Love Scuba Diving

Now before anyone takes this a naughty way, realize that I’m not talking about just that at all, though I include the “naughty” as part of the love equation.

Jim said something about depth that started me to thinking about comparison thought patterns.  I have never thought of myself as overly intelligent or creatively smart–like the person who thought up string theory or something…  In fact, I just consider myself to be average in some ways, slightly above average in certain areas (probably not the areas you suspect, however) because I learn and perform those thing quickly, and below average on others.  To be frank, I can’t wrap my head around scholastics very well.  If I have any form of wisdom, it comes from chewing on a subject for quite a while before I settle on a view of it.

One conversation occurred to me tonight that brought it all home (some of that chewing on things for a while) for me.  I have a nephew that scuba dives as much as possible and intends to be an instructor soon–if he isn’t already.  Now I have never been able to go very deep in a pool or snorkeling for that matter deeper than my own height because I would get a massive headache or feel nauseous as I came back up.  When he and I spoke of this, I learned that to go down or up takes time in deep dives, otherwise the headache and nausea will knock one out.  So what happens, if I remember right, is that the person goes to a depth, clears their ears and then proceeds to another depth.  I think it’s repeated for rising to the surface as well, so each stage is taken slower than one would imagine.  Some people acclimatize faster than others; my nephew has to take his time because he’s somewhat like me with inner ear issues.

Then this started me thinking about depth in reasoning, theology, philosophy, love and relationships.

If all of us think about how we grow together as friends, individuals or wisdom in general, it always happens when we are able to sit on an experience or thought long enough for it to make sense to us.  What one person struggles to understand another grasps readily and visavie. 

The same goes for a good marriage or relationship.  Those who absorb one another’s person into their stream of consciousness and daily patterns grow deeper and deeper.  I’ve never been good at taking time in this fashion, possibly because I am too impatient or something like that.  I have always lived out loud, on the outside of my skin, or whatever analogy works to illustrate someone who is openly themselves.  This scares most people who don’t practice this kind of relationship building because they don’t trust what they see, for their experience hasn’t prepared them for that kind of honesty.

But growing in love is like scuba diving to a great depth.  We take it in stages to reach our goal.  If we are impatient to get to the desired understanding, we will get what used to be called “the bends” and the relationship will give us a massive headache.  We must acclimatize ourselves to the other person or we will stuggle to accept them.  In a fast food generation that doesn’t sit well with our society’s AD/HD personality and schizoid emotional roller coaster lifestyles.

Healthy relationships take time to grow.  A seed doesn’t just spring from the ground the moment it’s planted but must put down roots before the shoot of the tree comes up at all.  In other words that which is not seen supports what is or the whole thing topples over in the slightest wind.

Taking time for building a good love relationship means taking the pressure off at every level so that we can move forward.  Just like our ears do at different depths in water when the pressure builds, we can’t expect our mental or emotional beings to react any differently to a depth we don’t have time to get used to and assess.  The pressure on the inner person’s soul must ease or the relationship is doomed.

So we take our time and chew on a level of knowing for a while in order understand one another.  As far as I have been able to tell, no one ever arrives at a state of all knowing ecstacy but grows for a life time.

Love, like any other priniciple, takes time grow in us and about us.  We get to choose where we point ourselves as a gift from our Creator, but the method of getting there remains the same: it takes time, steps and determination.

Tags: love, marriage, personal growth, reason, relationships, scuba diving