With Romanticism we are expected see our Beloved Other as he/she should be, not as he/she is. Try doing that for fifty years or more. Over fifty years time take a toll and the parties are bound to change, unless they are hewn from granite. Romanticism cannot co-exist with facts on the ground and wrinkles on the face.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Romance is not about expecting the bitch to stay wrinkle free. It's about making the effort yourself to woo your wife, as if you were worthy of her continued interest. Selfishness is about maintaining the self, not expecting others to do it for you.

Wooing. How Romantic.

Speaking as a person married over fifty years, I can tell you it is more about being and staying friends than it is about Romantic Twaddle. I would not give a plugged nickle for Romance. It is ... silly.

How long have you been married for?

Ba'al Chatzaf

You are so wrong!

I assume you are in love with your wife, Bob. If you are it doesn't matter if you think it's "romantic" or not.

--Brant

I don't agree with your concept of romanticism. Romance and realism are not antithetical. Realism is a necessary condition of a healthy romance, just like it is a necessary condition of a healthy psyche and a healthy life.

Nathaniel Branden on "Realistic Romanticism":

Paul

I am indeed. We are Friends for Life and joined at the hip (so to speak).

I call her She Who Must Be Obeyed and she calls me asshole (affectionately of course). We make each other laugh.

Ba'al Chatzaf

How long have you been married, dear? The proof is in the doing.

Ba'al Chatzaf

What is the longest that N.B. has been married to one women?

Ba'al Chatzaf

LOL!! That sounds beautiful! (meant with sincerity) I don't know you but an image of Walter Matthau comes to mind.

Paul

As a matter of fact, over 20 years. First marriage for both of us.

I wonder if your wife feels the same way about the absence of romance between you two.
--Mindy

Devers, 26-28 years. They were married in December 1977. Your implied arguments are fallacious.

--Brant

Baal: "With Romanticism we are expected see our Beloved Other as he/she should be, not as he/she is."

Who ever suggested such a definition of romance? Of course that's impossible -- or at least I hope it is. Romance, as I understand it, does not require lying to oneself.

Ayn Rand's description of romantic love in The Romantic Manifesto is one I consider much preferable to her earlier defiinitions, although I see it as an important preliminary statement and not yet a fully satifactory definition. She wrote:

"It is with a person's sense of life that one falls in love-- with that essential sum, that fundament stand or way of facing existence, which is the essence of a personality, One falls in love with the embodiment of the values that formed a person's character, which are reflected in his widest goals or smallest gestures, which create the style of his soul -- the individual style of a unique, unrepeatable, irreplaceable consciousness. It is one's own sense of life that acts as the selector, and responds to what it recognizes as one's own basic values in the person of another. It not a matter of professed convictions (athough these are not irrelevant); it is a matter of much more profound, conscious and subconscious harmony."

Thus, romantic love involves the desire for intimacy, sexually and psychologically. It involves the experience of the loved one as important to one's happiness.

But missing from Rand's concept is an aspect of romantic love that does not contradict the "sense of life" definition, but adds an element to it. That is, the phenomenon inaccurately summed up in the idea that "opposites attract.' The germ of truth in this phrase is that there seems to be, when we fall in love, a sense that we are being completed, that the other possesses atrributes and qualities which we value but do not possess to the same degree. We seek complementary attributes in the loved one. So that one sees an extrovert happily in love with an introvert, a thinker with a doer, a scientist with an actor, a highly intuitive person with an engineer, etc.

It can be fascinating to speculate about what we require to be like us in a person we could love, and what we would prefer to be different or complementary. Any speculations?

Barbara

What we require to be like us is for some of our most important values and goals, and a vision of what we want our life to be. We want to have a life path we can share. We also want the vision of ourselves, as seen through our lovers eyes and actions, to resonate with our own deepest self-vision. This works best and healthiest when the image is realistic on both ends. If it is based in realism, it can push you to be a better person.

The complementary differences that catch us wonderfully by surprise are those orientations within us that we have not fully explored but are owned as a more minor part of us, personified in our lover. The complementary differences are a path to self-discovery and self-actualization.

The differences we don't like are those that represent orientations we have disowned in ourselves. We hate in others what we hate in ourselves. (To understand what I mean here by orientations, think Jungian Type theory.)

Paul

I think it is possible that differences of temperament are highlighted in a relationship because we expect "soul mates" to be alike. Differences stand out, attract our attention, evoke comment. This gives, I would suggest, the appearance that love involves complementary personalities, when in fact differences are not necessary to, and do not enhance a relationship.

A person with weaknesses will feel comfortable with a person whose strengths in that arena make his or her life easier. An introvert's socializing is made less effortful when that person is escorting an extrovert, etc. But if a person is aware of their weakness, they dislike it, and would dislike it in another, though they might be "understanding." For the most important personal traits, one's values are imbedded in how we are, and a person who presented a contrast in that way would not share, or not represent that value.

For traits that don't differ in terms of strength and weakness, both people would suffer gaps in the psychological visibility they receive due to those differences. A well-educated person will not get psy. visibility from a poorer-educated spouse. A witty person will not get psy. vis. from a plain-spoken partner.

Lots of people pair-off without actually finding love, and for those matches, all kinds of motives and incentives can be found. But we're talking about being in love, and if, as Aristotle puts it, a friend is another self, then a lover is as much like oneself as could be.

A couple of times, "we complement one another" has been suggested or urged on me. I know I instantly felt insulted at the idea. I'm insulted, I think, because there is an implicit claim of superiority in that claim, along with the idea that one would be content to have a short-coming shored up by one's association with a friend or lover.

At the same time, I do know the feeling of being "completed" by my lover. I don't think that has anything to do with personality traits, but with sexual partnership and deep psychological visibility. With such a person by my side, I feel that I can, through my own efforts and abilities, live and be happy. In a loving marriage, I/we are fully independent of the world of people. There is a metaphysical sense of freedom in the completeness of a loving marriage. Only in marriage am I fully self-sufficient. Only in a loving marriage can I count on happiness. So a loving marriage is a "full complement," because sexual need and psychological visibility require the right "other."

--Mindy

There are different processes whereby complementary differences lead to self-discovery and self-actualization, and complementary differences lead to codependence. The difference is in the attained level of separation and individuation of the individuals involved. Independent individuals stand on their own two feet even when they are complementing one another's self-exploration and growth. Dependent individuals will allow the complement in another to crush any potential for self-exploration and growth.

I don't see insult in one's growth being guided by another's strength.

Paul
PS--Of course, there is also the way the whole is greater than the sum of its parts when entities' properties are complementary.

The issue of defining what romantic love is is a fine one. But I think exploring what it is to romance someone is much more rewarding. You can be in a long term relationship of comfort. The most fulfilling relationship is one where you actively keep the relationship alive and growing by constantly bringing value. This can take the form of gifts, cooking dionner, unexpected surprises, and so forth. The point is to show the other person that they are psychologically visible to you, and that they are not merely taken for granted. When your love mentions that he likes a certain object, pretend not to notice, but buy it as a gift, and give such gifts often. Find out from family and friends what she liked as a child, and surprise her with that favorite edition that she lost long ago, and you found on ebay. Notice his current developments. If he works out, buy him a sexy pair of shorts. If she likes to draw., buy her an expensive set of chalks that she wouldn't buy for herself. Don't just pay the bills, buy her rubies, especially when they are just a little too expensive. This sort of thing can't be read in a book - since your love is unique, and only you know what matters to him. Take the day off, and do her chores, and then when she gets home complain as to how, now that she has spare time on her hands, you are just going to have to teach her a lesson, and take her to that concert she didn't think she could attend. If he is your highest value, show it to him.

Defining what romance is is fine. Living it is true love.

Not so. The strongest proof a a marriage is that lasted terminated by death a very serious illness. The proof of the thing is -doing it-. I do not take marital advice from people who have been divorced or who, in any way, cheat on their spouses. Marriage is a contract for life unless explicitly agreed otherwise by the parties on day uno. So called "open marriages" are not marriages at all. They are lewd arrangements cordially agreed to by the parties. No thank you for that.

Sound marriage = one where the parties stay together, stay friends, don't "cheat" and where it is terminated by the death or debilitating illness of the one of the parties. If one of the parties say contracts Alzheimer's Disease, they (in the long run) will have died as a person even if they are still inhaling. Or if one of the partner's has become profoundly psychotic, say with untreatable schizophrenia or brain damaged. I am thinking here of Terry Shaivo and her husband or some such like case. If two people of sound health cannot grow old together then they have made a serious error.

As you might gather, on the matter of marriage, I am a "hard nose". People who can't hack a life-long marriage ought no get married in the first place. Better they should play house together for as long as that lasts and that preferably without issue.

In my extended family we have had no divorces. All of my kin got married and stayed married for life and none of them, not one, were Romantics, as far as I know.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Mazel Tov! May you grow old together as life long friends.

My wife takes me as I am and I take her as she is. We still both like each other warts and all. I could not reasonably ask for more. I attribute our long relationship to the utterance of the Two Magic Words --- "yes, dear". We have gotten to the point were we cannot live apart. We fill each others "memory holes". Bad recall gets to be a problem over 70 years old for most people. So far anything I can't recall she can and the other way around. Together we add up to a pretty good person.

Ba'al Chafatz

Baal; What you describe between you and your wife sounds romantic to me.

No. She is not my princess and I am not her prince riding to her on a white steed. We are just good buddies. Romance between the sexes was a kind of an exaggerated courtliness that developed during the later middle ages.

The swain would pine and pant for his beloved. When they got together the swain would swoon, and the sweetie be swept. Just like in a Disney movie.

Bugger Romance! Whatever happened to friendship?

Ba'al Chatzaf

Bob,

I wonder what a person gains from:

1. Stating something nobody believes.
2. Bashing that statement nobody believes.
3. Insinuating that everybody believes it.

Whatever rings your ding-a-ling, I suppose.

Despite this rhetorical method (for lack of a better term, and I am feeling in a particularly polite mood), some good came of this thread. Even from you. I wish you and your wife happiness.

Michael

Definition of kvetch: Some people are unhappy unless they are unhappy?

I don't want to be part of some greater whole, not as my identity. I don't want to collaborate on who I am. That doesn't mean I'm not grateful for help and guidance. But to be loved because you would make a good project for the other person? Or to love because you can see yourself fixing the other person? No way. Ask yourself how your partner complements you. Is that particular aspect of your relationship important to why you love or value her/him? I don't think so.

I don't think you must see yourself as perfect, nor have to see your lover as perfect. If the essentials are solid, and if there is a meeting of minds, a very significant parallel in the other person's experience of the world and your own...if you find that the other sees things as you do, judges as you do, understands and evaluates as you do, then you seem to be in each other's minds. You seem to be able to read the other's mind, because you know he sees and feels as you do. For me, anyway, that is when the sparks fly. Once the sparks start flying, normality REQUIRES being together. When you are apart, its OK only because you will be together at the end of the day, etc. You store up parts of your day's experiences to tell your spouse at day's end. You look forward to telling him, and in telling him you both re-live it and you get "closure" on that event in getting his response to it. This is the mundane of being in love. Sharing your experiences gives you a retroactive psychological visibility of your role in them. It doesn't have to be a practical matter, something you need to inform him of, or a decision you both must make. This sharing of what you find significant in daily existence helps bring you both to the same place, psychologically. It maximizes your grasp of your partner's state of mind. The profound psychological visibility starts the sparks flying over and over again. I believe it is that that "keeps love alive." It is also, I think, behind the point of view that if partners keep the "channels of communication open" they succeed.

I think one uses one's lover the way Rand talked about using a hero from literature: asking oneself what that person would do. When Dagny looks out her window and muses about "him" who is out there somewhere, she is doing that. When she crashes in the Gulch and says to Galt, half-awake, the bit about not taking things seriously, that is what she is doing. And the fact that she can see who he is just from a moment's look "into his eyes" is, for such highly developed personalities, realistic.

That looking into your lover's eyes, so much celebrated in romantic song, literature, movies, etc., is a very real thing (not that I don't think the reader knows this.) I think what happens, and why lovers can gaze into each other's eyes for embarassingly long periods of time is that there is a series of realizations going on in each of them at the same time.

First look tells you how this person views the particular reality you are both in. When that is mutually sympatico, you both next think of each other, because you have both just been impressed with that mental similarity. It is easy to see in a person's expression this change of focus. But then you both realize that you are both thinking about the other person. If no-one blinks at this point, to deliberately break off the interaction, you both then become self-conscious of the romantic significance of your shared focus and evaluations. You both realize that the other person "likes" you. If it is profound, it's love.

Someone who is in a partnership will presumably break this sequence off, interrupt it by changing the subject, etc. Not to do so is, I believe, a betrayal. If you get that far with someone not your partner you break it off, realizing that you now have a huge decision before you. If it were me, I'd try to observe this new person but avoid personal interaction, at least one-on-one. No more gazing into eyes. I would begin re-examing my current relationship, and gather as much information about the new person as I could. I would introspect whether I were slacking, bored, etc. in my current relationship. One must be very severe on oneself at this point. If, finally, I were convinced that I preferred the new person, I would first end my current relationship. That must be done before there is any understanding between you and the new person. If you are willing to go so far, your feelings are indeed profound.

I'm digressing somewhat, but hopefully not too much.

--Mindy

Wow! Remarkably insightful. I don't think we disagree on substance, just on the lens we are both seeing the same reality through at the moment of writing.

Paul

PS--I encourage digression and tangents. I learned the point contained in your digression the hard way. Reality can be a profound, but tough, teacher.

Mindy,

I was so moved by a sense of respect for your insightful post that I forgot to disagree with something.



Yes, how my wife complements me is important to why I love her. I recognize this importance because of how I have come to see causality operating in my world. I view causality differently to most.

You asked me about "degrees of freedom" on another thread. How people act with one another and react to one another encourages a set of behaviours and discourages another set of behaviours. In this way we create a system of interaction in which individuals are free to act according to their natures within the limits set by the system. This is a fundamental causal principle true in any social dynamic (or, I would suggest, any physical dynamic). Our degrees of freedom in romantic love, not only contribute to shaping our behaviour in the moment but, since the relationship touches all parts of our personality (ideally) over many years, our degrees of freedom in our romantic relationship contributes to shaping our individual evolution over time. That this effect exists does not negate the reality that we are independent and willful individuals. It is simply the context in which we, as independent and willful individuals, act. I can see, on reflection and in the moment, this dynamic unfolding, and I love her for it.

I love the degrees of freedom my wife creates for me. This is how she complements me. After 11 years of marriage, it is part of why I am who I am today. She doesn't try to fix me or change me. She is too wise for that and I am too self-determined. She challenges me when I need to be challenged and encourages me when I need to be encouraged. Through the degrees of freedom she offers, she allows me to be more fully me than anyone else on this earth. Being more fully me in my most important relationship has enabled me to continue to evolve at what seems to be an ever increasing rate; personal evolution is my highest personal value.

My relationship with Shauna is no more my identity than my relationship with my particular quasi-capitalist society. What a thing is determines what it does in the context of the degrees of freedom created by other things. Who I am determines what I do in the context of the degrees of freedom created by my relationships to other people. What I do, and the context I do it in, determines the information available for me to process and so, shapes who I become. Shauna is not part of my identity. She is my most important context. How's that for romantic?

(You can just imagine the wonderful poetry that flows from talk of causality and context. There's a reason I write about this on OL instead.)

Paul

Nice.

Paul,

Thank you very much for the praise. That means a lot to me.
I don't think I am defining "degrees of freedom" the same way you and Ted do. I came across the term originally in statistics. I'm trying to translate it into human action from your useage. Help me out.

If your wife (and it sounds like a terrific relationship!) appropriately "challenges" you, she is guiding you to re-think something, right? If she encourages you, she is strengthening your resolve? So within the variability of your own tendencies, she more or less sets boundaries, and when you cross those (very sensible boundaries, I am supposing) her response is a check on your course. That would seem to be the opposite of degrees of freedom.
Let me be clear that what you describe sounds terrific as an interpersonal dynamic, I'm just confused as to why you term it "degrees of freedom."

This is a situation in which you love your wife for strengths you lack (at least at times) and to love her for those strengths is, of course, entirely right and appropriate. But you would admire her for her good judgment whether or not you had equally good judgment (either all the time, or at times, I'm simplifying here, don't take this as you.) Perhaps you feel gratitude for her guidance, you appreciate how lucky you are to have her, etc., and because you also love her, you mix that gratitude in with the larger emotional response, though it itself is not love. You appreciate her strength all the more when it helps you out, but I wonder if the dependency of those times isn't actually a detriment to romance, as a more or less technical point?

One way to test this is to take it to its extreme and see if it produces an absurdity. If you were dependent on your wife for her "challenges" and "encouragement" most of the time, wouldn't you feel yourself not to be her equal, and wouldn't you be unable to love her, though you admired and respected her in the extreme?

--Mindy

I like this notion a lot. What comes to mind is a puzzle. Both individuals have half of that puzzle. They also share duplicate pieces - similarities (anything you can think of), so to speak. I'm sure you get the picture, literally.

~ Shane

Mindy,

There is little connection between the picture you have painted and what I was trying to communicate, although I am certain of the sincerity of your effort. As we have seen on other threads, creating the intended images in someone else's head is not as simple as choosing words that express ones meaning. The same ambiguity in definition that lends itself to flexibility and creativity in meaning also makes meaning difficult to convey with precision. Add to this the fact that I like to explore the open spaces outside of existing paradigms (where there are increased degrees of freedom for creative thought) and it's no wonder I find it hard to get my meaning across.

When I am using the term "degrees of freedom" I am using it to capture the meaning of certain images I have generated in my mind that represent a departure from existing causal paradigms. When someone makes a causal statement, we map it to existing causal paradigms to interpret its meaning. Since causality is a key element of the lens we use to interpret the meaning of another persons words, if they are expressing a causal statement based on a map we don't have, we will misinterpret them if we use our existing maps. I think this is what is happening here, and is what I've been experiencing ever since I started writing on OL. Generally, it seems, no one has a clue what I am talking about. My challenge is to get someone to think outside of his or her existing causal maps so he or she can begin to understand the meaning I am trying to convey.

An example from Jung might help. Here Jung is talking about our difficulty understanding "primitive man" as being the result of us having different causal "presuppositions." I don't consider myself to be "primitive" but my causal presuppositions are not the same as most.



According to Jung I need to get you to know your own causal presuppositions before you can understand my "riddles." How are you mapping causation when you interpret what I say?

You seem to be interpreting what I am saying in terms of action-reaction, which is the existing causal paradigm. Despite how well it has performed, I find this causal map to be unable to explain the subtleties of the dynamics we witness. This is why "common sense" could not keep up with the job of mapping relativity and quantum theories. This is why we continue to have debates about "free will" and determinism. This is why we do not yet have a causal map of the emergence of life and consciousness.

I have created a different causal paradigm to attempt to map the subtleties reactive causation could not. Degrees of freedom is part of this approach. Action-reaction is about entities that have properties defined by pushes and pulls, and each entity experiences a change in motion only when another entity acts on it with a force that pushes or pulls it. The concept of degrees of freedom begins with an entity that has the principle of motion within. The existence and behaviour of the entities around it set limits to its motion, or systematically encourage certain motions (as in the case of a slip-stream), in which the entity can otherwise act freely according to its nature.

When I talk about Shauna challenging me or encouraging me I am not talking about any specific action-reaction sequence as you are interpreting. In specific situations where she might be trying to persuade me in one direction or another, I will recognize an attempt to persuade and stubbornly act on my own judgement regardless.

I am talking more about my operating in the context of the visibility Shauna affords me. She sees me, she knows me like no-one else. Her reactions to me speak to me about what she sees. Typically, her innate inability to fake reality in any way makes me confront my real self despite what grand or poor images I might have in a given moment. She has a way of grounding me. I am free to act in the context of the truth in what she sees in me. It's not her judgement that sets my limits, it's mine; my judgement of the me that is reflected in her eyes. My psychological degrees of freedom are shaped partly by the self I see reflected back at me, in the context of the potential self I want to actualize, and by the action sets I possess. I am free to act in ways that are contextually possible--i.e.: that fit the context of who I am and the contexts in which I operate. Outside of my degrees of freedom are activities that are not me, will be destructive to my self-actualization, or require action sets I have not developed. I cannot act on these because they are out side of my contextual possibility.

The key is I am free to act within my degrees of freedom. I am not pushed or pulled in any way. I have spent a lifetime resisting pushes and pulls. This is one of the differences between my view of causation and reactive causation. Determinism, the view that arises from reactive causation, assumes everything to be pushes and pulls. I'm not supposed to be able to resist the pushes and pulls. My view says even the pushes and pulls can be explained by things acting within their degrees of freedom. I find it to be a better fit for mapping the subtleties of behaviour, whether psychological or physical.

Paul

Paul, yes, we do indeed want the person we love to share our most important values and goals, and a vision of what we want our life to be. I assume you mean this -- as I do -- not in the sense of valuing all the same specifics (such as choosing the same career) -- but in a much wider sense. And I have never learned more -- about myself and the world -- or grown more than in a serious relationship with someone who was like me in crucial values and goals but with whom I had complementary differences, because I had to ask myself why I responded so strongly to those differences, why I loved them in someone so like me in other ways. I do not want an identical twin; if that's what we were, we could not be to each other a constant source of learrning and spiritual growth. And I cannot imagine loving someone -- whatever his virtues might be -- who did not see me in a way that matched my deepest self-vision; I would experience it as rejection. Invisiiblity on that level would mean that I was not truly loved, not for the essence of the person I am.

Barbara

I think I understand. Psychological visibility is the key. The revealing psychological visibility you get from Shauna, and can't get anywhere else, nor generate yourself, lets you "experience" the context of your essentail aims and goals, and with that context "brought to life" and sort of put before your eyes, by being with her, you are able to see more clearly, or judge more definitely, something like that, what you yourself would whole-heartedly wish to choose to do, or to be...

She provides the psy. vis. that you use to choose well. If I'm right, I think that's a remarkable insight. (Yours, that is.)
--Mindy

Mindy: "I think it is possible that differences of temperament are highlighted in a relationship because we expect "soul mates" to be alike. Differences stand out, attract our attention, evoke comment. This gives, I would suggest, the appearance that love involves complementary personalities, when in fact differences are not necessary to, and do not enhance a relationship.

"A person with weaknesses will feel comfortable with a person whose strengths in that arena make his or her life easier. An introvert's socializing is made less effortful when that person is escorting an extrovert, etc. But if a person is aware of their weakness, they dislike it, and would dislike it in another, though they might be "understanding." For the most important personal traits, one's values are imbedded in how we are, and a person who presented a contrast in that way would not share, or not represent that value.

"For traits that don't differ in terms of strength and weakness, both people would suffer gaps in the psychological visibility they receive due to those differences. A well-educated person will not get psy. visibility from a poorer-educated spouse. A witty person will not get psy. vis. from a plain-spoken partner.

"Lots of people pair-off without actually finding love, and for those matches, all kinds of motives and incentives can be found. But we're talking about being in love, and if, as Aristotle puts it, a friend is another self, then a lover is as much like oneself as could be.

"A couple of times, 'we complement one another' has been suggested or urged on me. I know I instantly felt insulted at the idea. I'm insulted, I think, because there is an implicit claim of superiority in that claim, along with the idea that one would be content to have a short-coming shored up by one's association with a friend or lover."

Mindy, the complementary differences I've been discussing have nothing to do with weaknesses on anyone's part, nor with the desire for a partner "to make life easier, "nor with either partner's superiority or inferiority. To choose a rather superficial example, if one partner is more extroverted than the other, that does not mean he is superior or inferior; he simply is different in that respect.

I'll use myself as an example. I don't need or want a partner to help me avoid the knowledge and consequences of whatever weaknesses I may have. But with a man who was very important in my life for a long time, a man I loved, I found myself experiencing delight in his manifestation of qualities much less developed in me and which I hadn't paid much attention to or particularly appreciated in others in whom I had seen these qualities to lesser extents. . He was immensely emotionally expressive, immensely at home and comfortable with his emotions. And now, through the person of this man -- and in part because certain experiences in my own life had made me more open to such appreciation -- I realized that an aspect of of my love was precisely for those qualities. And almost like a child who tastes a friend's wonderful new lollipop, I found myself feeling: "I want that,too!" -- and I set about learning how to acquire it, how to add some part of it to my own personality. So the man became my teacher, not in the sense of giving me lessons -- although I'd sometimes ask him, "Tell me what you know that I don't know!" -- but in the sense of functioning in his life in a manner that I could learn from and so develop in new directions.

And he often told me that he, too, was growing throuh observing complementary differences in me that he prized, We did not become identical twins; we did not want to; but we learned from each other and grew because of each other.

Our relationship endured for years, and endures still in the formof a loving friendship. We continue to have one (cheerful) disagreement, however. I insist that I gained more from our years together than he did; he insists that he gained more.

But further, so what if the complementary differences did involve weaknesses vs. strengths? What could possibly be wrong in overcoming one's weaknesses through the example of another's strengths? If psychological visibility depended on neither party having any weaknesses there would be no psychological visibility.

Barbara

Postscript: You wrote "I think one uses one's lover the way Rand talked about using a hero from literature: asking oneself what that person would do."

I've never thought this was a good idea, either about a hero in literature or about one's lover. You are yourself, you are not John Galt or Jean Valjean or your lover, , you have your own unique context and goals. Actions that may be appropriate for them may be wildly inappropriate for you, even on an abstract level. And, at the risk of being accused of heresy, I'll say that I don't know of any fictional hero or any human being who is perfect or a perfect role model. One is much better off taking one's concept of oneself at one's best as a model.

Barbara,

Amen to that.

This is exactly my view.

I strongly relate to a good hero, but it is more reinforcement or concrete display of what is already in me than instruction on what I should be. And even then, it is never the whole person. For an easy example, I love James Bond, but there are things about him—some fundamental things like being wedded to violence by choice—I do not want in my life. (Besides, he's English and that's a deal-killer... )

The few times I consciously tried to be like a Randian hero and instruct my life that way, I either got into serious trouble or got all busted up (and this is literal—I have the scars to prove it). Also, I did not produce anything worth a damn during those times. All I did was turn myself into a nervous wreck and make the people I cared about miserable.

My greatest gift to myself was the day when I said, "I don't know what I want any longer, but I do know what I don't want. So I will avoid what I don't want and start exploring the world and my interior for the rest. I will start over like an innocent child."

It has been a wonderful adventure ever since.

Michael

Michael, at the risk of nit-picking, let me say that I objected to asking oneself what a fictional or real hero might do in a specific situation as a guide to one's own action. But I don't at all object to the idea that a hero can be instructive in a more abstract manner. For example, I might admire a hero in fiction and note that he perseveres in the face of greater adversities than I have been able to do, and that I admire that quality in him. I might then try to understand why I am more easily discouraged, why someone else might not be discouraged, and if it's possible and desirable for me to learn a greater fortitude.

Observing Ayn Rand over nineteen years, I learned a great deal about dedication and fortitude. But that doesn't mean that in a specific situation, it would be desirable for me to act exactly as she would act.

Barbara

As far as I can tell I was only an innocent child until I was 2 years and seven months when I went out with my sister the day before Halloween and moved all the neighbors' trash cans around. Each year since I've gotten worse and worse. I'm now approaching total evil.

--Brant

Brant:"I'm now approaching total evil."

We all knew that, Brant.

Barbara

Barbara,

I agree with you for these examples, but they are examples of degree, not kind. You can learn from an Objectivist hero how to be more of what you already are. He/she is very good for that. But kind-wise, I don't recommend it. At least not in some fundamental aspects. I know for a fact that it has been extremely damaging for me to try to fit into molds that were alien to me—that violated my very essence—because I let a Randian hero instruct me on how I should be. Here is just one case.

Roark to his principal destroyer: "But I don't think of you."

I tried like the dickens to be this way and the consequences for me were terrible, both inside myself and outside. You know me well enough by now to know that I play for keeps. So when I tried to be that way, I tried in the most literal form I could muster. I went to my maximum extreme.

The problem is that there have been people who have actually tried to destroy me and my work because of envy and other reasons. When I did not think about them, but pursued my work in the manner of Roark, they got strong and ended up destroying everything. Absolutely everything. My opportunities were dismantled, my projects undone, people I admired who knew better started believing vicious gossip, and a whole Pandora's box of malice and disgrace was unleashed in my life. It was a victory for them by default because I simply did not play. I thought that, like Roark, competence and an unwavering commitment to an inner vision was all you needed, then little springs of support would pop up at different places, etc. etc., etc.

I have since learned otherwise and my present life reflects it. Nowadays, I am a bit touchy when someone tries to destroy the fruits of my labors. It is not a practice I recommend (as a few have already discovered in recent years).

OK, I just had my macho moment. That was outside, anyway. Inside, the damage was far worse.

I don't care who you are, when people try to destroy you for no good reason, it hurts. It hurts bad. It makes you seethe with pain and anger and rage. Hell, even Rand cried for 2 solid years over the reception of Atlas, so not even she was able to attain the level of emotional disconnection of Roark. What he did was pure autism.

But it gets even worse. I denied my own feelings and pretended they did not exist. The result was that I turned my response on myself. I became victim and enemy and avenger all at the same time without realizing it. If you don't take care of strong emotions, they will take care of you. I learned that one the hard way. I won't say this was the full reason I fell off into drugs and alcohol, but it certainly was a strong contributing factor.

Roark's phrase is a nice put-down, but it is emotional and existential poison if you try to actually be that way in the face of evil. You kick people's asses when they attack you (or you verify that someone is doing it). You do not ignore them. Nor do you destroy your own work. I speak from experience.

The only part of that phrase that I believe in is trying to achieve such a level of focus on your productive values that other things do not matter. But life is not a straight line. It comes in waves, just like sleeping and being awake does. You can achieve that state for short bursts (sometimes for hours on end), but not full time, even on a roll. Weak moments come and that's part of being alive. They come with exhaustion if for no other reason. Both emotionally and existentially, it is folly to build, and only build, and not protect what you built from the creeps who would take it apart.

That, to me, is a matter of kind where I am vastly different than one Randian hero I tried to emulate. I always have been different and I didn't see it in my Randroid days. I paid a high price for that, too.

I, like you, can appreciate and even learn from a fictional hero how to be better than I am where I am already good. For example, I can learn from Roark how to focus better than I already do. I strongly admire him for that. But now I look hard at what is in me before allowing even that to happen. The simple fact, the reality, is that I am not detached from someone who is seriously out to get me. I do think about him. Oh, how I think about him. I think a lot about him. And, by God, I will get him first if I detect a serious threat.

That is me nowadays. I do not expect to change, either. I did the Roark thing and got busted to pieces several times. I'm lucky to be alive. That's literally. Now, I even think Roark's autistic detachment at that moment is about as wrong as it gets. If he were putting up a defense to not give Toohey satisfaction, I would be cool with that. But Rand presented this moment as if Roark felt like that all the way down. That is a dangerous cliff and I, for one, didn't fall off it. I jumped off it, more than once. The results were predictable and reality had no mercy.

No more. Not for me.

There are some other cases like this in my life, but this one, hopefully, is illustrative enough to show what I mean by difference in kind and difference in degree.

Michael

Michael. you chose an excellent example to illustrate your point about" kind" versus "degree"-- because it is one I agree with totally.

Like you, I am not indifferent when someone attacks me or someone I love -- or even attacks someone I do not know, but in an obvious act of injustice. As you well know, I do think of it, I do protest it, I do take action to protect myself or others.

And I agree that one should, one must, protect one's identity, one's essential self -- by which I mean one's sense of life and fundamental values -- from the influence of anyone else's standards and convictions. We cannot turn ourselves inside out, and we should not try to do so. The information about yourself that you've made public testifies to that, and I believe much of the information in The Passion of Ayn Rand about my years with Rand gives similar testimony.

But I don't think the usual interpretation of Roark's great line to Toohey-- "But I don't think of you" -- is what Rand intended. I believe she made a mistake, and left many of her readers confused, by not clarifying her meaning. She did not mean that one should not think about or respond to evil. Had that been her conviction, she could not have written the books she wrote, with their detailed dissections of and withering attacks on altruism and collectivism. I believe she meant that one should not grant undue importance to the individual perpetrators of evil -- that the Tooheys of this world are not awesome beings with satanic powers, but are in themselves trivial and insignificant; they are merely the visible excrescence of the corrupt philosophical ideas a particular culture has accepted. It is the evil itself -- in the case of Toohey, collectivism -- that must be understood and rejected; that done, the Tooheys will be impotent.

Barbara

It should be noted that Toohey left a lot to be desired in the viciousness department. This gave Roark the luxury of not thinking about him. Ayn Rand, of course, did a lot of thinking about him. While evil is impotent it can be extremely destructive. The "pilots" who flew jet airplanes into the World Trade Center towers didn't even know how to land the planes and came from a culture that couldn't have built them.

--Brant

That is the essential impoverishment of evil that cannot build, but only destroy. This limitation does not lessen the danger. In fact, it increases the danger. Such evil cannot be ignored simply because it lacks any positive aspect. In fact such evil has to be destroyed or sent Far Far Away.

Vandals can wreck or deface, but they cannot or will not create. Toohey was an intellectual vandal. He could mock, trivialize and distort but he could not make anything worthwhile. In fact he did not -want to- make anything worthwhile. That is why he could use pathetic beings such as Peter Keating who really wanted to be an architect, a builder, with -being- a builder. Peter Keating's impossible wish was just the kind of stuff Toohey could and did use.

Likewise, the Terrorist chieftans make use of deluded and confused people to mold their defect into fanaticism that can be used to destroy good folk and their property. Without confused, silly people perverted to evil ends, outrages such as 9/11 would not happen. The real destroyers never got into a plane.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Barbara and Michael,

I had some difficulty understanding your actions in response to the attacks on Chris Sciabarra; not your reactions but your committed actions. I tend to have a social obliviousness that says, don't attend to people who are unimportant. I tend to operate my life outside of the spheres of social manipulation; my business is structured to give no single individual outside of the business too much power. This is a very similar spirit to Roarke's. Your two recent posts are enlightening for me. The individuals may be unimportant but the disease they carry can destroy if it spreads. And they know better than I how to spread infectious ideas below the radar. Your commitment was not to attacking the unimportant individuals who oozed slime. It was to attacking the spread of slime. Like these individuals, the slime has no centre but has the power to destroy. Their power is collective and is expressed through social influence on those without a developed centre (authentic ego and authentic self-esteem). It's sickening! but it's real. Resistance is NOT futile! It is necessary.

Thanks,

Paul

Paul, you are exactly correct in your understanding of my reasoning. Yes, resistance is necessary, because the Tooheys of the world know how to reach the foolish and the innocent with their slime. When Chris was attacked, it was clear to me that no one who knew him would believe for a moment what his attackers were saying; but it was equally clear that many young people came to the forum where the attacks originated, young people who knew nothing of Chris or the disreputable nature of his attackers -- they knew only that this supposedly was an Objectivist site where they could expect to find reasonable and honest people. When they encountered the virulent and endless attacks on Chris -- or on anyone else -- they would be unlikely to have the means to recognize them for the malevolent trash they were. And so, if no one stood up to protest and to say the attackers were liars, the slime would begin to spread. I've seen this scenario acted out in other instances, and when and if I can stop it, I'm determined to do so. Or at least to try.

I've never understood the psychology of the people who pride themselves on being "above the battle." It would make me feel only shame. I live in this world. I'm not willing to see it go to hell while I sit comfortably back and do nothing.

There's a line from an anonymous source that says it all very well:

"I wondered why somebody didn't do something. . . Then I realized, I am somebody."

Barbara

Barbara,

Thanks for that analysis, and the anecdote.

I don't think complementary traits prevent people from being in love. I think learning from anyone is good, and from one's lover, one can learn the most profound things--it's the most profound relationship possible. However, as a technical point of theory, I disagree that having "complementary" aspects is either necessary to falling in love, or enhances falling in or being in love. Rather, I think being as much alike as possible induces high personal regard.

Calling these sorts of traits "stengths or weaknesses" is just a technicality, it isn't condemnatory. Perhaps, as we are all, practically, beset with some weaknesses, it approaches a universal that people with complementary traits hit it off.

Common "weaknesses" actually lead to greater psy. vis., and can be illustrative in the effort to build better habits. I find noticeable weaknesses off-putting, but much more important is a person's strengths. If I admire a person for something, I don't mind their weaknesses very much. Maybe that's tunnel-vision, I won't claim that it is desirable, just it's how things work out for me. There's a great saying, (I'll have to look up its author) "Judge talent at its best, character at its worst." I naturally follow the first part, and I think the second is right and important, only I don't yet seem to follow it without effort. The "incurable romantic's" hopefulness is more natural to me, though I know better. (Don't tell anybody.)

Also, I find using a fictional character as a guide is very useful. I can't say why, but doesn't it come back to just what art is all about?

=Mindy

Paul,

I call it the garbage detail.

If you don't haul out the garbage, it piles up and attracts vermin and stinks up everything good around it.

Not a pretty job, but necessary.

My issue has been understanding exactly what the garbage is, but I found out. And I have decided that I have been way to negligent with garbage. Those who viciously attack independent thinkers while they mouth Randisms and promote their own little power structures or cliques where they reign over minions are garbage.

The purpose of Objectivism is to glorify the mind and individual independence. That means every single person is an end in himself/herself—a supreme unique self-contained value who thinks and chooses. Some people choose to use their precious shot at existing on earth to become more unique and others use it to form gangs.

The garbage is quite comfortable with the contradiction that you cannot bully and intimidate a person into thinking for himself/herself. To live well among independent people, you have to start with respect and encourage them to use their minds—their identifications and choices—to the best of their independent ability. Respect as a starting point is not on the agenda of garbage, though. The reason, of course, is that at root, at the metaphysical level, the garbage only values its own vanity and gang, not independent thought and universal egoism.

Unfortunately the Objectivist world is quite infested with some of this garbage. I don't seek it out as a goal. I have better things to do. But now that I understand what this garbage is, when it piles up in my corner of the universe, I haul it out and burn it.

Michael

Romanticism is a state of mind. To be a Romantic, or at least include a good deal of Romantic sentiment in one's life is a choice (hopefully a conscious one!). It can be a beautiful "way" through which to live. I respect reality, but in some ways I find it overrated. Or maybe I just know that a lot of how happy we end up has to do with how we go about approaching reality--is it joyous?

Wrinkles don't bother me. I think romance is stronger than that. There's deeper things to consider. Last night I wrote a little bit to use in my novel; it's basically summing up the character's existing mindset before he gets his mind blown by meeting the love of his life:

He knew that if maybe, just maybe, the unlikely possibility occurred, and he met a person he could write about throughout infinity, they would surely be a woman: that was a given. What he did not allow for was that he would actually end up meeting that woman.

Knowing of the possibility of a state of being is a positive thing, a step forward in the search for awareness, but upon entering that state, it is of much less use. What would then become more useful, he thought, was figuring out how to stay in his skin for life while trying to be comfortable in the "not knowing." To Embrace The Mystery--to enjoy whistling in the dark. Spiritually and philosophically, this was the extent of his development as far as how his consciousness addressed that department (the Main Department, to be sure: mortality, the great equalizer of the collective psyche and its primary common element).

He was annoyed that he had had to put so much work into gaining that state of consciousness, much less having to bear all that in mind during affairs of the heart. As far as he knew then, there were only a couple of things that went on in those, the main one being no matter how they are handled (or mishandled), the most joyous, virtuous Good they did was to obliterate, at least for a time, all concerns involving aging, mortality, the Mystery in general, replacing it with a new, fulltime bliss, powered with great heat from The Fire Down Below. In essence, perfection, heat, light.

Sex. Touch. Sex and touch for the body and soul, and beauteous food for the mind. It made him wonder, as many have for all time, what possible obstacle would a person not be able to vanquish, fueled by the desire to defend such a blissfully beautiful way of going through life? What argument could be so large to trump that? If it had anything to do with morality, he attacked it on moral grounds—does not man have the moral responsibility to BE FUCKING HAPPY? If so, then the first thing that usually needs done is to stop being unhappy, which usually involves looking at what you are arguing, the argument itself, and know, with humble certainty, that whatever it is, it is a speck of dirty cat litter compared to what it proposes to destroy. He knew this, but like most people, occasionally forgot the difference between knowing a theory and executing it. Basically, he didn't just not "stick to his guns:" instead, he made the more grievous error of not even remembering which guns he had.

The divorce, of course, had further altered his views and criteria for selecting his future strategy in this area. This is a nice way of saying he was cynical, the fairytale book was in the trash, and he was OK with either way it went: sport fuck himself to the grave, or become a monk. To not give up being a Romantic, but rather respect its potentially destructive nature. Having a lot of sex was no replacement, but to have, usually, is better than to not have, hence his slight bias toward that solution. Sex is fun, healthy, and if properly conducted, downright friendly. Being a monk has certain advantages, but he was only aware of that truth, not what the actual advantages were, having never located anything substantial for anyone with even remotely Bohemian leanings. He liked the way the sheets smelled after—you were never alone if you had that. You would never die alone having that. If you were going to be in the business of dying, he reasoned, that would be the best place to do it: wrapped in the embrace of your lover's scent, mingling with your own.

That type of thing is a pure intangible, in that it can never be priced sufficiently high enough using any type of trade or currency. Priceless. Also meaning, one should be prepared to pay any price for it, and, for that matter be prepared to lose to a higher bidder: this is where the true pain lays waiting for you. It might not kill you, but you will, at some moment, wish it had.

Hey Mindy! Got you beat. Just celebrated 25. First for both too. Best, Nick

It seems as though people have different definitions for romanticism. I think I do know the root of the problem and why it does not lead to healthy relationships.

Worshipping a man or a woman comes largely from a scarcity mentality. It comes from the belief that good men or women are scarce and difficult to find. When one does find a good man or woman, the worshipper then goes off the deep end. When both people do this to each other, it creates a high which does not last.

What happens is such people eventually start to see the person's flaws and mistakes. They also get bored and start looking elsewhere. It actually becomes easier for them to find people to cheat with because they no longer have the scarcity mentality.

Attraction is a process. For people who have a scarcity mentality, it either does not turn on easily or turns on much too easily. Ask yourself why your attraction process works the way it does then go from there.

If both of you can keep the process turned on for 50 years, you deserve gold medals.

One wrinkle and I'm outta there! Life's too short for wrinkles. (I did develop a problem with self loathing which I dealt with by not using mirrors any longer.)

--Brant

'Yes, star-crossed in pleasure, the stream flows by
Yes, as we're sated in leisure, we watch it fly
And time waits for no one, and it won't wait for me" --The Rolling Stones: Time Waits For No One

I had twenty years (and two kids) in the first marriage. I cheated, and I guess you could say she pulled the trigger, but only after figuring out that I truly did want the other woman. So that was me pulling the trigger, just in a dishonest fashion.

I had ten years with the other woman. It could have been either of us, but she pulled the trigger. That one, that was th