Kindred Spirit

A Kindred Soul

I thought I knew all about passion.  You know, that insistent fire that can rage out of control like an Australian bush fire or an obsession that consumes the individual to the point of excluding all else. I have gone through life meeting passion in my own life and fleetingly in the hearts and minds of others and arrived at the conclusion that I had ‘been there and got the T-shirt’ if you get my drift.

Let’s be straight, most people, myself included often mix up passion with lust and carnal desires.  My own teenage years were rampant with the usual overfill of hormones commanding me to procreate at all costs.  I was well into my forties when I entered the world of Secondary Education and watching the youngsters grow, I was able to observe from a safe distance.  I quickly realised that driven by a hormonal imperative, many make the same mistake.  I suppose it is rather risky to make sweeping generalisations here, but there is a certain amount of ‘shag first, talk later’ in all of us and if we are truthful it is hard to ignore.

It was sad in some ways watching others make the same mistakes over and over again.  I don’t just mean in my time in schools, but throughout my life.  So I began to ask the question “How does one find one’s Kindred Soul?” That someone who you just feel at ease with? That person who may not know exactly what you are thinking, but how you are feeling and actually cares about it.  If I had the answer I would be a rich man.  I don’t mean in materialistic, fiscal ways but a spiritual Trillionaire with the very key to love and I mean all four of the Greek interpretations of the word.  Love, especially in the young means finding a mate to procreate with.  Yes I know it sounds cynical but if we strip down the human psyche it comes down to finding a partner with which we can maintain the survival of the species.  I have a friend whose degree is in Psychology and who helped many youngsters as a School Counsellor get over there many and complex emotional hurdles. She experienced this process both first hand and as a detached observer in others.  Her own life experiences took her through a few difficult journeys and she found her ‘kindred spirit’ and dare I say true love in her third husband.

I believe that we have the age of consent in the UK for a very good reason.  The body prepares itself very quickly for a physical act that can take moments and fulfil that ultimate goal of reproduction.  Let’s face it, without the delights of orgasm we wouldn’t bother so much with sex at all.  I’ve seen it dressed up by lots of so-called deep thinkers who insist it can be made better.  Look! I have seen THOUSANDS of football matches and some of them pretty dire to watch. Yet in others the play was so good I didn’t want the match to end.  But the all have the same end product and that is to score a GOAL! That is what it is all about.  I don’t care what anyone says, it is the destination and not the journey that is the prime directive and it is only logical that the body should seek it because it feels good.

I have seen countless relationships begin in the same way.  What often hides it is the self-control that appears to give the other aspects of the relationship a chance to flourish.  What may I ask is the very first thing we notice?  Well most start with “He/She looks nice…” We may not form the words as a sentence in our minds, but that is what is happening.  We are looking for a mate.  Soul mates and Kindred spirits are in my mind quite different, but I shall come to those later.  My psychology friend refers to a ‘tipping point’ in most relationships and it usually comes around two years after the first ‘contact’.  The physical relationship begins to plateau and a sort of routine sets in.  If many couples are honest it is the establishing of routine that helps many relationships endure beyond that tipping point.  Often it is because the relationship has borne fruit and the offspring becomes the main focus.

I referred earlier to the physical urges being ahead of the emotional in the development of the adolescent and most of the people I have met have succeeded in coping with the transition as a result of a happy and stable parental background. At this point I have to say it does not matter in my mind who that duality is, but most relationships take on different roles in the development of a young person either consciously or unconsciously in order the provide that balance that is so vital for the young individual concerned.  So, back to my point.  What is a ‘happy marriage’ or relationship is a whole book in itself, but I must make reference to it on my journey to the Kindred Spirit and what that phrase means to me. 

            Those who survive the initial starburst of an urgent desire that has borne fruit often settle into that well-trod path of routine.  The very word in terms of a relationship makes me shudder, but it is that which helps the individual adapt and survive when the flame turns low.  I once met a colleague on the corridor as she passed me, hurrying to her own overdue appointment.  We both had roles that involved pastoral duties with adolescents.  All I said was “Hormones Kath!  Thank God I’m running out of them!”

I had just spent a considerable time sorting out some petty squabble that had seemed like the end of the world to the individuals concerned.  It was over friendships not sex, but the principle is the same.  The raging turmoil of puberty and the surging hormones make the world a confusing place to be and emotions often get out of hand if the individual is not careful.  I don’t want to be miss-understood, but were I some sort of divine creator, I would make physical urges come much later and be the very last piece of the jigsaw to be put in place.  A sort of breathing space so to speak, which allows the person to get the feel of the emotional garments they are now wearing.

                Thinking back to my own teenage years, I saw some excellent examples of the search for that Kindred Spirit.  That complete fit that often seems unobtainable or may even not have existed in the first place.  Quite a few of my friends moved into the first meaningful boy/girl (same sex relationships in the sixties were still taboo) relationships.  All seemed so right and the couple in question often seemed…how do I put it?  ‘Head over heels in love’ and all around agreed that they were made for each other.  Yet weeks, months down the line it had all gone cold and they moved on in a mature way.  Why?  Well, because they either took precautions or waited to see how they really felt about each other and found that it was not as it seemed.  I am all for sexual freedom and the right of the individual to make their own choices, but late in life I can see why we need to be cautious.

            I wrote a poem once called ‘First Love’ and it centred on that innocence of love.  We quickly broke up; mainly because of my shyness being misunderstood as being indifference, but looking back, we probably would not have been right for each other.  I still preserve that romantic notion of what might have been, but at fifteen and knowing me as I do now, I had a lot of emotional growing to do. My first urgent desire was two years later.  I was still not ready for that soul mate.  Yet I met someone with whom I lost my innocence shall we say.  She was a bonny girl and like a lot of blokes I thought that I was in love.  The truth?  She had a sexual energy that took some dealing with and by the time we finished, she was dealing with it in two other places.  Don’t get me wrong!  She was no slut, but I knew I was never going to be enough and she was driven shall we say.  Me? I was talking the usual, thinking all I had to do was propose and move down that well-worn path to marriage.  I even got excited that she missed a period because I thought it was what I wanted and needed.  Just like the youngsters I later worked with.  The same happening all over again.  I met the woman I was to marry and remain married to for over thirty six years shortly after the break-up of my first sexual encounters.  Yet still I found myself seeking an answer.

            It is perhaps as well that I write under a pseudonym because I don’t think the comments that follow would go down too well with my spouse.  And to be honest most of the sacrifices and compromises to make the marriage work have been my wife’s.  She’s had to put up with a lot.  Possessive jealousy on my part and my own adultery, still following that urgent desire and lustful goals.  None of which got me anywhere.  So I come to the original purpose of this meandering piece.  Have I found my ‘Kindred Spirit’? What is it about the human spirit that demands fidelity?  Even in today’s more equal times, women are more able to forgive indiscretions and man like the homo sapiens stag that he is seldom forgive and in some cases even dishes out punishment.  Not to the female under his ‘ownership’ but to whoever dares to venture onto his territory.  I do not excuse nor seek to explain away the difference.  The family unit is often under most pressure when it is disrupted by this most powerful of urges; on either side.  I find myself being able to function on both a primitive and on an emotional level, but I cannot isolate one from the other anymore.  I was kidding myself when I thought I could.  It is lovely to think that sex is the ultimate expression of love, but it isn’t.  At least not in a physical sense.  A kindred soul for me is someone who regardless of gender is paired instinctively to that subconscious that needs no words to communicate.  A soul that is almost a spiritual twin of the other and to quote a saying I’ve often heard ‘Just knows’.  I’m trying to put into words something that does not fit in the conscious mind or has any word written or spoken to describe it.  ‘Instinct’ comes close, but it will never describe fully any of the qualities I am probably still searching for in my Kindred Spirit.