The lasting balance is better found within oneself. In my recent https://thetaoist.online/hermann-hesse-alan-arkin-and-marcus-meet-in-a-bar-to-discuss-philosophy-with-marcus-7582ce0bad14 , I cited this Rebecca Romanelli piece, https://medium.com/know-thyself-heal-thyself/marry-yourself-before-committing-to-another-1505830a7891 , and I wrote: "Yes, thank you for emailing this to me. There is indeed much connection to my 2013 self portrait. When I got to the point about internal marriage of our own divine masculine and divine feminine, which is what Hesse’s Narcissus and Golmund is about and I have read four times starting as a high school assignment and the last time a couple of months ago, I started to tear up and I’m doing so now (wine might also be contributing to the flow of emotion). Maybe the reason I haven’t yet written the essay about my relationship with the book is first I needed to read yours.

The takeaway from Rebecca’s essay is that no romantic couple, whether man-woman, man-man, or female-female, can find happiness (and I don’t believe in happiness but I do believe in serenity) by looking for another to complete oneself. True contentment ensues when two people find one another with whom to share their ever-growing unique completeness, and when one finds in oneself the balance between their masculine and feminine energies."