Humanity Thrives Through Intimacy
The precious tiny babies lay still from their emotional and physical exhaustion. They lament for the most sacred nutrients and yearn for the lifeline of their fundamental existence. Their devastating weeping is the tormenting ache for intimacy!
As never before, it is incumbent upon humanity to eradicate the cry that is too often embedded in our families. Intimacy’s intrinsic meaning is defined as: “a complex sphere of the inmost relationship with self and others…; it is our experience with our feelings, bodies, emotions, and identity,” Oxford English Dictionary of Sociology, 4th ed., 1951, 2016.
Categories of Intimacy are: 1) Intellectual Intimacy - shares ideas, opinions, questions, perspectives, and thoughts; 2) Experiential Intimacy - spending time together, activities, or hobbies; 3) Spiritual Intimacy – shared religious beliefs, values, and practices; 4) Sexual Intimacy – sexual intercourse.
Reflecting on the life-sustaining substance of intimacy, I, unequivocally, believe it is the oil of human existence. My comparison to oil is companioned to John Bowlby who stated: “the propensity to make strong bonds to a particular being is the basic component of being human,” Bowlby, J. (1988): A Secure Base. Parent-Child Attachment, (pp. 23-48), U.S.A. by Basic Group, Perseus Book Group. Propensity is “the inclination or natural tendency to behave a particular way,” Oxford English Dictionary of Sociology, 4th ed., 1951, 2016. The quality of our “natural tendency” will either ensure intimacy or prohibit its cultivation. Bowlby’s propensity is common to Erickson’s Trust versus Mistrust. Our primal connectedness originate in the womb and Trust versus Mistrust validates the findings. While obstacles such as stress, communication, and fear of intimacy exist, its positive aspects are closeness, improved mental health, healthy physicality, and sexual gratification.
In conclusion, intimacy must remain humanity’s inescapable creed. We are called to dedicate ourselves to perpetuate addressing the innate, environmental, or tenacious anti-human intellectualization that breeds the erosive abandonment of “ONENESS.” Mankind was divinely created as one, “…and shall cleave unto his wife and they be one flesh,” Genesis 2:24, KJV, p, 2. Therefore, I also offer the Holy Scripture in Ecclesiastes 3:1-3, p. 940: “to everything there is a season…. a time to be silent and a time to speak.” In the authentication of our humanity, we must speak and dedicate our will to protecting intimacy as rudimentary to our origin in creation. Intimacy is our basic component; it is the Watchman and Gatekeeper of the inherent tranquility in our families’ existence. Miraculously, the babies’ cries ceased, and their pain was banished. The darkness of isolation and emotional abandonment was abated through their loved one’s caressing touch of intimacy!
Submitted By: Paulette L. Jones-Foster
MFT, Couples, Individual, Youth,
Grief and Loss, and Trauma, MA
