On guard

If you see a beautiful flower, you may appreciate it but not immediately want it.  If you see a beautiful piece of fruit or loaf of bread, you may desire taking the next step of "having" it, eating it.  Seeing the beautiful Bathsheba, David wanted to have her, in this case having her as a wife.  See the wanting?  See the desire to "have"?  True, our appetites for food and for sex are do not extend in the same way to flowers.  We can't have or keep the flower.  Maybe if we were bees, our appetites would jump to the front of our minds. 

Regardless, David doesn't really get to "have" Bathsheba and we don't get to have our fruit and bread.  No matter what we do, the bloom will fade and the flower will pass into other forms that don't appeal or tempt us.  Isn't that sad, how everything fades and passes away?  Don't want to be sad?  Maybe you should protect yourself against sadness and loss.  Just remain unmoved by and uninterested in the flower.  Don't let its beauty get to you.  Guard yourself, steel yourself against appreciating its gift.  Heck, while you are at it, steel yourself against everything and everyone.  Beauty doesn't last and love doesn't last.  Whether it is wilting, divorce or death, everything good will come to an end.  Why not withdraw from anything good now?

That is just what some of Mark Epstein's patients do.  Try to block, parry and prevent bad feelings and sometimes even good ones since they tend to lead to bad ones.  He works with them to try and find a way to open themselves to pleasure and love, to handle the ups and downs of life without over-emphasizing the negative or anticipating fear and pain.  Too much defense leads to being walled in, blocked off from life and the wonders and delights it offers.  With practice, you can learn to see the wilted flower as the next stage in the rolling on of life in its course.  You can appreciate the loves you have now that you have them and forge new ones when it's time.