Sam Vakin knows his shit pretty well as long as it's about his job. Maybe I'll do a thing on his mistakes later. Maybe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACTASUCvE5U
You need to be an independent individual precisely because that's how you stop being alone.
If your "soulmate" "completes" you then even under ideal conditions you've made 1 out of 2. You're not with someone, you're with yourself, but again. No wonder you feel lonely and unfulfilled.
Also, since it's a lie, you're not in fact doing that. You seem to be 1 because you're not seeing the other person at all, so you're alone because you're alone.
Even under the most steely of steel Romanticisms, love is transactional. That's correct. The transactional trade is as thus: one partner offers love, in exchange for love. What makes love valuable? That it is valued. Pure greed, in other words. Perhaps thinking money is the root of all evil is the root of all evil.
It should be conditional: your love should come across as a huge compliment because you have standards. Pure agape has no place in mortal relations.
Non-steel Romanticism is awful: "I could be literally anyone. I could be a girl instead of a boy and you would still love me. I could be dead and you would still love me." If they can "love" you when it's not you, it's not love. What "unconditional" love means is that none of your personal traits are
a factor. You could not even exist and they would still love you. They
are a robot, not a partner. You've met a nobody.
This is hardly by coincidence, it's narcissism. They can't see you even if they wanted to, so Romantics made a virtue of necessity and lionized it.
Even a mother's "unconditional" love isn't unconditional. It's merely immutable, because the condition is "being blood-related." Nobody, not even an omnipotent power, can make a mother's daughter not her daughter. Trade offer: carry genes in exchange for love and support (but I repeat myself). The child cannot reneg on this deal.
Unconditional love is desirable as it implies benefit of love without cost.
ReplyDeleteMore of that defect/cooperate rubbish.
Of course, people love babies unconditionally, but that's because they can't do anything to reciprocate.
New rule : Anyone who wants unconditional love has to offer it first. Should solve the problem.
If someone offers unconditional love there's no reason to repay them. It's not like they will stop offering the benefits if you don't.
ReplyDeleteMortals love babies immutably because the benefit the baby offers is immutable. The baby reciprocates by existing.
Because the benefit the baby offers is mere existence, this love is extremely limited. If the baby doesn't actually die then that's sufficient love. If the baby wants to grow up as not a twisted monster they have to offer more than mere existence once they're old enough to do so.
Hmm. Very good.
ReplyDeleteSo, then, what's the difference between "unconditional" and "immutable"?
Also - important question, as yet unasked - what even *is* love?
Biologically, love is transfer of resources.
ReplyDeleteIn this sense, wives do not love husbands, and children do not love their parents. Ref: ye olde marriage vows. Love in exchange for obedience and gratitude.
If a child is paying mom who is paying dad, something went very wrong, and it's going to go more wrong.
P.S. Notice, for emphasis, that ye olde marriage simply takes it for granted the wife isn't going to do anything for the husband's sake unless specifically ordered to.
Immutable love is inherently limited. The condition is limited and thus the resource transfer has a cap beyond which the trade is unprofitable.
Unconditional agape is inherently unlimited. If you ask for a resource and the "unconditional" lover refuses to give it to you, then you've proven their love isn't unconditional.
E.g. if the Christian "God" was truly unconditional, you should be able to ask for multiple miracles a day. Even if you have a reasonable "don't give junk food to children" condition, then you should be able to get cosmetic miracles. "I pray that the paint in my room turns purple." "I want to hallucinate that the moon is neon orange." Shouldn't even have to be Christian. That's a condition. What need does an immortal, omnipotent god have for miserliness? The whole point of infinity is you can't run out, or even run it down. Stingy fucker.
Philosophically, love is caring about the satisfaction of another person's values as an end in itself, the same way normal selfishness is about the satisfaction of your own values as ends in themselves.
In the case of mutual love this goes weird since there's an infinite regress.