I write a lot many reviews and I strongly feel Netflix should pay me my dues. Jokes apart, Netflix content does spark up my imagination and thought buds. Recently, is the series called "The Affair"
I started watching relapsing back to my Experiencing Self with the purpose of binge-watching through yet another series. I treat seasons as pop-corn.
Instead I came across a very intense series that was extremely thought provocative. Initially I felt it could be another plan Jane series - The nomenclature was quite denotative. Ironically, while it did lay out the foundation of the plot premise, it did open my eyes to layers of emotions, reasons, treason and basically human behavior.
Let's hit the bull's eye first when we discuss the core plot - The Affair.
Man meets Woman - both realize their latent loneliness, fall in love, leave their partners and start their own chapter. There are falls, follies and firsts - each with its multiple versions and metaphors.
However, what struck me was the core need to "stray". In our society we condemn any man or woman being an infidel. We brand, we label and we discriminate. We charge, rant and discharge - venom spewing forth hotly and brightly in its ugly green shade.
But do we ever stop to wonder why this may happen or look in the mirror at our own selves? We all have been through relationships - some broken, some mended and some pushed to Neverland. Yet through the scars and smiles do we remember the lesson of the miles walked - solitary or hand in hand?
We may enter marriage - a binary contract - never to fade. Never to break the bond or walk away - no-one starts out with the intent of having to end it. While every end is bitter, it also is a passage to a new story that one must open the chapter to. However, purpose of a strong relationship is never to walk on broken glass pieces or pay the price for it either.
The partners we chose, whom we loved once, we fell out of it. Maybe, it was a wrong choice - you fell in love with an image in your head. After all, love is about projection - you project the desired "buttons" and you got your prey. You may have fallen in love with a dimension of self within that passage of life - the partner portraying the self you would have liked to become then - the dreams you had behind your mind's eye, your partner may have lived them and hence it was a borrowed presence.
When we fall out of love, is it really falling out of or simply waking up to realizing what you don't need in your life anymore. Maybe that sense of self has passed replaced by an evolved dream and hence an evolved need? Maybe, the imagery has been shattered by the shackles the partner's person-hood imposed? Maybe its about realizing what drags your drivers - what deters your evolution.
Contrary to many agape, at the sound of a breaking relationship, I am not averse to those who choose to walk away. After all, life is about multiple experiences and realizations and each has its own time. I am not averse to another who has "strayed" - behind every action point is an ocean of reflections, of latent needs, feelings unexpressed and cravings unsaid. Your mind or conscience decides much ahead your body demands the action point. Your Higher Self knows the inevitable.
There is an intrinsic need for all to feel pampered and special in a relationship. Many a times the initial fire mellows down to a more caring phase.
As I thought about it deeply, drawing patterns and parallels to my own life, I realized the paradigm of relationships is much in line with our own inherent biological natures that have long remain unchanged. Our untamed emotions soon get the better of us - become our Higher Selves. Emotions may have roots in collective consciousness.
Biologically speaking women are nurturers and men are producers. That carries on to the gendered roles and expectations at household too. Coupled with modern life stress, women seem to balance multiple dimensions of success, lust, love, sexiness and nurturance. Many a times, all roles boil down to a pulpy mess of "care and nurturance" which is intrinsic. I say this for most women - not all. There are many of us who can balance all roles evenly and I salute such fabulous ladies. However, nurturance as a role, is a comfort zone - care deemed to be emotional becomes quite functional - a chore , task and a job to do.
Therein starts the fault lines of a relationship. When passion is replaced by care.
Of course, it is not only women's faults. Men remain the human pups they were born to be - many a times, men shackled by the societal dogmatic roles forced on them crave for one space to be treated as puppies. Women on the other hand, may want men to act like men - however, men want that woman, who treats them with the love, devotion and pamper - as how a dog mother would with her own pup.
What I realized is that men are good at compartmentalizing emotions + roles - for his mom he has a set of practices to follow and a self to be - likewise at office, with friends and with kids etc. With his partner maybe, he just wants to be - not a man, maybe a boy. Its when the partner starts expecting the man instead of a boy that the pressure cooker starts boiling. Men cannot reconcile that difference and slowly slip into duty mode. For the woman, care is not a duty. Care engulfs all their emotions at a centrifugal force which leaves them feeling spent. But for men, care is a duty - their need from partner is different.
I have known of women leaving their very macho and uber masculine men to be with men who are sensitive and deep. Women may crave for connect at a very deep emotional level to completely open up - blossom. Many a times, unknowing of alternatives, women succumb to a "dad's version of a man in their lives" - maybe later they realize their own independent need for the type of partner who'll "feel" them.
It is this feeling to feel special, craving for attention and synchronicity of maturity levels that finally leads one to "stray" - man or woman. Now, there is no difference as core need maybe the same. It is also a need to reinstate one's identity in one's eyes - be a success in one's own eyes that necessitates the change of partner : as you no longer feel appreciated by him /her. You look for your value in another's eyes.
This post is not a celebration of celibacy / infidelity/ commitment - its a highlighter of a new normal where walking out of a suffocating relationship that does not bring you up to your best version. After all every end is a new beginning. And in The Affair - there are always 2 stories flowing in tandem : everyone has their own version. Blame game is never the solution - its acceptance and understanding of the transient need states of every evolving human in any relationship. Question is - can your relationship keep pace with you?
I started watching relapsing back to my Experiencing Self with the purpose of binge-watching through yet another series. I treat seasons as pop-corn.
Instead I came across a very intense series that was extremely thought provocative. Initially I felt it could be another plan Jane series - The nomenclature was quite denotative. Ironically, while it did lay out the foundation of the plot premise, it did open my eyes to layers of emotions, reasons, treason and basically human behavior.
Let's hit the bull's eye first when we discuss the core plot - The Affair.
Man meets Woman - both realize their latent loneliness, fall in love, leave their partners and start their own chapter. There are falls, follies and firsts - each with its multiple versions and metaphors.
However, what struck me was the core need to "stray". In our society we condemn any man or woman being an infidel. We brand, we label and we discriminate. We charge, rant and discharge - venom spewing forth hotly and brightly in its ugly green shade.
But do we ever stop to wonder why this may happen or look in the mirror at our own selves? We all have been through relationships - some broken, some mended and some pushed to Neverland. Yet through the scars and smiles do we remember the lesson of the miles walked - solitary or hand in hand?
We may enter marriage - a binary contract - never to fade. Never to break the bond or walk away - no-one starts out with the intent of having to end it. While every end is bitter, it also is a passage to a new story that one must open the chapter to. However, purpose of a strong relationship is never to walk on broken glass pieces or pay the price for it either.
The partners we chose, whom we loved once, we fell out of it. Maybe, it was a wrong choice - you fell in love with an image in your head. After all, love is about projection - you project the desired "buttons" and you got your prey. You may have fallen in love with a dimension of self within that passage of life - the partner portraying the self you would have liked to become then - the dreams you had behind your mind's eye, your partner may have lived them and hence it was a borrowed presence.
When we fall out of love, is it really falling out of or simply waking up to realizing what you don't need in your life anymore. Maybe that sense of self has passed replaced by an evolved dream and hence an evolved need? Maybe, the imagery has been shattered by the shackles the partner's person-hood imposed? Maybe its about realizing what drags your drivers - what deters your evolution.
Contrary to many agape, at the sound of a breaking relationship, I am not averse to those who choose to walk away. After all, life is about multiple experiences and realizations and each has its own time. I am not averse to another who has "strayed" - behind every action point is an ocean of reflections, of latent needs, feelings unexpressed and cravings unsaid. Your mind or conscience decides much ahead your body demands the action point. Your Higher Self knows the inevitable.
There is an intrinsic need for all to feel pampered and special in a relationship. Many a times the initial fire mellows down to a more caring phase.
As I thought about it deeply, drawing patterns and parallels to my own life, I realized the paradigm of relationships is much in line with our own inherent biological natures that have long remain unchanged. Our untamed emotions soon get the better of us - become our Higher Selves. Emotions may have roots in collective consciousness.
Biologically speaking women are nurturers and men are producers. That carries on to the gendered roles and expectations at household too. Coupled with modern life stress, women seem to balance multiple dimensions of success, lust, love, sexiness and nurturance. Many a times, all roles boil down to a pulpy mess of "care and nurturance" which is intrinsic. I say this for most women - not all. There are many of us who can balance all roles evenly and I salute such fabulous ladies. However, nurturance as a role, is a comfort zone - care deemed to be emotional becomes quite functional - a chore , task and a job to do.
Therein starts the fault lines of a relationship. When passion is replaced by care.
Of course, it is not only women's faults. Men remain the human pups they were born to be - many a times, men shackled by the societal dogmatic roles forced on them crave for one space to be treated as puppies. Women on the other hand, may want men to act like men - however, men want that woman, who treats them with the love, devotion and pamper - as how a dog mother would with her own pup.
What I realized is that men are good at compartmentalizing emotions + roles - for his mom he has a set of practices to follow and a self to be - likewise at office, with friends and with kids etc. With his partner maybe, he just wants to be - not a man, maybe a boy. Its when the partner starts expecting the man instead of a boy that the pressure cooker starts boiling. Men cannot reconcile that difference and slowly slip into duty mode. For the woman, care is not a duty. Care engulfs all their emotions at a centrifugal force which leaves them feeling spent. But for men, care is a duty - their need from partner is different.
Sarah Tree, EP of the series says - "One of the lines in the book that I put on the top of our white board in the writers' room [was] something like, 'Oftentimes people don't have affairs because they're unhappy with their spouses, they have affairs because they're unhappy with themselves. That's kind of the operating principle that we were using to rationalize the affair. It was never supposed to be anybody's fault. It was supposed to be about a man who just wasn't where he thought he was going to be at this point in his life."
I have known of women leaving their very macho and uber masculine men to be with men who are sensitive and deep. Women may crave for connect at a very deep emotional level to completely open up - blossom. Many a times, unknowing of alternatives, women succumb to a "dad's version of a man in their lives" - maybe later they realize their own independent need for the type of partner who'll "feel" them.
It is this feeling to feel special, craving for attention and synchronicity of maturity levels that finally leads one to "stray" - man or woman. Now, there is no difference as core need maybe the same. It is also a need to reinstate one's identity in one's eyes - be a success in one's own eyes that necessitates the change of partner : as you no longer feel appreciated by him /her. You look for your value in another's eyes.
This post is not a celebration of celibacy / infidelity/ commitment - its a highlighter of a new normal where walking out of a suffocating relationship that does not bring you up to your best version. After all every end is a new beginning. And in The Affair - there are always 2 stories flowing in tandem : everyone has their own version. Blame game is never the solution - its acceptance and understanding of the transient need states of every evolving human in any relationship. Question is - can your relationship keep pace with you?
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