A man said to the Dervish : "Why do I not see you more often?" The Dervish replied, "Because the words `why have you not been to see me?' are sweeter to my ear than the words "Why have you come again?'"
Mulla Jami quoted in Idries Shalis Caravan of Dreams, 1968.
What withdraws, what becomes scarce, suddenly deserve our respect and honor. What stays too long, inundating us with it's presence, makes us disdain it. Everything in the world depends on absence and presence. A strong presence will draw power and attention to you - you shine more brightly than those around you. But a point is inevitably reached where too much presence create the opposite effect : the more you are seen and heard from, the more your value degrades. You become a habit. No matter how hard you try to be different, subtly, without knowing why, people respect you less and less. At the right moment you must learn when to withdraw yourself before they unconsciously push you away. It is a game of hide and seek. Though, at the start of an affair, you need to heighten your presence in the eyes of others. If you absent yourself too early, you may be forgotten. But once your lover's emotions are engaged, and the feeling of love has crystallized, absence inflames and excited. Giving no reason for your absence excites even more : the other person assumes he or she is at fault. While you are away, the lover's imagination takes flight, and a stimulated imagination cannot help but make love grow stronger due to a sort of aura formed around him or her. But this aura fades when you know too much - when your imagination no longer has room to roam. The loved one becomes a person like anyone else, a person whose presence is taken for granted. This is why the 17the century French Cortesan Ninon de Lenclos advised constant feints at withdrawal from one lover's . "Love never does of starvation, " she wrote, "but often of indigestion." In love and seduction, similarly, absence is only effective once you've surrounded the other with your image, been seen by him or her everywhere. Everything must remind your lover of your presence, so that when you do choose to be away, the lover always be thinking of you, will always be seeing you in his or her mind's eye.
The moment you allow yourself to be treated like anyone else, it is too late - you are swallowed and digested. To prevent this you need to starve the other person of your presence. Force their respect by threatening them with possibility that they will lose you for good; create a pattern of absence and presence.
Once you die, everything about you will seen different. You will be surrounded by an instant aura of respect. People will remember their criticisms of you, their arguments with you, and,will be filled with regret and guilt. They are missing a presence that will never return. But you do not have to wait until you die: by completely withdrawing for a while, you create a kind of death before death - an air of resurrection will cling to you and the people will be relieved at your return.
Do not only apply the law of scarcity to your love affairs but also to your own skills. Make what you are offering the world rare and hard to find and you instantly increase it's value.
Make yourself too available and the aura of power you've created around yourself will wear away. Turn the game around: make yourself less accessible and you increases the value of your presence just like the sun. It can only be appreciated by its absence. The longer the days of rain, the more the sun is craved. But too many hot days and the sun overwhelms. Learn to keep yourself obscure and make people demand your return. Too much circulation makes the price go down: the more you're seen and heard from, the more common you appear. You must learn when to leave. Create value through scarcity. Use absence to create respect and esteem. But always remember, in the beginning make yourself not scarce but omnipresent. Only what is seen, appreciated, and loved will be missed in its absence. Never appear cheap.
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Xo,
MA.
