Greed, defined as an intense selfish desire for something, especially wealth, power, and food, tends to run us, as we are driven to have more of it or avoid it. Those with a masculine spiritual mind want to escape greed, finding desire and materiality anathema to their beliefs. The more physically based masculine person is driven by greed. Both are forms of disconnection. From an Erotic perspective, a primary focus on spirituality is just as much an act of greed as a primary focus on the material world.
What the Erotic self aims to do is fill our coffers to overflow in every dimension, so we can make our choices from a place of fullness. It wants to genuinely fill us with experience of the material—for us to get dirtied, sullied, corrupted, power-driven, maniacal. To go into every corner we possibly can to understand the mechanics. To not fear touching anything, knowing the incorruptibility of the Erotic self.
The Erotic self says, "If we can explore a domain, we must." The only requirement is we open the Erotic dimension in our exploration, meaning we immerse in, and get worked by and possessed by all that we engage in until it is done with us, which it will be at some point. All things are.
The masculine-rational mind just keeps driving long past the point something is done and calls that discipline, but that is the same thing as greed. Erotic discipline is to remove ourselves at the peak, not overriding anything due to "commitment." Dimensions self-organize in this way.
If we listen, they will exit us when it is time to exit, so we do not need to live with any reality excluded. Yes to the self, yes to wealth, yes to subtle states of consciousness, yes to power, yes to sex, yes to transcendence. Yes until it is a no, and then on to the other. Yes until that spot is no longer fully alive, and then we sense for the one that is.
Greed, in the Erotic definition, is something we have such a preference for, we ignore the call to change the stroke. There is just as much greed in stillness as there is in climax as there is in expression as there is in restoration. Greed in Eros is what keeps us from moving when we are called; it keeps us seeking what no longer exists in the spot where we are.
The grip of greed is the result of looking for all our nutrients in one place and being so erotically malnourished that we do not have the power to change when change comes. We have a zombie-like quality to us. We land somewhere and lose dynamism. The grip sets in.
We do not stay out of choice or because this is the most alive place. We stay due to sloth, like a finger dragging heavily over a clit when there is no sensation. We stay mired to circumstances and call that commitment or discipline, whereas it's the ultimate checking out. We entered, set our autopilot, developed a persona that worked, and got angry when that was disrupted. That is the signifier of Erotic greed—when we cannot change the channel with joy and ease.
Greed can be that we are so focused on doing it right we refuse to lift our attention and move it toward connection. Greed can be holding to an idea of where, when, and how we are willing to give ourselves so we become miserly and hoard our energy. Greed can be the voice that says, "When will I get mine?"
Ironically, greed is often the result of being full. The rational mind—having no sensory way to know it is full—only senses discomfort and translates discomfort to "consume."
Eros shows us that, more often than not, when grasping begins to happen, it's because we are attached to conditions where we will allow ourselves to open, to engage, to offer ourselves. So we demand more of certain conditions than they can offer. We keep pumping empty wells, when around us are full wells. We just refuse to turn and find the entry point. Greed is a result of Erotic sloth that will not be resourceful.
The primary form of masculine greed is greed with self. It is a culturally justified greed that reserves the right for autonomy and privacy of the interior world. In fact, secrecy of this kind is exalted in the masculine world.
In Eros, the masculine reserving the right to not offer himself— saying "I am my own person"—is greed. We cannot escape this self. But, Eros can fill and flood us with the deeper truth that we all belong to each other. In order to be filled and flooded with Eros, however, we must offer over the rights of separation.
The masculine mind is tricky and doesn't mind going through the motions. So it will go through extreme and elaborate displays of generosity, care-giving, service, attentiveness, contribution, and being available as a sophisticated method of disguising a still withheld self.
People-pleasing, eagerness to please, and agreeability are tempting in a world of people who have a deficit in external attention. But those powered by the Erotic will know. It will be embarrassing for both. Don't do that.
The counterpoint to greed, then, is the full offering of all of ourselves—our full range of expression, our interior workings, our back-alley selves, the plans we make to leave that we think no one recognizes, and the secret ways we skim off the top.
There is the confusion we feign to get attention, the ways we will not connect the dots and instead make her explain it, our refusal to enter places we don't know so the world must come and cater to us, the ways we abuse the concept of boundaries as a means to avoid or not show up, and the ways we keep the people around us who are more feminine, slightly off-balance and insecure to hold the upper hand so she does not see we are not really engaging.
There is the grumble everyone comes to expect from us or the point when they know we will have to withdraw, because if we gave any more, we would have to go into reserves we keep for ourselves. There is the under-responding so others have to carry the conversation and the martyred expression of all we have done while we still haven't gotten ours.
There is the demand for clock time and deadlines and timelines in an attempt to grip the future when we can't even be here now. The reliance on vows and commitments in place of offering ourselves here, the anger when the shell of our body isn't enough for another person, and the way that shell clings on to her and puts her on a pedestal and tries to suck her breast forever.
The way we hold her with a subtle threat of leaving when she starts to express Eros, her power. The way we act self-important with our production, like we are doing the real thing, and in so doing, diminish connection.
The way we grip to the side of the pool of our known world and refuse to let the other worlds we are not an expert in take control. Behaving so she has to give us a direct order, command, or request because we aren't proactive in seeing what needs to be handled and handling it. We won't break through the resistance she has built up after we have failed to show up.
Most importantly, our unwillingness to show up in full, honest, anticipatory presence for this moment, to offer and receive with enthusiasm and a strong back-boned yes. To be the bottom line for ensuring that in this moment, everyone is having the experience they desire and ensuring we are equipped to offer it.
These are all examples of Erotic greed. There are many more. They make us small, stingy, disempowered, self-righteous, and in our world, "masculine." We have to ask ourselves if that is the kind of masculinity we want to embody.
