So what happened?

The first time, we became, and still are friends, she is married now, and lives 1100 miles away but we still talk. How she explained me to her husband, I have no idea, but she did. We have been friends now for 25 years. The second time we got too close too quickly, because neither of us knew what we were getting in to. the resulting closeness terrified both of us. she moved 2200 miles away. I haven't seen her since.

There are three others. All of whom live close by. One of them is Laura. We have been friends 17 years.

That's great. The thing that frightens me about 'soulmates', is that it is easy to expect things of the other person, just because you think he/she is JUST like you. I have a few times felt like a person I met was my soulmate; then I treated them just like the one soulmate I have already (my sister), and it turned out wrong. If one has a soulmate of the opposite sex, do you think it good or bad when they sleep together?

i think that in my case, my soulmates are not at all just like me. instead, we complement each other perfectly, so that we add up to one whole "being" or "oneness" as tim mentioned above.

My soulmate hated me from the very beginning. So I just talk to her answer machine. She once left a message asking me how I'm feeling about my soulmate. Her answer machine is the most receptive being I've ever done time with. And that includes everyone in San Quentin. I say this bashfully, but.....our love will never end.

Riette, It depends what you mean by sleep together. If you mean sex, It would have to be approached very carefully, because it is the ultimate sharing and it will either immeasurably strengthen the bond or cause indescribable hurt. It would have to be discussed. If you mean just sleeping together, that is just GREAT! It is another form of sharing. My first soulmate's name is Christa. We slept together numerous times. Attended love feasts together. never had sex. Laura and I have slept together numerous times, lived together several times, shared everything with each other, except sex. When I met her, she was underage, so we made an agreement not to have sex. Since that time she has had many men take advantage of her sexually, so I have decided that we will not have sex unless she decides that is what she wants without any question about it from me. I figure that what she really needs is a male friend that will never attempt to take advantage of her. She also has extreme trust in me. I value that trust, and I will not break it. Because she is an alcoholic and on medical assistance, she had to list her next of kin at the trauma center. These are adults that can sign for her to be treated against her will, and if she ends up on life support, make the decision to pull the plug. My name is first on her list, her mother is second. There is nobody else on the list. She has 3 brothers and 1 sister. They are not on the list. Her father is not on the list. That is an awesome trust. I will not violate it.

Doesn't anyone care about all the guys I slept with in San Quentin? Some were incredible unforgettable nights and longer. But I tell you this, as firmly as I've ever said anything, nothing comes close to my soulmate's answer machine. There's a love there that will last forever. I can't even remember my soulmate's name. Her phone number is that matters anymore.

BUT: have you slept with her, Jim? You know, on the answering machine. Tim, you sound like a good soulmate to have. But if one has a soulmate of the opposite sex (and remember, I don't really know what I'm talking about, because I've not experienced this), then doesn't it just get natural at some point to share everything? Because we're made up of body AND of soul. Does it not become natural to share the body, once you share the soul?

Yes, It does. But the time has to be right. Because once that sharing occurs. you have no secrets. You can hold nothing back, never again. It's pretty awesome If you think about it.

I've never shared my body because it doesn't know what time is. It keeps asking me, "Jim, is it time? is it time? is the time right yet?" I never know what to say because I keep thinking my body should be telling me when the time's right, not the other way around. This pleases my soulmate's answer machine no end. And this is the most complicated relationship I've ever been in. But our love will never end. BTW, her answer machine has an incredible body. Sometimes I want to touch it on the play button. But as I reach toward it, the answer machine slides around on her bedside table away from my big fat hand. Everytime I see my soulmate, she tells me with rising intensity, "I hate you and I always will. I hate you. I hate you." But she threatened to give me her answer machine. I can't figure out why she felt it was a threat. I guess I'll find out in a 6 days, that's when she said she'll give it to me. I'm almost certain, no, no, I am certain....I'm certain her answer machine is my real soulmate---and I was only led to it by her and her apparent soulmatedness. Life's problems can get so tricky and confusing sometimes....just have to hang in there and roll with the punches and the messages you leave.

Jim, I am LOL at you having phone sex with your soulmate's answering machine! I hope you two will be very happy together--I'm betting it will even wait fort you while you're up the river doing a nickel!

ha-ha!!! Tim, it is pretty awesome, but how does one know when the time is right? Doesn't one just feel that tingling, and think: now I HAVE to sleep with this person?

with me it only happens when I'm swimming in the river but no one else is ever around and I'm just left holding some nickel in my hand what I need is a waterproof cell phone

A plastic ziplock bag might work.

Or just drop the nickle into the water, and make a wish.

Riette, Yes, you both know when the time is right, but the important thing to do is recognise where you are going.

or at least where you are leaving...

How do you mean, Wer?

Sorry, m'dear, but I can't think it through well enough to answer.

Try.

I don't know how to explain my inability to explain, especially since the words that I am currently using around here aren't being taken the way that they sound in my head before I post them.

You don't have to make excuses, Wer. If you're pi$$ed off, you can say so. At least we'll know where we are. I'm pi$$ed off at them moment - that doesn't mean I want our friendship to end. I'm just annoyed and disappointed, because we have somehow at some point turned into the kind of conference that tries to push new people away, instead of welcoming them. How couldd the persisting silence and occasional bitchy remarks NOT give that impression?

what? who're we pushing away riette?

Wolf, not you, But three of the males in the conference, have so irritated Riette, that she decided last night to leave the conferences for good. The ones involved, know who they are.

no no no, she can't leave us. riette, come back dear!

Customer Service Rep: Can you install LOVE? Customer: I can do that. I'm not very technical, but I think I am ready to install now. What do I do first? CS Rep: The first step is to open your HEART. Have you located your HEART ma'am? Customer: Yes I have, but there are several programs running right now. Is it okay to install while they are running? CS Rep: What programs are running ma'am? Customer: Let me see....I have PASTHURT.EXE, LOWESTEEM.EXE, GRUDGE.EXE, and RESENTMENT.COM running right now. CS Rep: No problem. LOVE will automatically erase PASTHURT.EXE from your current operating system. It may remain in your permanent memory, but it will no longer disrupt other programs. LOVE will eventually overwrite LOWESTEEM.EXE with a module of its own called HIGHESTEEM.EXE. However, you have to completely turn off GRUDGE.EXE and RESENTMENT.COM. Those programs prevent LOVE from being properly installed. Can you turn those off ma'am? Customer: I don't know how to turn them off. Can you tell me how? CS Rep: My pleasure. Go to your Start menu and invoke FORGIVENESS.EXE. Do this as many times as necessary until GRUDGE.EXE and RESENTMENT.COM have been completely erased. Customer: Okay, I'm done. LOVE has started installing itself automatically. Is that normal? CS Rep: Yes it is. You should receive a message that says it will reinstall for the life of your HEART. Do you see that message? Customer: Yes I do. Is it completely installed? CS Rep: Yes, but remember that you have only the base program. You need to begin connecting to other HEARTS in order to get the upgrades. Customer: Oops...I have an error message already. What should I do? CS Rep: What does the message say? Customer: It says "ERROR 412 - PROGRAM NOT RUN ON INTERNAL COMPONENTS". What does that mean? CS Rep: Don't worry ma'am, that's a common problem. It means that the LOVE program is set up to run on external HEARTS but has not yet been run on your HEART. It is one of those complicated programming things, but in non-technical terms it means you have to "LOVE" your own machine before it can "LOVE" others. Customer: So what should I do? CS Rep: Can you find the directory called "SELF-ACCEPTANCE"? Customer: Yes, I have it. CS Rep: Excellent, you are getting good at this. Customer: Thank you. CS Rep: You're welcome. Click on the following files and then copy them to the "MYHEART" directory: FORGIVESELF.DOC, SELFESTEEM.TXT, REALIZEWORTH.TXT, and GOODNESS.DOC. The system will overwrite any conflicting files and begin patching any faulty programming. Also, you need to delete SELFCRITIC.EXE from all directories, and then empty your recycle bin afterwards to make sure it is completely gone and never comes back. Customer: Got it. Hey! My HEART is filling up with really neat files. SMILE.MPG is playing on my monitor right now and it shows that WARMTH.COM, PEACE.EXE, and CONTENTMENT.COM are copying themselves all over my HEART! CS Rep: Then LOVE is installed and running. You should be able to handle it from here. One more thing before I go... Customer: Yes? CS Rep: LOVE is freeware. Be sure to give it and its various modules to everybody you meet. They will in turn share it with other people and they will return some really neat modules back to you. Customer: I will. Thank you for your help.

...profound...

Thank you, Infospryte -- that's a keeper!

*warm smile*

I put in a request for MIND.CALM, but they shipped MIND.COM instead. It did the opposite of what I wanted. Now I can't shut the bloody thing off. It broke my HEART, so I sent away for MEND.EXE. They shipped MIND.EXE instead. Now I have two of these beasts running, one in each hemisphere. They talk to each other incessantly, overloading my Corpus Callosum. I sent away for JOY, but they sent TOY, which I've been playing with for years. Then they sent me FUN.EXE and PUN.EXE, and purposely vexed me by randomly sending out FAN.EXE and PAN.EXE to various other souls. But the worst of it is that I have this big button reading CONTROL-ALT-DELETE that a lot of people keep poking at without my consent.

That sound like the story of my life... I must have a duplicate button that is being poked and I have no control over it whatsoever. Stuff like that can mess up a perfectly good life!

Y'all get Update 3.0, it's as cool as Update 2.0, but w/ more colours.

Okay! ...was waiting for the 4.0 to arrive, but I will get the 3.0 till then. Had enough of the button-pushing for a lifetime. Love the idea of more colors...

...and yes, love is THAT important, since you asked in your original question.

?

Read the topic heading...written by its creator...

But Americ asked the question! �grin� So far I've come to the conclusion that love is important and can be ultimate - but whether it's real alot of the time?

First I need to shut down FEAR.EXE, PARANOIA.COM, WORRY.EXE, and ANXIETY.COM.

What to do if CONFIDENCE.EXE doesn't work safely? Might this be caused by some virus in the system?

Or some bug which has attacked the hard drive rendering it less efficient than it should normally be! self-esteem.exe is one of those elusive programs which must be configured out of the material at hand, and some times not all of the components are there...

(I know Americ asked it originally - others have made comments, and I was just throwing out my feeling about it...)

CONFIDENCE.EXE cannot overcome ANXIETY.COM until KNOWLEDGE.BASE and REASONING.COM have established themselves as reliable, comprehensive, and bug-free.

ah...there is the difficulty...must be bug-free. Also important to have KNOWLEDGE.BASE protected from being overwritten by SENTIMENTALITY.NET or being nullified by SMALLBRAIN.ORG

That bug-free bit is the killer, because CIVILITY.EXE got munged way back in the early days and has been replicated in error ever since. There have been some efforts down through the ages to fix CIVILITY.EXE, but they failed in tragic ways.

It went the way of the Commodor 64 and other defunct things. Underuse has led to misuse then abuse. What's the use?!

CIVILITY.EXE, it took so long to bake it, and I'll never have that recipe again.

Alas, I am afraid it is in Pandora's Box along with hope - never to escape again.

well. i guess it IS all hopeless, then. really.

It is possible to reconstruct CIVILITY.EXE, but it requires the right set of tools. Hint: It requires more than a dissociated ruleset. It requires the ability to compute a model. It requires knowledge of recursion.

...and, perhaps, the ability to tap into one's higher self.

well then, i repeat what i said two posts ago -- it's impossible. given that i can't count the number of times you, barry, have expressed hopelessness that nobody groks recursion, and nobody understands model-based reasoning. if that's the ticket then i guess the jig is up.

...why am I feeling a prfound sense of loss when we should be extolling the virtues of love...*sigh*

"it's all right ma, i'm only dyin'...."

Does Dylan grok recursion or understand model-based reasoning?

I admire the fact that Barry has bothered to think about the things that need to change - the fact that not everybody understands recursion does not devalue it; rather it is proof of the fact that thinking, REALLY thinking about things is inconvenient for most people. It is not that people are stupid or unable to understand - it is that most people have made a conscious decision not to understand, because when we understand what needs to be changed, and how to change it, we are responsible for affecting that change. And humans are known to shun change, because it feels unsafe.

Ree, what you say is true, but for some of us, we cannot stop thinking about things - really thinking and it deprives us of sleep and eventually of our normal funtioning leading to depression of the most severe sort and the wish for it all to end somehow. Just thinking can be devastating...it robs you of any joy in other things people do around you. I have seen it happen!

Fear is well-rooted in our psyches and in our culture. To overcome fear, one must develop (or recover) the capacity for love. If fear is innate, love is a learned behavior. Fear of failure is one I've grappled with all my life. It's kept me from trying some challenges because the estimated risk of failure was too high. Last week I watched the classic movie, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. The character played by Jack Nicholson tries (and fails) to lift a heavy floor-mounted sink. At the end of the movie, another character, who feared even to speak, overcame his fear, lifted the sink off its foundations, heaved it through the barred windows, and made his escape to freedom.

The difference between Despair And Fear - is like the One Between the instant of a Wreck - And when the Wreck has been - The Mind is smooth - no Motion - Contented as the Eye Upon the Forehead of a Bust - That knows - it cannot see - --Emily Dickinson, 1861

...this is true, as well...but you are not alone...you have friends you have not yet met, Nan Dear...! *hugs*

Why are so many great poets and artist depressed, reclusive, or downright psychotic?...I think Dickinson--who was a genius--was all three.

...Suffered for her art? I think it was her only outlet...like the Bronte sisters. The muse can be a dangerous thing to court. It takes so much of your mind and emotional well-being and tears it apart for the art rendered that it often leaves the artist in a precarious situation mentally. I know more than one person who does not dare court the muse anymore for that very reason!

Nan, Dear...if you would like the soft soothing warmth of fellow lost-love sufferers, please join us at http://www.spring.net/yapp-bin/restricted/read/screwed/163/new We cannot bear to think of you feeling alone in the cold cruel world! *hugs*

Great art emerges out the the despair inherent in a culture buried under layers of violence, oppression, injustice, corruption, poverty, and ignorance.

All those layers of shit eventually turn into compost, and beautiful things spring forth. It's the Way. Stop fighting against it...

Moulton sings a new song... Take me for a ride in your ca-ca... Take me for a ride in your ca-ca...

Play nicely, please! Does not sound like love to me...! But, what does?

To a tulip bulb in early spring, nothing says lovin' like compost... :)

...all warm and lovely and squishy between the toes...!

Oxygen is a poisonous gas produced by trees as their primary waste product.

...and without it life of the animal kingdom as we know it would not exist. Are you alluding that one thing's poison is another's lifeblood?

Weeeell, we already knew that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, now we reconsider crap. What next?

I rather hoped we would get back to affairs of the heart and other wonderful things - which, I happen to think is THAT important...THAT real and THAT ultimate...!

I happen to agree... then again, I also think compost is wonderful. And sunsets in New Mexico...(this photo was taken by my late brother's life companion)

How very lovely it is, and thank your brother and that most important individual in his life for sharing this moment with us. That is truly love...!

I worded that rather unfortunately...You cannot thank your brother, sadly. I shall thank you for sharing this with us...how fortunate they were to have had each other and lovely sunsets... I rather relish compost, as well. Without it we would not have very good food to eat and no mushrooms!

Mushrooms! That's right -- and I used to have a sign on my office door in grad school that said something about how I must be a mushroom, since they kept me in the dark and fed me shit... ;) Marcia, you are a kind person. I'm glad you're here. You'd have liked my brother Allyn; he was only 42 when he died. Here's how he looked when he was my baby brother.

I forgot to mention that Allyn died of AIDS.

Life's detritus is often the inspirational source of great art.

I beg your pardon! (Too bad good manners and sensitivty have become a lost art for some people!) Nan, it would have been my pleasure and an honor to have known your brother. How sweet he looked as your little brother! My sincerest sympathies on your terrible loss!

Barry, I am giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming (yes, I know!) that the great art is Nan...and she thrived on the $h** they fed her!

Marcia, because I know Barry very well in real life, I know he wasn't commenting in a way meant to hurt. Thanks for giving him the benefit of the doubt. This illustrates (yet again) the limitations of text-only conversations, absent the normal clues of facial exression and tone of voice. Anyway, because this topic is LOVE and I very much loved my brother, please bear with me a bit. This is something I wrote in a word-game topic in another conferencing venue, shortly after his death. We had to write in one-syllable words -- sometimes it was hilarious, but I discovered it was also an almost poetic way to say things I couldn't otherwise speak of: --- My strength stood the hard test last week. My bro, A., died on the dawn ere New Year's Eve at his home, with those he loved by his side. I blessed him with my tears and helped him Go Home as much as I could. I am so glad he found peace, but since I took the plane back to my home I am not so numb now. I wail and keen at odd times; the pain comes out of me in gasps and screams, and fells me ere I am warned of its force. It feels like blows to my gut. At the hour of his death, as we sat in wait for the time to pass with no breath or pulse, my best friend (who knew my heart was stunned with grief) called me on the phone just to Be with me. I left the dark room where A. lay to take the call in the room where we cook, and looked out a glass door there. Dawn had put a glow in the sky of the East, and a bright star hung at the point where the glow met the black night that had rolled back... I was full of awe, and knew my bro was free at last. --- Barry was the friend who happened to call, just as Allyn breathed his last, and gave me cause to look up to the sky and see that Morning Star.

That was lovely and so much more emotive for having been in the terse poetic single syllable words. Thank you so very much for sharing that with me. I know you are close to Barry and I have gotten feeling of things I shall not put here. I am glad he was there for you...it must have been incredibly difficult and profoundly sad...my heart aches anew with your grief. How lucky your brother was to have people in his life who truly loved him for being him. I am not sure I ever have... Again, thank you (as I wipe a sympathetic tear with my hand and have trouble seeing what I am writing...)

Ah, yes... belonging and being loved for what we are is what we all long for most, isn't it. We are each in our heart of hearts so very human, no matter how important and protected the veneer we present to the world. Thank you, Marcia, for the gift of kindness you bring to others here.

And, thank you for your gentle nature and caring kindness, as well. You bring out the best in us, which is a wonderful gift in itself! Vulnerability is something we all try to hide but in reality we all have. Your brother having both a loving sister and a loving life mate was doubly blessed, and your sharing his life with us makes us blessed in turn. Again, thank you. *hugs*

Nan, I'm very sorry your brother left this realm way too young, leaving behind hurt he didn't cause in those who loved him. I'm also grateful that Barry was there for you. Although I didn't know him I could see in the eyes of the photo that he was a beautiful soul and in the sunset that he captured that his soul was that of an artist. Barry, sometimes your posts are so intellectually deep that they (unintentionally, I'm certain) hide the emotional depth that you must also possess to have Nan think so highly of you.

Thank you again and still again, Marcia -- and John too. I'm nearly done telling you about Allyn, but here's one last story.

I could probably write better if I could see the monitor and the keyboard, but I am crying with you as you took me back to that day. How beautifully you wrote and how meaningful it all was. Perhaps you could print out a copy and send it skyward for him to enjoy...and I shall do so as well, so he knows someone else in the big world came to love him through his most worthy sister. Thank you for sharing...

(((((((Marcia)))))))

*HUGS* (((((((Nan))))))

(guess that was reduntant, but I did not want you to mistake my intent *smile*)

Oh Marcia, hugs are never redundant in my house! The more, the better. ;)

Oooh Lovely! That is the way I feel about them, as well. *more hugs* and *warm feelings*

Where's moonbeam these days?

Anyone around???? I need a hug

Nan (Moonbeam) has been in and out talking to me. She has had a rather rigurous year and I do worry about her. HUGS Maggie. For an about to be PhD, I hadly feel worthy!

Don't be daft Marcia!!! Long way to go yet ... gotta make a video movie, AND finish writing! hugs