And it occurs to me that I don’t think true love is that common. Within my own emerging worldview, love is a product of a very advanced, well integrated psyche, and it is giving with no expectation of receiving, simply because of the pleasure one gets from the act of building others up, and doing what you can to help them be who they want to be; in all cases accepting them fully exactly as they are, after doing the work to SEE them as they are.
This quality of attention is a very important part of love, I think. Don’t we all often feel not just misunderstood, but overlooked? Don’t you sometimes feel that whatever you think is best about yourself is invisible to many people who matter to you?
Often, I think people mistake psychological need for love. For example, if someone says “I love you so much I can’t live without you”, to my mind that is not love. It will feel like love to the person to whom it is said, because it says that they matter, that they are noticed. But in my own sense, if you need the other person, you can never have, paradoxically, the distance to do what is best for that person. If you are unwilling to let them go, you are unwilling to grant them in principle the freedom to grow, and possibly grow beyond you.
I had a discussion the other day about “Fifty Shades of Gray” with a women, which she was rereading, for at least the second time, but likely more. She read it as a love story. I pointed out that in my understanding it was about sadomasochism. She said that even though the main guy is really busy, he would schedule entire days with his woman, take her shopping (or whatever she wanted), and only then make his sexual demands on her. For her part, she felt valued because he took the time out of his schedule, and she was also very intrigued by his emotional conflicts, and probably wanting to rescue him somehow.
And I got to thinking that maybe BDSM is really a form of focused attention. Maybe that is what attracts people. You get negative attention because you think that is all you are good for, but it is REAL attention, not made up, not fake. That is all you have ever gotten, even if you lack the self awareness to frame it like that.
But this is an interesting thought: has any society existed ever in which true love was generalized? Don’t most parents focus on acculturating the child by making them conform to preexisting cultural patterns?
Flip side: what is the downside to being raised WITHOUT dominant cultural patterns?
I’m just asking questions here. I like to provide answers, but someone pointed out to me the other day that collecting really good questions is a valuable activity too.