PoM 282
Here are some things I noticed about practicing a period of finite chastity:
I have more strength to put the fitted sheet on the mattress, when my wife and I are bending the mattress to get the newly cleaned sheets on.
As I get older, the memories I have from my youth seem to be accessed down a long, dark hallway from where I am at the particular moment. But, when I am chaste that corridor seems much shorter, brighter and better lit.
When I reach for extremely difficult guitar techniques, at high speeds, at high volumes…I miss less.
When I feel angry, I feel it immediately. I don’t have to go through my past circuitry of “Oh, I want to be a nice guy“…so I won’t be angry…
I am just immediately, naturally, angry.
I have more courage…
The anosmia that I have seems to diminish ever so slightly, and my sense of smell starts to return.
My vision is slightly sharper. I can see things in more focusedly, as though my eyes were refracting light more efficiently.
I have spondylolisthesis and degenerative discs in my L5 and the Sacrum. That causes me not to stand up straight as I would like.
But, when I am chaste, I seem to stand up straighter, walk taller with better carriage, more poise and even just a touch of grace.
The downside of chastity is that the pain I feel: the hurt, sadness, neediness, loneliness is intensified.
It’s not really intensified. I can just feel it more.
Also, I have to be careful not to drive people around me crazy. Because…I’m so much stronger than I normally am, and I just expect people to keep up with me the way they normally do when I’m being actively sexual.
PoM 283
“Vows...I am able to testify that they have also served as my shield. I am of the opinion that they have added a few years to my life and saved me from many an illness.”
Gandhi
Is that really true?
Does a vow of chastity really add a few years to your life?
I don’t know, but what I do know is that when I am chaste I need 1 1/2 to 2 hours less sleep a day.
1.5 hours x 365 days in the year = 547 hours/year
547 hours x 78 year life expectancy = 42,666 hours in an average male lifetime in the US.
42,666 hours/24 hours in a day = 1778 days
1778 days/365 days in the year = 4.87 years
So, yeah you get about 5 extra years over a lifetime
PoM 284
“Buddhist monks choose not to marry and remain celibate while living in the monastic community. This is so that they can focus on achieving enlightenment.”
_BBC
So, chastity helps you achieve “enlightenment” and marriage helps you achieve “endumbenment”.???
Reminds me of Socrates’ doggerel “As to marriage or celibacy, let a man take which course…he will be sure to repent.”
PoM 285
“New research shows that monks live much longer, and healthier…The researchers, reporting in the Journal of Religion and Health this week, found that many of the religious groups had far less disease, including heart disease and cancer, than other people”. “Benedictine monks have a mortality rate almost half that of mere civilians.”
Independent.co.uk
Reminds me of the old Johnny Carson joke: “I know a man who gave up smoking, drinking, sex, and rich food…he was healthy right up to the day he killed himself.”
PoM 286
I had a dream one time that I was in a field of broken cinderblocks with one beautiful, sole orchid pushing up amongst the rended stones.
That’s how I see my wife.
We spend our lives “laughing and joking”, as she says.
The thing that I like second best about my wife, is right out of Disney’s “The Little Mermaid”.
…I love her voice. I just love to listen to her talk. It tickles me.
But, the very best thing about my wife is that she loves God as much as I do. I’ve never met anybody like that…and that’s why I married her.
There’s some other things I like, too.
Even when we are chaste, my wife is a very warm, affectionate and tender woman…and I am endlessly charmed by her.
My wife is an absolute genius at fixing things. She should really be teaching physics at some University. And she’s passed those genes on to Gummy, who can now destroy anything he sees…but, then she can fix it.
We fight, as all couples do. I can be a narcissistic ass. She can be a tarantula under a dump truck. But, I am patient and she is forgiving. It’s a good fit.
My wife is not one in a million, she’s one in a billion…
I have the best woman in the world.