and commit myself to – who and what is best for me.” – Paulo Coelho
No one is free from commitments, despite what they think.
I have met many people over the years who are ‘afraid of commitment’ or seek to live a life without commitments. However, this is a fundamentally dishonest and immature way of thinking, and usually reflective of a lack of self awareness.
We all have commitments in our lives, whether or not we wish to acknowledge them:
- Commitments to our work, to show up on time and do our best. Even if we are just working for ourselves.
- Commitments to where we live, from paying landlords and banks to keeping the space habitable.
- Commitments to our friends and family, to be there and care for them in time of need, to offer advice, to celebrate, to show up on time, etc.
- Most importantly, We ALL make promises to ourselves, to eat better, sleep more, read more, go to the gym regularly, and so on
Everyone has some distribution of commitments in the categories above, though they might look different from person to person.
Even things that seem like non-commitments are in fact the opposite. To choose not to have children, to choose not to buy a house or to get married. We are simply committing ourselves to a different, ‘non-traditional’ style of life, but it is a commitment nonetheless.
So when someone approaches me and says they aren’t ready for commitment, or that they want to live free of commitments, what they actually should be saying is ‘I dont want this commitment’.
Unhappiness in Commitment
So why do so many people end up unhappy in their commitments?
- We enter into commitments prematurely, lacking all the information.
- We enter into commitments without understanding fully what is expected of us on our end .
- We fail to negotiate terms we are comfortable with
- We stay longer than we should, either because we are afraid or we don’t know how to leave (’feeling trapped’) or don’t realize we could (’promises of forever’)
By this way, many of us end up disempowered, frustrated, and wary of future commitments, not realizing it is our fault we are unhappy, and not the commitment itself.
Freedom
When we start to realize that our whole life is essentially a collection of different commitments we are making to ourselves and others, and when we wake up and see exactly where those commitments already exist, we gain the ability to negotiate the terms of those commitments.
This is how we become an active participant in our lives. By acknowledging commitments, negotiating their terms, and choosing which ones you will honor and which ones you will let go: this is freedom.
Daily Reminder
Identify the commitments in your life, and the ones you are avoiding. Walk away from the toxic, embrace those that nourish, and add new ones that add value to your life.
-Caitlin Pontrella