I am clear that for the most part, the world has gotten the ground
rules for making relationships work completely wrong. It is drilled
into us from childhood that making a relationship work is a 50% / 50%
paradigm, with each partner being responsible for their 50% of the
relationship.
If you look at that paradigm, it is not hard to see that while it is
well intentioned, the 50% / 50% paradigm for making relationships work
does not work, and in fact has never, ever worked.
I say that it does not work because while it charges each of us to be
50% responsible for making our relationships work, it also leaves room
for each of us to be 50% not responsible for making our relationships
work.
So rather, it is not a 50% / 50% paradigm that works for making a
relationship work with each partner being responsible for their 50% of
the relationship, but rather it is a 100% paradigm that works for
making a relationship work. Do you get that?
Wait!
Did you hear me say that it is a 100% / 100% paradigm that works for
making a relationship work with each partner being responsible for 100%
of it?
I did not say that. What I said was that it is a 100% paradigm that
works for making a relationship work. In other words, I am responsbile
for all of the relationship independently of you being responsible for
any of it or all of it or even none of it. In this paradigm, you are
free to choose to be responsible for 100% of the relationship too, and
you don't have to.
People are enlivened by a relationship that works. That is really what
everyone wants - if only we knew how to get one! And if you do have
one, it is inspirational.
Against a background of "it's empty and meaningless", anything is
possible, even permissible. Prior to formulating the
magnum opus
of his work, Werner attended seminars given by
Alan Watts,
the erstwhile Episcopalian priest who laid bare the essence of
Zen
for the western world.
Zen
is arguably "the" discipline which created the space for the
breakthrough which is Werner's work. Yet
Alan Watts,
himself made complete light of fidelity, and even took great pride in
his many infidelities. Like I said, anything is possible.
And yet in the face of that, if you are a stand for relationship and
fidelity, you are really on to something.