Compersion: Love, love, love…

Most of you are well aware that I am, in fact, a word nerd. I like the way words sound. I like to understand their meaning. “Semantic” arguments are worth having. Understanding yourself and the world a little better is a result of studying words.

So I was pleased and delighted to come across a word I’d NEVER heard before — compersion. Say it out loud. Roll it around your tongue. It’s just sweet! Cuhm-purr-szun. Lovely. Even lovelier though, is its definition: “the ability to take personal and sincere pleasure in the pleasure that your partner derives from either someone else or something else that is unrelated to you.” Joy from someone else’s joy; happiness at someone else’s happiness, not because you are a participant in the joy, but simply because you know that they are experiencing joy even if you yourself don’t share in  it.

I discovered this word on a blog jaunt, where I find a cool blog and then start riffing through the links, one to another.

WARNING – Some of the above links are adult sites and yes that means you may find neckid pictures and “sex talk.” One of the above links is written from a very out of the ordinary point of view, one usually judged very harshly; definitely NOT for anyone insecure in their relationship. Another has great stuff scattered throughout but also a few things that may be complete bullshit. I don’t know. There. You’ve been warned.

But here’s the freaky thing — I can’t find the word in the dictionary. Nor on MS Word, nor in my trusty Webster’s or Roget’s. The only place I’ve found it is on-line and in reference to polyamory, the idea that you can truly love more than one person at a time.

For those who haven’t read the “writing” section of this blog, you might want to check it out now so you’ll understand how we got here. In short, I hypothosize that people who live their lives outside of the status quo have had to think things through a little more and because of this, may have something to teach the rest of us common folk in our dogged pursuit of happiness. 

So, back to compersion. I think I fell in love with this word so easily because I have lived a life steeped, steamed, and boiled in its opposite: Schadenfreude– another awesome word with a less than awesome meaning. To save some time, Schadenfreude is taking pleasure in someone else’s misfortune or misery. Beyond the ‘freude, I also had and continue to have the not so delightful pleasure of loving people who are absolutely miserable, pissed off, and lack the good sense or the good grace to keep it to themselves.

FAMILY WARNING – You’re not going to like this. Really. You’re not. Because yes, I am talking about you. And the rest of ‘em.

For example: The holidays are coming up and I’ve decided to start dreading it now rather than wait until after Halloween when I usually start figuring out how Mike and I are going to manuever through the next eight weeks. Thanksgiving is never about gratitude or sharing or even heaven help us, enjoying a fuckin’ football game. No, it’s a golden opportunity for people to bitch about the folks who aren’t there, fume about the state of the union, grouse about the state of their own unions, delve into the detail and misery of people who are related to us, and rehash past issues behind us and disasters looming in front of us. A simmering tension rests under ever word spoken as one never knows what’s going to be said that will set off a chain reaction of cutting comments, testy tirades, and the subsequent pouting  that always goes with it. That’s not to say there isn’t any laughter, but it’s a mean laughter, usually at someone else’s expense, presumed stupidity, and yes, general misfortune.

Christmas is worse. The extended family gathering consists of multiple preachers, deacons, and other church-y types and is always a swirling vortex of negativity. You’d think people committed to celebrating the birth of the baby Jesus and the coming of the Saviour of the World would at least prompt a kind word or two for each other but alas, no. If there’s a kind word to be heard no one knows what it is and I learned years ago not to mention anything that goes on in my life that could be the target of someone else’s jealousy… or Schadenfreude.

Of course, none of this is confined to the holidays nor is it a recent development. It is a lifelong state of being that for the longest time I thought was normal and yes, that I fit into very well. I am cut from the same cloth, so you see the idea of compersion, that you can and should be happy for someone else who’s happy, is an idea that blows my freakin’ mind.

But why should the idea of compersion only apply to sexual love? Why, I wonder, shouldn’t the concept of taking pleasure in someone else’s pleasure extend to children, parents, siblings, and yes even husbands and wives? My nephews are two of the cutest little boys (ages five and seven) that you’ve ever seen but they are also a constant source of irritation to the grown-ups around them. If any of the adults ever heard how they sound and act around these kids I hope they’d all be mortified. But it shouldn’t surprise me, it’s the same echo I’ve heard before. There is no natural state of grace or peace or joy or acceptance, most notably, to me, around the holidays. There is only what appears to be a long list of old grievances, current disappointments, and simmering anger or resentment. Pick your Kool-aid friends and neighbors, it’s all gonna kill ya anyway.

Mike, my Beloved, is my favorite person in the whole wide world and a constant source of laughter and support. I’d die of shame if anyone ever heard me say a negative or spiteful thing about him. He is, quite frankly, a great guy in every sense of the word. Yet he suffers insults and left-handed ridicule at every family gathering, sadly, for no other reason than he was born in the North and consequently, isn’t “like us.”

Yet I can’t remember the last time I heard a kind word or witnessed a sincere exchange of affection between the rest of clan’s pairings. Yet I have watched them all “light up” when discussing someone else’s misfortune; a project that isn’t coming together, another difficult but fixable home problem, a predictable, and often deserved, but unfortunate “comeuppance.” 

Is it so hard, or oddball, to delight in another human being’s pleasurable experience? To experience them with unconditional love and patience? To do so enthusiastically and without reservation, secure and happy with the knowledge that this love gently binds you together? To be a source of comfort and not of condemnation? To experience happiness in a state of peaceful acceptance as “the way things ought to be” as opposed to the fake and forced “oh, how nice for you” version that is really thinly masked jealousy, resentment, or envy?  

Me on the left, looking VERY Mod, if I do say so. Hotties on the right.

Having given this concept some thought for a few days I had the opportunity to experience it this weekend, to a degree. Mike and I were at a Beatles’ themed birthday party for a friend. As some of you know, our background is in arts and entertainment so lets just say the costumes were suitably sexy and the people were definitely hot! At one point, I glanced across the patio to see my Beloved chatting up to beautiful, busty, and leggy ladies. They were all laughing and the girls were offering up plenty of neck and cleavage, a feast for his eyes. My stud of a hubby, being a healthy adult male, certainly seemed to be enjoying himself… and they him. As I took in this scene I experienced something wonderful… happiness. I loved watching it. I loved seeing him flirt and watching them respond. I felt a wave of pleasure that had nothing to do with me. Not a shred of jealousy that my husband found attraction elsewhere. Not an ounce of envy that the ladies were both younger and thinner than myself. No fear that my relationship, self esteem, or respect of my friends was threatened in any way. Just joy and gratitude that I had the opportunity to witness the person I love more than anyone on this earth enjoying himself… without me.

Here’s the thing though. It has to start with me. I have to have compersion for myself, as odd as that sounds. I have to be able to delight in my own pleasure… detached from those around me. I must be free to enjoy who I am, where ever I am, whoever I’m with; free from condemnation (my own), resentment (someone else) and jealousy (fear of loss of who I am or envy for who I’m not. )

Now I don’t know that I am capable of taking this concept as far as the polyamorists and actually sharing my husband’s intimacy with another, but I see that as a matter of degree and not a matter of correctness of the concept.

What if….

What if, in my formative years, I’d learned that happiness and joy was a natural and desirable state of being… as opposed to fearfulness and anger. What if I’d learned that concept under the safe and protective wings of people who delighted in me… as opposed to trained me. What if, as a young adult, I was able to separate my own sense of joy and happiness from others… neither to seek approval nor to be the sole source of happiness of others. What if my beloved and I, through mutual agreement, learn that we are both everything – and yet not the only thing – that is a source of joy in our individual and married lives.

Compersion. Cuhm-purr-szun. “The ability to take personal and sincere pleasure in the pleasure that your partner derives from either someone else or something else that is unrelated to you.” I need to call Webster’s. The really need to add this word to their freakin’ dictionary.