Along with the free love culture of the 60's and the new-age/neo-tantra culture that came afterward came the idea of "instant-intimacy"

The idea that we can quickly form intimate bonds with one another. 

Eventually, apps like Tinder, Bumble, OK Cupid, and countless speed dating, tantra retreats, play parties, and other relational and group experiences came to answer the call of what humans appear to desire above all else: connection.

And it slowly started to make sense: faced with ease of living wherever we are called and an ever greater source of intimate partners via social media and apps like Feeld and Grindr as well as a multiplicity of relational non-monogamous models, the world began to explore what is possible like the proverbial kid in the candy store.

Except we perhaps didn't quite find what we came for. It was just a matter of time before we started to realize the limitations given to us by our humanity: 1) how much attention, time, depth, and meaning we could give to each of our many partners, and 2) our craving to truly be seen and accepted in the face of our partners being as busy as we are looking around for partners who could truly see them. 

In this process of elucidation, we continued to hope that we would find "the one(s)" and settle, but realized that each configuration of many we would find ourselves in would invariably continue to vary/change/transform/shift/update as everyone continued to search for the ideal configuration. 

We went to parties, festivals, workshops, and on apps hoping to find love and stability, but instead found an ever increasing diversity to scroll through and choose from.

Some hoped to find an end point, and instead found they would instead need to choose this end point for themselves: a declared end to the journey.

In some cases, it came as the call to have children, most often coming primally through female bodies, but in other cases as a way to creating meaning in a sea of experiences without an end in sight. 

In other cases, it came as the call to create a legacy: a book, a business, a course, a program, a philosophy, influencing culture and beliefs for the benefit of some or all, along with the hope of a 6+figure business to support a cozy lifestyle. 

When we think of it, we can see how sophisticated our survival mechanisms have become, whether it's to live a life of pleasure, meaning, purpose, or the simpler version of "making a difference". 

How big? How much? How many times?

And at the center of it, a simpler desire for connection, for intimacy, to be seen, to finally arrive to a place without struggle, to effortlessly express our dharma, our "genius" such that we will no longer be left wanting. 

And because of this, the myth of "instant intimacy" was born: the shortcut to what you've been craving all along. 

However, true intimacy is no more instant than growing hair or developing yourself into the kind of human your believe holds value. 

True intimacy is not something that can be rushed, because it requires maturity to fully step into and tend. It requires the kind of nuanced and experienced attunement, care, and consideration which allows you to create the kind of accuracy with which you can be in right action and right relationship with yourself and the humans you value. 

True intimacy requires time, effort, and practice to get right, like any other skill. Time to align heart, body, mind, & gut. 

Time to learn to move with ourselves and those we love at the pace of trust.

It can be optimized perhaps, but at the end of the day, it's unlikely you will be able to do so with a single human without the decades it requires. 

But if you get lost in a sea of humans and experiences, you won't find it either, because meaning and depth and quality require commitment, and because you are only one human, you'll have to discriminate as you optimize, as you choose, and as to dance with a subset of those you have chosen to cherish. 

This is where you'll find true intimacy. 

Not in a workshop, festival, experience, or party. 

You'll find it by choosing who is worthy of your time and energy, and putting in the work to learn and grow into a better human. 

And over time, it will pay off in deeper more meaningful—and yes more intimate—relationships.

Then you'll know.

(Picture of me and friends at a festival many years ago)