Celibacy...

Celibacy: 1) The state of being unmarried, esp. one under a vow not to marry; 2) Complete sexual abstinence.

Those two definitions pretty much sum me up.  And I rather like both of them.  But I'm going to concentrate on the second definition right now.  The first definition is pretty much synonymous with happy and enlightened.  

The need for sex is pretty much hard-wired into our brains.  Guess is has something to do with keeping the species going.  I can't very much do anything about the programs that are hard-wired into my brain.  Try as I may to delete them, they are here to stay.  So what I CAN do is just not use them.  Put them in a folder and file them deep down.

And that's what I've done.  And I haven't missed a beat.  Of course, its been quite awhile, so the "pains" of celibacy are behind me.  And happy about that I couldn't be.

Thoughts on these "pains:"  When someone has been in a relationship for some time and then finds themselves alone, the memory of sex lingers.  The mind and the body still has physical memory of what the act feels like, and tastes like, and smells like.  And both the mind and the body tend to miss these sensations, because, after all, they are quite nice.

But over time, the physical memory starts to fade.  And over more time, it disappears.  You can remember sex in your mind's eye, but the actual memory of what it feels like is gone.  It is in this new state of mind that one is able to live quite freely.  Young people go out, go on dates, pursue the opposite sex for the main reason of sex.  Why else would you endure so much crap if not for the hope, the chance, of sex?  I see it driving most of the behavior of the young these days.

But when that desire is gone, so too is the need to put up with the games, the confrontations, the overall crap that comes with dealing with the opposite sex.  If someone never wants to be married, never wants children, and pretty much never wants to have a relationship ever again, then that pretty much kills any need for sex.  And as it gets pushed further and further down the ladder of priorities, soon you find that you can't even remember what the big deal was anyways...

So, the more I think about the two definitions, the more I think that they both are just another way of creatively saying: To be enlightened, unfettered and all-in-all happy....