In Plato's Symposium, Phaedrus suggests love is great because it makes you want to be a better person; his idea doesn't fare well philosophically. Even today, common wisdom has it that you can't make your life or your self better for anyone else's sake besides your own self's sake; you have to (consistently) want to be better at whatever it is before any lasting permanent change will take hold. I think I agree with this and today I think I noticed the difference between her sake and self sake.
On one hand, I think it can sometimes be difficult to sort out whose wants are who's in a relationship, often enough they overlap. Many times the betterment and standard I want for myself but have a hard time implementing I do eventually accomplish because I know it is also her standard too and the betterment she wants for me as well.
Of course on the other hand, there are those occasions when I am trying to accomplish something almost entirely for her sake; I might think this something is a good idea of itself or fine for other people, it's just not something I would choose for myself. And unsurprisingly these are the occasions I suffer from a serious lack of motivation; I'll procrastinate, and rush the process at the last minute, quite naturally doing a qualitatively shoddy job of it. And of course this inevitably comes back to haunt me (see love symbol negotiation).
However, today I felt and noticed a difference; I started a project for her earlier than the utmost procrastination might have allowed me and I did a decent job of it. I think the difference was I that wasn't doing it solely for her sake. Oh, I was using her qualitative standards for the project (mostly), but my motivation was that I really wanted to be better at being a house husband; her house husband of course, but more as a matter of incident. This is a job I really like and I just really wanted to be better it.
The 'job' description happens to include some qualitative standards set by my beloved wife, and indeed, I rather still think most of the point behind my house husband 'job' (role expectations) is to help her to her happiness (falls under the rubric of life lesson two, see also love's interior meaning for importance of motivation for life lesson two). But within this new (female led) motivation (on my interior) in wanting to be a better partner for her (better 'fit' like glove) is a practical daily life application that I didn't have, or even see, before. (See here for female led motivation she understands.)
When do my best to help her to happiness, I realized it was perfectly all right if she weren't happy in the final outcome - because while she sets many of the standards and the outcome of her happiness is the goal of the process, helping her as much as I am able to help is my goal, and if I only do this, I can be happy with me.
March 11, 2010
The (Female Led) Relationship Balance
I think an essential problem for uxorious men is the tension involved in trying to interactively balance the pursuit of his (emotional) needs with putting her (emotional) needs first (see life lesson three), without the 'lie' of 'topping from the bottom'.
On one hand, we all know there is a fine line between 'helping my wife understand her options' and 'trying to get her to do what I want', a.k.a. the dread 'topping from the bottom'. Yet on the other hand, there is one very important reason (if not exactly a 'good' reason) why a man tops from the bottom: he's trying to get something he believes he needs.
Indeed the simple definition of 'topping from the bottom' (speaking to other uxorious men) is presenting your own wants/desires/needs as the best way and help for her to get what she wants and needs. It's trying to convince her she can best get hers by giving you yours, although at heart TFB is a kind of lie, because it's a (selfish) anti-intimate misrepresentation of one's motives (possibly intentionally, but not always) instead of a loving and intimate direct attempt at communicating one's perceived needs and desires.
However, (and this is key) everyone, even uxorious men have emotional needs (see life lesson one); my wife has valid emotional needs, and I have valid emotional needs. And there are some valid (positive, intimate, helpful) ways to pursue those needs in a (female led) relationship and there are not so valid (negative, anti-intimate, unhelpful) ways of pursuing those needs in a (female led) relationship. I think it is a good idea to say, 'I have a need' to your partner (and vice versa), although I admit it can be extremely difficult for any person to say, and the fear of rejection has a real basis in their partner's (hard or soft) limits.
Talking it through, communicating (talking and listening) however, also allows us to see things from the other perspective. Because I think an essential problem for dominant women is that there is some serious tension involved in trying to interactively balance the pursuit of her own (emotional) needs with ensuring he gets his (emotional) needs met too, without the 'lie' of 'topping from the bottom' ...
On one hand, we all know there is a fine line between 'helping my wife understand her options' and 'trying to get her to do what I want', a.k.a. the dread 'topping from the bottom'. Yet on the other hand, there is one very important reason (if not exactly a 'good' reason) why a man tops from the bottom: he's trying to get something he believes he needs.
Indeed the simple definition of 'topping from the bottom' (speaking to other uxorious men) is presenting your own wants/desires/needs as the best way and help for her to get what she wants and needs. It's trying to convince her she can best get hers by giving you yours, although at heart TFB is a kind of lie, because it's a (selfish) anti-intimate misrepresentation of one's motives (possibly intentionally, but not always) instead of a loving and intimate direct attempt at communicating one's perceived needs and desires.
However, (and this is key) everyone, even uxorious men have emotional needs (see life lesson one); my wife has valid emotional needs, and I have valid emotional needs. And there are some valid (positive, intimate, helpful) ways to pursue those needs in a (female led) relationship and there are not so valid (negative, anti-intimate, unhelpful) ways of pursuing those needs in a (female led) relationship. I think it is a good idea to say, 'I have a need' to your partner (and vice versa), although I admit it can be extremely difficult for any person to say, and the fear of rejection has a real basis in their partner's (hard or soft) limits.
Talking it through, communicating (talking and listening) however, also allows us to see things from the other perspective. Because I think an essential problem for dominant women is that there is some serious tension involved in trying to interactively balance the pursuit of her own (emotional) needs with ensuring he gets his (emotional) needs met too, without the 'lie' of 'topping from the bottom' ...
Female Led Motivation She Understands
Apropos of an empathetic (female led) progression, when it comes to life lesson two and 'doing what she wants / what she tells me', I am reminded that uxorious men are often compared to children in the female led 'obedience' dynamic (see my story 'Glint' for example). Yet one thing my wife does not want (along with having "an employee for a partner"), nor would find fulfilling, is to have the (added) responsibility (in life) of a full grown child for a relationship partner.
While I have gone on about my experiential compaction of erotic truth with numinous experience with fate and destiny (cf. life lesson), the way in which my wife best (symbolically) understands my desire and motivation to do what she wants, asks and tells me to do, is that I want her to not feel any extra weight of duty and obligation, from me or anywhere. I just want her to be happy - and to this end I am willing, have already decided, to do what she wants – so that she can be happy. This motivation says love to her; this motivation is a love symbol she can understand.
While I have gone on about my experiential compaction of erotic truth with numinous experience with fate and destiny (cf. life lesson), the way in which my wife best (symbolically) understands my desire and motivation to do what she wants, asks and tells me to do, is that I want her to not feel any extra weight of duty and obligation, from me or anywhere. I just want her to be happy - and to this end I am willing, have already decided, to do what she wants – so that she can be happy. This motivation says love to her; this motivation is a love symbol she can understand.
Meaning Part 3: The Mental Space Spectrum
What a piece of work is man… in action how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! ~Shakespeare
In order to get a better handle on 'Flow' and 'Fitted-ness' from Meaning Part 2, I began thinking of them as a spectrum and ended up with an intersection of three different spectra, an intersection that I think has the greatest explanatory power over the 'experience of meaning' than anything else I've come up with to date. Simply put: I think the closer one's mental space is to the rim of the circle, the more intensely meaningful the experience is. I also think everything on the rim could be felt, expressed or interpreted as a 'numinous experience'. However, while the numinous relationship experience, for example, I think would be somewhere on arc C (on my interior), there are clearly aspects of the experience that are interactive and closer to arc A.
A few points:
Moreover, when an experience 'becomes' unconscious it loses experiential meaning (e.g. trained reflex arc, unconscious [ideological] ignorance of opposing points of view), yet when an experience 'emerges' from unconsciousness, symbols of the experience often pinpoint the experience's originating agency as outside 'beyond' the self, such as luck, God, fate, etc. Upon rare occasions, when experiences emerge from the unconscious right at the circle's rim, the sudden intense meaning of the 'rim experience' is akin to a short circuit of consciousness, and the experience is likely at its most luminously meaningful point. Symbols of such intense 'rim experiences' are often more akin to divine revelation.
I don't think the key to (optimal life) happiness is merely the maintenance of a (perfect) balanced center point in the spectrum (I think that's boredom), but I do think (optimal life) happiness might be a matter of discovering what kind of moments are better (for any individual person) spent at which place in the spectrum, and not spending an inordinate amount of (overall or successive) time at any place within the mental space spectrum. This is what I mean when I say I think one of my life lessons is seeking my individual ('right') balance between the intense (meaningful) flow of the relationship experience and the intense (meaningful) fitted-ness of reflection.
Indeed, as I noted before, conscious awareness of our experiences can change our success by affecting our focus (Meaning Part 1), yet conscious reflective awareness might be integral to long term project happiness. Thus conscious awareness needs to be balanced so it does not detract from our active focus but achieves adequate (optimal) 'mental reflective happiness'. Fortunately, awareness (no matter its affect on focus) does not change the meaning and significance of the experience, or change the sensation of integrated human adequacy and purpose from 'playing'. We still can 'get lost' in the experience of the game after pausing to reflect on the experience, still seek to experience that meaningful sensation of 'playful' 'flow', indeed seeking the flow and rhythm of our own internal cadences may be a requisite part of what makes the experience meaningful.
In order to get a better handle on 'Flow' and 'Fitted-ness' from Meaning Part 2, I began thinking of them as a spectrum and ended up with an intersection of three different spectra, an intersection that I think has the greatest explanatory power over the 'experience of meaning' than anything else I've come up with to date. Simply put: I think the closer one's mental space is to the rim of the circle, the more intensely meaningful the experience is. I also think everything on the rim could be felt, expressed or interpreted as a 'numinous experience'. However, while the numinous relationship experience, for example, I think would be somewhere on arc C (on my interior), there are clearly aspects of the experience that are interactive and closer to arc A.
A few points:
- Area A has the most 'flow' from the most physical of sporting activities.
- Area B has the most 'flow' from the most technical activities (i.e. highly skilled factory workers, I also think chess playing might be here).
- Area C has the most 'flow' from symbol expressive arts (painting, music, etc.) but I think many 'spiritual experiences' might commonly be located on the diagram here.
- Area D has the most 'flow' from interior (philosophic) analysis. (My mind hangs out here a lot.)
- 'Symbol fitted-ness' originates as expression of the interior (area C or D), an expression adequate one's own interior (area C or D) or to one's exterior (area A or B)
- The more consciously aware one is of their experience (the further into the upper diagram 'dome') the less intensely meaningful the experience. (I think; see below.)
- The center of the intersection is probably the most boring place.
- I do not think there is a 'proper' orientation of this diagram; I only placed unconsciousness on the bottom because, I happen to not be an explorer of the unconscious.
Moreover, when an experience 'becomes' unconscious it loses experiential meaning (e.g. trained reflex arc, unconscious [ideological] ignorance of opposing points of view), yet when an experience 'emerges' from unconsciousness, symbols of the experience often pinpoint the experience's originating agency as outside 'beyond' the self, such as luck, God, fate, etc. Upon rare occasions, when experiences emerge from the unconscious right at the circle's rim, the sudden intense meaning of the 'rim experience' is akin to a short circuit of consciousness, and the experience is likely at its most luminously meaningful point. Symbols of such intense 'rim experiences' are often more akin to divine revelation.
I don't think the key to (optimal life) happiness is merely the maintenance of a (perfect) balanced center point in the spectrum (I think that's boredom), but I do think (optimal life) happiness might be a matter of discovering what kind of moments are better (for any individual person) spent at which place in the spectrum, and not spending an inordinate amount of (overall or successive) time at any place within the mental space spectrum. This is what I mean when I say I think one of my life lessons is seeking my individual ('right') balance between the intense (meaningful) flow of the relationship experience and the intense (meaningful) fitted-ness of reflection.
Indeed, as I noted before, conscious awareness of our experiences can change our success by affecting our focus (Meaning Part 1), yet conscious reflective awareness might be integral to long term project happiness. Thus conscious awareness needs to be balanced so it does not detract from our active focus but achieves adequate (optimal) 'mental reflective happiness'. Fortunately, awareness (no matter its affect on focus) does not change the meaning and significance of the experience, or change the sensation of integrated human adequacy and purpose from 'playing'. We still can 'get lost' in the experience of the game after pausing to reflect on the experience, still seek to experience that meaningful sensation of 'playful' 'flow', indeed seeking the flow and rhythm of our own internal cadences may be a requisite part of what makes the experience meaningful.
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