The consuming friend is, at first, fun and even a relief to be around. In a world that can be so buttoned up, they express a hunger and a drive that is not bound by tight protocols and that carries with it a kind of self-possession. The relief comes because we do not feel responsible for their feelings as they are not overly sensitive. Demands are not part of this friendship; it seems, at first, to be open and free.
In OM, this is where we go from tiny, light, upward strokes with intense focus, to easy, sweeping, sloppy, downward strokes, thinking we can just let go. However, this type of stroke spends the energy we build through hyper-focus. Eros rewards efficiency, whereas consumption invariably ends with lack of power. In the mind, lack of power occurs as depression, desperation, and emptiness. So while consumption is wise at times, especially to counter attention that has become locked in hyper-focus, it can easily disconnect from its main source. It will consume another until either the consumer or the consumed are totally depleted.
The issue at hand is a lack of facility with optionality, which is itself incredibly efficient as it remains seated in the center of power. It allows in sensations and releases them, being moved by them and responding to them. All of this is done with equal, balanced attention that neither needs to grab for, push against, or check out of any field or sensation. In true optionality, we don't need to go anywhere as there is always abundance where we find ourselves. It is only from here that we can act from true optionality. True optionality says, "I am entirely fulfilled where I am, and that experience over there looks interesting." Consumption would say either, "I am missing something," or "Whenever I am in relationship with something, I crave something else."
Consumption stems from an inability to be fully intimate with and offer ourselves over to any one thing, resulting in attempts to piece together meaning from many. Optionality, on the other hand, is the result of having entirely offered ourselves over to one thing, and then being so steeped in it, we would scarcely leave it. However, if we were to venture out, that quality of being steeped would become an inherent aspect of everything we do.
To relate with others who are relating from a place of optionality is a vital aspect of becoming realized as a person on the Erotic path. Little else is more gratifying than having the attention of one who has control over their attention, and chooses to put it on us. It comes with no craving and fills us in such a way that even when they turn their attention away, we are gratified. We may want more—that is healthy—but gratitude replaces demand or craving. The person who merely consumes us leaves us feeling depleted, instead of gratified. A depleted mind often craves, so we may come to crave the very person who is depleting us. This is how we know the difference between one who relates to us in true optionality, and one who is consuming from us.
Consumption is the result of blocking emotions. When we block fear, we consume to cover the feeling and create a false sense of safety, the way a hoarder might feel safe. Or, we may cover our emotions with the drive for acquisition; yet we find there is never enough to acquire. Enough is only found by an emptied-out self. If we have people and things piled on top and stuffed inside of us, we cannot feel the enough-ness.
When we block our sadness, we draw people in who will respond to people in need. This is especially true in romantic relationships. Those who are more feminine yet block sadness or express the dramatized version of it, draw in those who are masculine to protect and rescue.
When we block anger, we consume other people's attention by having them try to get our approval or make us happy because anger seethes out of us. As human beings, we are social animals and it is human to want others to be happy, which makes it easy to become hooked by another's anger and by endlessly trying to make them happy.
The reason it is called consuming in these three scenarios is that it can never be satisfied. Consumption is the result of blocking, and the only thing that would actually gratify would be emptying. The consumer usually has an overactive "driver." Our inner "driver" goes back and forth between driving ourselves hard, and then consuming in order to feed that driver, rewarding ourselves with the antidote to hard driving rather than simply stopping, emptying out, and finding true relief. When we are emptied out, we can exchange quantity not just for quality, but for the very best. We can carve out a beautiful empty room and only allow the most valuable to enter this inner sanctum. Because we have no lack, we can afford to wait any length of time for the finest.
When we have been consumed from and are coming out of this dynamic, we will likely need to get an energetic loan from a true friend. Before accepting, we must vow we will not waste their resources and will genuinely take leave physically and energetically from the dynamic of consumption we were taking part in. We will not seek out another consumer, nor will we use the resources we are being loaned for the previous consumer.
Next, we begin to work on developing our interior world. We take the energy that we were permitting to be consumed and instead apply it to our interior mansion. We empty out the junk and we come to know and polish all that is inside. In knowing the value of the emptiness, the beauty inside the bud that all the petals are there to protect, we not only develop power, we also come to know the value of currency and the folly of allowing it to be wasted.
We now begin to practice exchange with people who have true optionality. This requires humility as they have both more skill and more power. They will not stroke our ego the way the consumer would, but the power that is built together will be ours. We will have earned it. We will come to know how to build the exchange of a feedback loop in a way that everyone wins. This will become our new bottom line.
When we are eventually secure in our new position with powered but harnessed attention, if we feel confident, we can go back and give the consumer what they were looking for in the first place: powered attention. We can give them as much as they can be gracious for, and we can give it so long as they do not continue to consume. We can be for them what our optionality friends are for us.
The realized version of this relationship is that having been on the consumption-addiction side together, we can now be on the recovered side together. Our system of two can invite others in to build a power constructed on a shared purpose.
