Where there is love, there is life.
Mahatma Gandhi
Trying to understand another habit energy that seems to take over if I am not mindful. Netflix! Here I am so tired lately, letting the house get a little bit more messy than I am comfortable with, wanting more time to do what I love to do (write) and get my stuff out there...yet instead of being" productive" I find myself using the evening hours to binge on Netflix. I won't watch TV until after 7 but I stay up until One in the morning watching Love is Blind, of all things.
Love is Blind? Are You Looking For Romance Or Something?
I used to be a romantic, seeking for years, like many of these characters on this reality series, my "soul mate", assuming my life would be incomplete until I found him. That has changed so much in my waking up process. I am the farthest thing from a "romantic" there could ever be these days. I now have this understanding of Love that differs so much from the way I used to view it. I do not seek things or others to fill in some hole inside me either ..and I am not just saying that because I am in a committed relationship by society's terms...I am saying that because I am no longer "attached" to that need for someone else to make "me" whole. (I am even questioning what a "me" is) . Even if the relationship I have right now were to end, I would be sad for sure, but I would not lose any sense of who I really am. When I hear the characters on the screen say things like "You fulfill me" or "I can't go on without you, you are why I am happy. " I find myself talking very sternly to them through the barrier of screen and distance: ..."Stop it! That is attachment not Love. No one can make you happy, no one or no thing outside you can fulfill you. Your expectations are going to cause suffering for you and your partner. Love is so much more than that!" Of course, they do not hear me and they continue on their merry heart breaking ways toward a certain suffering they could have prevented with less clinging lol.
My deeper Self tells me to shut off the TV and go to bed, or at the very least switch back to the Anna Karina series on Ruku I started because that, at least, is a classic. I love watching classic literature portrayed on the screen. Instead of watching classics, however, I am watching shows like this. I like to think of myself as more evolved. Still here I am sitting glued to my chair from one episode to the next. I am, I tell myself, consumed by my "guilty" obsession. ("Guilty"...becasue I tell myself I have evolved beyond all this so why am I giving the ego what it wants?)
I Keep Watching Anyway
It is not just the romantic attachments that bother me either. It is also what the characters are seemingly attached to outside their pods and romantic bubbles I growl at. I do not find any need for superficial acceptance and allure anymore. I am not into how I look at all and who I might attract. Haven't been for a very long time. The idea of sitting in front of a mirror applying make up for hours and dressing in the latest fashions...just leaves me with a "What the fork for?" I was never really in to that very much. I still care for my body but not the appearance of my body. Yet there I am glued to a screen of beautifully dressed and made up faces attached to all the superficial things the physical world provides.
Why Do Such Shows Bother Me
They bother me because they portray Ego's World where I was for so long, where so many still are. None of it makes sense to me anymore and such pursuits seem to be a waste of valuable human energy that could be directed elsewhere. I spent most of my life to date doing what these characters were doing ( maybe with a lot less need for glamour, make up and fashion) but I had the same goals and mission statements. Now I see that I was treading down an unwholesome path, led by ego rather than the part of me that knew what was really important. I suffered on this path...big time. To watch people as delusional as I was go down similar paths is frustrating.
They also bother me because they make me realize that my ego is still lingering around, drawing me in. I get mad and disappointed with myself. The voices are reprimanding "me" for slipping, "Look at you consumed by unwholesome habit energy. You are more evolved than that!" they shout. I hear them...but still there I am in my seat, hour after hour, watching the drama play out on the screen.
Maybe, part of me feels "old"...like that part of my life is over. Even as I see the unskillfulness of those perceptions I had back then when I was pursuing romance and other types of social adventure that was dramatized on this series...it was exciting to look into the "Whens" of future hopes and dreams, you know? Fantasizing such a life and this idea of "happiness" that will be reached when the dream comes true can be fun, you know? That part of my life, that step in my evolution, is over...part of me, another ego part, probably misses that and that is why this show bothers me. It reminds me of what I am missing.
So if You Don't like it, why do you keep watching?
Hmm! So why the heck, did I watch both seasons of the American version....as well as the Brazilian and the Japanese series...staying up past one in the morning when my body is so bloody tired and craving sleep?That is the real question I ask myself. The first answer to that question is because it is so bloody numbing. I don't have to "think" my way through it like I would Anna Karina. It just carries me away. And I have been feeling so desperate lately to be carried away from the stress of circumstances surrounding me. A Netflix binge is like a lovely glass of wine...not good for me but making me feel, at least for a few hours, that everything is okay. [ I stopped drinking wine btw when I recognized the attachment for numbing was growing].
My ego , in some sense of spiritual superiority, is also enjoying being "right"...being able to see what the characters have yet to see. I feel so much more advanced in my understanding of Life than they are. I feel superior. Now that is not a wholesome reason, is it? lol
Recognizing and Looking Deeply
So recognizing this habit energy, and looking deeply into the cause of it was quite enlightening for me. Boring for you, maybe, but enlightening for me.
Oh well...I watched every episode there was. Let's hope a new season doesn't come out soon.
All is well!
This is an article I wrote on Romantic Love: (page 11)
And this is an article I wrote on finding what is really Important : (page 3)
http://www.aquarianonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Enlighten-Up-Spring-2018.pdf
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