Illusion: the state or fact of being intellectually deceived or misled.
Illusion #1: Relationships can be idyllic. Picture a coffee house. Lattes all around. Stimulation for the mind, the body, the heart. Warmth and encouragement flowing unhindered from one person to the next. Symbiotic friendships where both individuals give and receive in equal measure, and everyone's needs are met.
Illusion #2: I am fine by myself. I am the only person I can trust. Everyone else has hurt me or will hurt me. The only way to survive is to protect myself from other people.
I seem to bounce back and forth from one illusion to the other. When illusion #1 proves false, I move to illusion #2 where isolation eventually drives me back to pursuing feel-good relationships until I get hurt and withdraw . . .
Oswald writes that we need to be disillusioned, i.e. freed from our illusions, and that "the refusal to be disillusioned is the cause of much of the suffering in human life."
Undeceiving myself: Relationships are not idyllic. They can be great, but I hurt other people. They hurt me. It happens. "If our trust is placed in human beings, we shall end in despairing of everyone" -- Oswald.
The answer, however, is not to withdraw into myself. I am not fine by myself.
The answer is to see myself and other people as we really are -- flawed, sinful human beings who are on this journey of life together. We need each other. We fail each other. We must not give up on each other.
Some days it will look like the coffee house scenario. Most days not.
I find that the coffee house scenario is most days. Some times my relationships fail me.
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