Just a little Lust
Lust is one of those natural parts of life that people talk about and think about an astonishing amount of the time. Every culture has tried to regulate how we think about and talk about lust, whether approving it or disapproving it. The times and places when lust is acceptable vary by culture, by religion, by age .. There are no hard and fast rules about lust, but everyone has an opinion.
In FlameKeeping, what matters is not so much the emotion as our reaction to it. Lust is an emotion that can be dangerous, both because it can be overpowering and because it does not care about social mores and civil rules. The part of our brain that thinks about procreation does not care that you are married, that the person you are looking at is married, or anything else. You simply have an intense feeling of desire. So then what?
Lust is a controllable emotion. Not the first hot flush of it, necessarily, but everything we do after that is our own choice and our own responsibility. We can choose to dwell in our reaction, knowing it is inappropriate, or we can choose to redirect our minds to something else. Our culture bombards us with messages of lust on a regular basis. There are provacative people on the television, on billboards, selling everything from cars to toothpaste. There is a constant message that we should act on our feelings of lust, that they should be used, that if we just buy whatever product or do whatever act we're being told about we will have our lustful fantasies fulfilled.
We need to learn to deal with lust. There's nothing wrong with the emotion itself, but there can be very wrong things with our reaction. If you are feeling lust towards your spouse, or you are available and feeling lust towards someone that is also available, then it is the responsibility of the people involved to decide what they want to do about it. But when you feel lust that isn't appropriate, the feeling of the emotion is no excuse for whatever action you wish to take.
The problem is not the emotion. The emotion is a natural part of life and responsible for the continuation of that life. (how many of us would be here if our parents hadn't felt lust?) The problem is people acting as though the emotion is license, which it is not. What you feel is one thing. How you act is another.
Questions:
How is lust appropriate in your life? How is it inappropriate?
What do you do when you feel attracted to someone that's totally inappropriate for you to go after? Do you think it's the right reaction?
How do you react when people try to use lust to sell things to you? Does it work? Do you think it's appropriate?
In FlameKeeping, what matters is not so much the emotion as our reaction to it. Lust is an emotion that can be dangerous, both because it can be overpowering and because it does not care about social mores and civil rules. The part of our brain that thinks about procreation does not care that you are married, that the person you are looking at is married, or anything else. You simply have an intense feeling of desire. So then what?
Lust is a controllable emotion. Not the first hot flush of it, necessarily, but everything we do after that is our own choice and our own responsibility. We can choose to dwell in our reaction, knowing it is inappropriate, or we can choose to redirect our minds to something else. Our culture bombards us with messages of lust on a regular basis. There are provacative people on the television, on billboards, selling everything from cars to toothpaste. There is a constant message that we should act on our feelings of lust, that they should be used, that if we just buy whatever product or do whatever act we're being told about we will have our lustful fantasies fulfilled.
We need to learn to deal with lust. There's nothing wrong with the emotion itself, but there can be very wrong things with our reaction. If you are feeling lust towards your spouse, or you are available and feeling lust towards someone that is also available, then it is the responsibility of the people involved to decide what they want to do about it. But when you feel lust that isn't appropriate, the feeling of the emotion is no excuse for whatever action you wish to take.
The problem is not the emotion. The emotion is a natural part of life and responsible for the continuation of that life. (how many of us would be here if our parents hadn't felt lust?) The problem is people acting as though the emotion is license, which it is not. What you feel is one thing. How you act is another.
Questions:
How is lust appropriate in your life? How is it inappropriate?
What do you do when you feel attracted to someone that's totally inappropriate for you to go after? Do you think it's the right reaction?
How do you react when people try to use lust to sell things to you? Does it work? Do you think it's appropriate?
posted by Vieva @ 9:02 AM
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