Intimacy and Objectification

When we objectify anything, we remove ourselves from it. Often we may say, “I’m just objective” without realizing what we are saying. Subjectivity is more honest. It recognizes the lens of our own being to perceive. We are not objective and will never be. We experience life through our own biases and experiences. When we miss-identify ourselves and adopt the cloak of ego, our bias is self-serving, and the natural result is objectification and alienation.

Objectification is a form of abstraction, such as when an artist represents something through paint, stone, or words. Unless the artist is completely lost, they will be clear about the difference between what they represent and the medium they employ. That difference—always, entails duality. An artist, creating works of art, is an objectification. The work comes from their subjective nature but is expressed as an objective, perceptible form. The thinker is dually creating thoughts. The thinker is an abstraction, and abstractions are not real. Both thoughts and thinkers are objectified condensations about reality, which are cut off from life.

When there is objective separation, true intimacy is not possible. An imaginary self is an impediment to integration. It is an illusionary, one-sided dimension that blocks wholeness and denies intimacy with our real self and, therefore, others. An imaginary self understands itself as independent and can’t see the interdependent connection to others. It is a psychic island cut off from life.

The ego adopts a stance of “what’s in it for me” with expectations of return on investment in an objectified role. Compassion and equanimity are not possible, objectively. There may be the appearance of virtue, but ego-centricity is waiting for that return, and if not provided, disappointment will result. Genuine compassion is intimate and non-discriminatory with repose as its defining characteristic. The only way such a thing can occur is through subjective identification in a non-dual way. When the subjective nature of Self identifies another Self, there is the recognition of unity.