The Ideal I Can Never Live Up To

I suppose it's a well to start the New Year with an insight into the part of my character which can never be fulfilled. The part of me which sits inside, deeply unsatisfied, the part which will always feel it has failed.

I partied throughout my twenties and through my own ruin and back again, and that sense of self-betrayal remains as potent as ever.

I am not and never will be that which I hold respect for.

But the huge awe which I hold for that concept, governs the way I view the world, in ways I sometimes overlook.

I included in my list of New Year's wishes recently a desire for Ms Right to appear. I guess that's normal, you'd think. It seems to be what those around me want.
Yet here's the point- I can't REALLY see, being honest, how even Ms Right can be right. I only twigged this over the last few months, that one of the key problems is how I view the whole concept of relationships.

You might get the idea from some of the things I write that I lead a hugely kinky debauched sex life. I actually don't see myself as being particularly promiscuous, I tend to go in phases- a few months with a swift turnover, than a few months abstinence. I'm actually quite a prude in some ways, there are certain things there is no point in asking me to do. It's not actually up there in my top favorite pastimes, believe it or not. It's a bodily function and I seem to get the urge a fair bit, but that's pretty much how I see it.

What's more important, to me, is holding a nice soft body with supple skin, feeling the warm breath on the back of your nack, feeling her arms snuggle tight around your waist. I sleep better that way.

The question is, what more do I want out of it?

And here we come to the real issue. We all need something to live for, and for many, the ideal is that of 'Romantic Love.'

And sometimes, I get hooked by that ideal.

But of late I saw the pattern.

It only happens at times when I feel, in some sense, without a purpose.
When I have no hope.
At these points, I guess I'm vulnerable and, like some character in a 'Midsummer Night's Dream', it really could be a donkey. It really will be the first person to come along in that moment of crisis offering affection.

Things go wrong, when life rights itself.

Because as soon as I regain faith in myself, I start to feel guilty and ashamed.
What of, you justifiably ask?
We'll come to that.

I'm OK with these things as long as they are little more than casual friendships with the added bonus of a bit mutual comfort and affection, it's when they start to interfere with the image of myself I hold up in my head, the me I truly want to see myself as.

You see, it really is true, I want to love EVERYBODY. Not in the way you're thinking. There is a sense in which the IDEAL relationship I ACTUALLY want with people, is that of brother and sister. I devote a lot of effort to friendships, and will give them precedence over 'romantic' relationships. It took me a while to twig why. It's because I want ALL my relationships with EVERYBODY to be platonic friendships. I value them. 'Romantic' relationships, as we have already mentioned offend my inner conscience in a way that I guess it has taken me up till twenty nine to realise.

Even looking at the way I dress out of preference, is significant. Black shirt or t-shirt, black trousers, black jacket, crucifix showing.
I feel more comfortable dressed that way, instinctively. I just feel more- me.



Because I could not live like a priest, I could not be a priest. The life of a Catholic priest today, is not a happy one.
But they are the highest ideals I can think of, they are the only people I have total respect for, would trust implicitly.
The Catholic Church is the only institution I hold dear.

But the ideal, that of living for a cause, that of living for all humanity, rather than being tied to one, that is the ideal that remains tied up in my head.

When Gregory VII extended the oath of celibacy to regular clergy, he specifically stated he wasn't prohibiting clergy from keeping mistresses- what he was stopping, was the making of two incompatible vows.

A priest cannot honestly say he serves all, if he has made the vows a man makes to a woman in marriage.
It is God and the Church he is wedded to. This is his life's cause.

And I guess that there lies my whole mindset.

To devote your life to just one person, is the second rate option.

It is to accept a life of failure, a life destined to achieve nothing.

And at times when I feel my life is going nowhere, I guess love of the romantic kind seems appealing. It can't make me happy in the same way having a purpose of some kind can, but it can provide comfort.

But can it really compare to the love of a man for an ideal?

The ideal that you are there for all equally, that no one has a special claim to you.
And in my mind, and in my mind, that is how I like to see myself, pure, uncorrupted by the taint of someone else marking you as theirs, belonging to all equally, with none you turn your back on.



Oh, I'll never be a martyr. The revolution won't come for a good many years, I guess, by which time I'll be too old to be much use.

And I guess for all my closet clerical yearnings, there is never going to be much saintly or priestly about me.

But the ideals are still good.

Love as many people as you can.
And don't let 'Romantic Love' get in the way.

One can only dream that it didn't. It just always seems to.