ALL THAT GLITTERS….
Updated: Feb 27, 2020
The Thinker and I shared an interest in Eckhart Tolle philosophy, not to mention he owned his own psycho-therapy practice plus was tall and handsome. I was rather excited to meet him.
When trying to decide what to do for our date, he jokingly said that it would need to be somewhere we could talk “what with us being such intellectuals and all….”. I thought this was a cute, tongue-in-cheek comment.
I had an inkling that he may have been serious when the first thing he said after greeting me was that he’d been ‘revising’ for our date. Thinking I’d misheard him I just nodded, but then he pulled out his phone and showed me all the quotes he’d written down for us to discuss about a book we’d both read.
He must have taken my surprised silence for a conversation invitation and asked me what I thought about the illusory nature of reality. I clearly did not give an adequate enough answer because he then read me a long quote and started explaining it to me, something about how there is inherent sadness in every aspect of life.
At this point I got distracted by the wafting smell of doughnuts from the South Bank food van and said how happy they would make me. He responded that yes they would make me happy but inherent in the sugary treat is the fact that it will soon be consumed and thus be the end of pleasure and the start of suffering at its loss.
I tried to save the date by asking about family which was fine until – I kid thee not – he asked me about my relationship with my father as a child. Although, he did then have some sense of normal realisation and appended the question by noting that was probably quite a psycho-therapist thing to say…. Finally we agreed on something.
He tried another tact with the family line and then asked me where I was ‘from’. London, I replied, inwardly cringing because I could sense the next question. Aaannd….. “Yes… but where are you really from?” he pointedly asked.
Sadly I feel he was as much disappointed by my lack of intellectual prowess as I was by him having his head in the illusory clouds of reality.
28 April 2018