"Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love."~Fyodor Dostoevsky (Brothers Karamazov)

So I was thinking about it objectively earlier this evening and I don't think it's a good idea for me to spend a very long time in the state of non-action and the stillness of the center on this tangle of emotions/actions/inactions/reactions. I think that in the longterm it will be damaging the longer I practice it in this case. And what i felt inside me and what I observed objectively when tonight Eric once more had a story I  can't watch but I can see exists (I presume he shared the same post from the band's insta that i saw on the band's facebook -- it's not that I can't see the content elsewhere or I couldn't create a burner account just to see what is shared where I was unfairly blocked out of defensiveness, it's that their behavior around this is a serious ethics issue matter of principle for me) So when I saw he had another unwatchable story, I did what I have to do to make me cease reacting before it spins out of my control after being poked where it needs healing -- and what I observed confirmed my contemplative concerns of earlier.

Because, what I'm doing is teaching myself not to react when poked where it hurts or angers my outraged sense of justice and ethics. And the thing with emotions is that they are guideposts, like physical pain, of when something is amiss and harmful. They're there to warn us to stop doing something before it causes irreparable damage. Our emotions are like physical pain -- it's there to tell us when something is wrong or harmful. We hurt and we sorrow and we get angry to the depth that we care. All passionate emotion is a measure of love, even when it's expressing in ways that are negative or harmful or toxic or just fucking uncomfortable to experience. 

When I teach myself not to react to him having stories on his instagram that I can see exist but I can't watch or when I steel myself not to let myself be hurt by the influx of further poisons down the bond from him knowingly doing wrong on Wednesday nights (it used to be on Friday nights back in like late Spring/early Summer, but for months now it's been Wednesday nights) I am teaching myself to put out the flame of the love -- it hurts and I care BECAUSE of how intensely I love so it matters to me what is done. Whenever I focus to minimize and remove the emotions from unbalancing me, when I teach me not to react, what I'm doing is teaching myself indifference towards him and our bond.

It's another form of my stoic streak and martyrdom manifesting to do it, to teach myself not to react. But the consequence of it isn't that the source of the hurts/poisons gets dealt with and healed or that I cut off the good flesh with the poisoned/cancerous/necrotic flesh. It's that I intentionally suffocate the flame of love that is the source of all the passions/emotions until the hurting passes. And there's a very real possibility that I continue to practice non-reaction to being pushed on this, that it very will may result in me snuffing out within myself the flame of love for him itself.  And if you keep snuffing it out and trimming down the wick til there's no wick left, than you can't relight that no matter what you do after you extinguish it. 

Teaching myself not to react or be hurt/sad/angry over it is just a more dangerous form of the stoicism of pushing him out and refusing to let him reach me. It is wrong I think to pursue it for too long rather than dealing with the root causes of the hurts/poisons... it is wrong for the same reason that trying to push him out and dim down shut out the connection is wrong. It's the same basic concept of trying to convert love into indifference so it will stop hurting, just a different method of doing it.

I don't have a better answer right now -- but I believe that forced detachment is as spiritually harmful in it own way as excessive attachment. (This belief that detachment is as harmful as wrongful attachment when it's time to let go is why I'm not a good Buddhist, though there are many Buddhist teachings I can appreciate and find deep wisdom in, I disagree on a rather core principle of it. Same as my disagreement that I believe sins are non-transferrable, I believe each sin must be made right by the soul who did the wrong, is why I can never be a good Christian -- because nobody can expiate your sins but you. My core beliefs don't allow for central articles of faith required for either of these religions.)  

I think that longterm me choosing to insist on non-action in the stillness at the center NO MATTER HOW YOU POKE THE BEAR is actually far more destructive than simply deciding to refuse points of contact and doing my best to quiet the bond. I don't think I/we should allow me to see what happens if I continue this for more than another 2 weeks of clamping down and transmuting the strong reactionary emotions into ash of nothingness. It would be better to stop sooner than that, to minimize damage. I don't think we want to spend too much time teaching me that this is the right way to respond to emotions that are born from caring too intensely... I can feel how I'm teaching myself to destroy the love whenever I teach myself not to react... And I don't think that will be healthy to allow me to make a pattern of for too long.... I feel like mid-December is the longest I should allow this without causing damage that I don't know either of us can heal down the line.... 2 more weeks is the max I should allow it. Beyond that i can't promise it won't do even worse damage than the poisons already introduced and continuously being bred in the connection due to the choices of the past. 

 'The opposite of love is not hate, but indifference."~Elie Wiesel