Cover of the Rolling Stone: Intimacy

Cover of the Rolling Stone: "The Unbearable Bradness of Being"

Brad Pitt:  I know all these things are supposed to seem important to us—the car, the condo, our version of success—but if that’s the case, why is the general feeling out there reflecting more impotence and isolation and desperation and loneliness?

If you ask me, I say toss all this—we gotta find something else. Because all I know is that at this point in time, we are heading for a dead-end, a numbing of the soul, a complete atrophy of the [human] being. And I don’t want that.

Rolling Stone:  So if we’re heading toward this kind of…dead-end in society what do you think should happen?

Brad Pitt:  Hey man, I don’t have those answers yet. [My] emphasis now is on success and personal gain. I’m sitting in [success and wealth], and I’m telling you, that’s not it. I’m the guy who’s got everything. I know.

But I’m telling you, once you’ve got everything, then you’re just left with yourself. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: it doesn’t help you sleep any better, and you don’t wake up any better because of it.

Wow. The guy who has everything…

…the guy who has so much money. and success. and pOWeR I can’t even begin to wrap my mind around it…this cultural icon shiz nit…

…okay, okay forget for a minute that he ditched Jennifer Aniston because he got it on with Angelina Jolie while they were filming Mr. & Mrs. Smith and we were all like, “seriously dude, you drop a babe like Aniston, how is that even possible?” and that Jolie was married to Billy Bob Thorton and we were all like "ew" and that she used to wear a vial of Thorton’s blood around her neck and we were all like "WTH" and that she used to be bicurious until she got it on with Brad and we were all like, "Wow, he's that good??" and that she and Brad have a gazillion kids and that he was from Nixa, Missouri and that my former pastor used to go to high school with him…forget all of that for a sec.

Brad Pitt totally rocked this interview with Rolling Stone. What he is describing is a wasting away of a basic, necessary human need—intimacy.

Unfortunately, we interchange the word intimacy with love and sex so often, most people don’t even know that intimacy is something that is totally distinct and separate from love and sex.

But it is.

How do you define/experience intimacy? If you were to choose 5 people who most influenced you as an intimate person (both in positive and negative ways), who would these people be and why?

Be sure to check in over the next few weeks as we start to look at the different aspects of intimacy. You will soon know all about your intimacy scripts—which of course, are a HUGE part of your marriage script and your sexual script!

Photo Credit: Brad Pitt, by wvs (flickr.com)