The Line Between Love and Obsession.

J has to draw the line between love and obsession. His love for his wife has to be as selfless as it is for L. He must be able to let her go, from the bottom of his heart. He has to kill his lust for result. J's wife may or may not come to him, but he has to maintain a stoic indifference while still loving her from a distance. She preys on his obsession for her. She knows the sick hold she has over him, and it's all the currency she has. Selflessness here doesn't mean slavery to her ego. It means cutting her loose to let her find herself. Only then will he open the possibility for her to respect him as a man, and not a support system for her bullshit. You can't have a healthy love without respect as a foundation. He would need to let go of this egotistical jealousy, this desire to own her and "make" her love him.

This cleansing of his love will hurt like a motherfucker, probably worse than a heroin withdrawal. It's not easy, I know from experience. I feel it everyday in my spiritual path. I could substitute "J" for Luiz and "J's wife" for Enlightenment, and how I must love it as I love L. The method is the same and I still make the same mistakes. It's just easier for us to see it in others. I write this because I love J and his wife and because there is a precious lesson in all of this. This perfection of love is the key to all love, and all spiritual attainment. If I was to devise a love spell for them, this is the only way to pull it off - by purging all impurities from the Holy Grail of perfected love. The simple answer? I'll repeat it for both of us. If J's love for L is pure, then J must love his wife as he loves L. Let go. This wouldn't automatically mean she'd love him in return. Maybe she would. The point is that he wouldn't he need her to.

Of course, in the course of writing this, I found this coincidence interesting as couples go. J&J and L&L. This makes abbreviation to protect the innocent a little annoying.

Misunderstanding

Lisa and I talked for a while. There was a misunderstanding, thanks to the general ambiguity of text without expressive cues. I read what she said, and interpreted it as a statement about my ego ruining my life. I replied with an "Yes." She meant that the hardest thing for me, about all this, was looking like an idiot. Believe it or not, this is not the most idiotic thing I've ever done. I don't care about how I look, obviously. I care that I hurt her this bad. I care that it blindsided her and I alike. I care that a bottled up some nasty emotions and pasted a smile on my lips. I care that I've been this controlling of others all my life. All because my precious little ego needs validation. 

I know I wrote some silly things. The ramblings of an idiot grasping at straws. I had to write, and didn't know what else to do. It still helps me navigate the bullshit, more so now that we're communicating better. Lisa is hurt and furious all at once. Irv and Jake are still angry. I've alienated Michele to another dimension. All in the space of a few hours. Was that enough damage for me to realize there was something seriously wrong with me? I can't afford to be depressed about this, but I also can't afford to make more mistakes like this. It's down to evolve or die trying.

Her and Jake keep bringing up Shadow. This isn't entirely fair to me. I've never even met the guy, but it scares her how much I'm like him. She sees me reading The Lesser Key and thinks I'm out to control others under my spell. If there is one thing I learned is that I care far more about myself than others. In fact, I don't even pay attention to details like the music they listen to, until I stumble upon it on my own. I have no desire to control others with gross magick, but I'm far more interested in controlling my own impulses. That's what this school of magick is all about, self-mastery. This is a classic case of being blinded by my own demons. I might as well have summoned one and asked it to break Lisa's trust and social life. It's more dangerous not to face the darkest aspect of myself. I've been clinging to higher powers, the "neophyte's glamour" of the Great Work, while forgetting all about my lower nature. It creeps up in ugly ways like this. As above, so below. I have been this ugly my whole life. It ends here.

The Next Step

I need to begin a life of my own. How could I be an artist or a writer when I'm so completely out of touch with people? I cant passively sit here and ingratiate myself to Lisa's friends and think that I have a life. 

This came up once before but I backed down from the challenge, back when I finished my big paintings and wanted to find a place for them. I will never break out of my little world if I don't take chances now and meet some new people. I live forty minutes away from one of the biggest cultural hubs in the world. If I can't meet interesting strangers there, then I have no business being a magician. I've been using my spirituality as an excuse not to develop a social life. I say to myself "I'm not a joiner" like Lisa, but it hasn't sat right with me. Not yet, at least. People scare the fuck out of me. So I put on this mask and try to do the same to them. I am so afraid of being actually close to a person, and have said person reflect poorly on my character. I'm so concerned with appearances that I judge people in ways I never before realized. This is very shallow of me and it's why I'm not a very good friend. I've been doing this since grade school. I used to stop being friends with some people based on other people's opinions. I've never learned to love people unconditionally. Even as I write this, I see my words giving the impression that I should be conversing only with he greatest luminaries of my time. That is bullshit, or a cop-out as Jake puts it.

 

I just want to get on a train and walk around in NYC until I make an acquaintance. Just this once in my life, I want to experience the world free from the artificial barriers of my teenage ego. At this point, I'm not choosing to be a recluse. Social anxiety runs me like a demon. I am limiting myself by living like a hermit while dabbling in Lisa's social circle. As I mentioned in the previous post, I envy Lisa's open heart and guilelessness. I've blinded myself about this and stabbed her friendships with her trust. Only once I develop this aspect of my personality, can I then chose to be alone and be at peace with myself. If I died now, I would be an utter failure for leaving so much of my life un-lived. Only now, as I contemplate death, I realize how truly alone I am. It's kind of liberating. With nothing to lose what is there to worry about when meeting a stranger's gaze? Technically, I know I have the power to check out at any moment. Every-time I ask myself if my life is finished, the answers comes back as a resounding NO. I have work to do, and being lazy only puts it off.

Big Mouth

I haven't posted much here because everything has been running pretty smoothly in my life. Until yesterday. I've opened my big mouth and revealed confidential knowledge about a private conversation between Lisa and Michele. I betrayed Lisa's trust and destroyed whatever confidentiality there was in their friendship. All that with a few words over Facebook messaging. I learned many unpleasant traits about myself last night.
I've been alienating Lisa's circle of friends one by one. How? By wielding secrets like weapons. I test them and push them away one by one. Why? Irv told me it was because I want Lisa all to myself, and can't stand to share her with others. (He also called me scum, and rightly so.) If he is right then I'm even more jealous than he is.  Part of me envies her. People who meet her come to genuinely love her, not so with with me for the above reasons. I came to the conclusion that I need to step away from her life and friends for a while. I need to center myself and focus on my own social needs independent of her.

The whole affair was a double blow to Lisa. This all came on the heels of me recognizing and admitting to her that I've had a crush on Michele for years. She has tried to explain to me how inappropriate this is in context of their decade-long friendship. I get it now. I'm going to look for polite ways to excuse myself out of conversations I don't need to be a part of. I have to respect her freedom in deeds, not word alone. I have the obsessive need to meddle with everything, which is why people shy away from me to begin with. I can't openly accept people with silence, I have to beat them over the head with self aggrandizing words. They're pompous. I'm wearing a mask almost all the time and I'm not fooling anyone besides myself. I've been trying to seem like someone better than what I actually am, at the cost of being True to myself. I am no hawk. I have a peacock for an ego, all glamour and no substance. The fucking bird can't even fly. This is why I often get the Knight of Cups in my intentions. I am completely misguided in my social blunders and Lisa is paying for it. She's not talking to me and I've become a stranger in my own home.

I need to reach the root of this problem within myself. I've vowed to be a better man for Lisa. I can't give up and continue to be an asshole. I had a dream last night, where I had to power to wield a single and secretive word that gave me power over the elements. It was power over the raging chaos within me. This word is probably related to the root of this problem. The closest I can get to this word is envy, or lust for result. I lust to be liked or even loved and try too hard at the expense of Lisa's life. It's my best approximation to where this behavior comes from. Knowing this, I can devise a magick ritual to fix it. The aim is threefold. An Oath of Silence regarding confidentiality will address the symptom. With an intense HGA invocation and goetic evocation I can address the source of my insecurity. Then I will invoke Hoor-pa-Kraat, the Lord of Silence and manifest His innocent purity in my life. I will be "invisible" so to speak and cease all interference in the affairs of others.

  I've just realized how conflicted I've been all along. I haven't fully worked out my own trust issues with Lisa and my love is still not a pure as hers. A few weeks ago Lisa told me about holding hands and kissing Jake last year. I acted cool on the surface, but inside I snapped. I felt betrayed. Not for the kiss, but because she hid it from me for months. I make it a point to hide nothing from her. I can't help feeling that part of all this has been me lashing out. I've been on a crusade revealing all kinds of hidden shit. That's my wrath in it's most subversive aspect. So there is also an element of anger somewhere in the root of it all. I have to right to bring this up to Lisa as I've already damaged her so much. I can only move forward, do the work and become a better person. A person who won't backstab the ones he loves most.