Objective Intentions vs. Subjective Experience

Objective intentions vs. subjective experience.

Telling somebody you love them is not enough.
You have to ‘actually love them,’
and make sure that your love gets through.
Arms all round - a loving hug.
“I Love You So Much Sweetheart!”
If the objective intention does not become a subjective experience, a reality, then it has failed.

Example.

Statement:
“Of course I love you, but I don’t want you to keep bringing up Tinnitus!”

Experience:
“Why can’t you see the terrible pain I am in, why can’t you hold me,
why can’t you help me,
I need to FEEL your love.
I need you....”

The only reality is the subjective experience.

 

@Jazzer I agree wholeheartedly Dave. You clearly have this actively loving support. If you don’t mind me asking....if you were living alone now, either divorced or widowed, do you think your ability to cope with T via meditation etc would still be working for you?

 

Well of course I can’t really say.
But I do know one thing.
Sorry to go back into my prehistory.
As a result of my mother’s desperate mental illness, I grew up unbonded, isolated, a tragic kid.
I sought the help of a psychotherapist, and read books published by the British Psychoanalytic Institute (by Winnicott, Bowlby, Fairborn, etc...) to understand what went wrong.
I understood that ‘relationships’ could destroy you, and only ‘relationships’ can save you - not psychiatric drugs !

So to try to answer your question, I would seek love from whence I could find it.

JP Sartre was only half right.
‘Hell is other people’
just as
‘Heaven is other people.’

(@Bill Bauer may care to disagree ??)

 

@Jazzer oh yes that is absolutely correct, some people are certainly “hell”.

Hope you are having a relatively good day sir.

 

No too bad Sam.
About the same as yesterday, and tomorrow, I expect.
So - so.....you know how it is. x

 

What do you mean by the term "love"? How do you define/measure it?

 

To love someone is
‘to have great affection for.’

 

"Hell is other people" is something I remind myself of multiple times a day. I assume that when you say "heaven is other people", you are not talking about the people whom you had never met, who did something to allow you to live a civilized life (e.g., the people who built the roads, your car, who had ensured that you have access to antibiotics when you need them). What is it that the people you interact with do that might be considered heavenly?

For the people whom you had known for over 10 years (and whom you get to see every day), you will agree that the enjoyment from the interaction with them is not intense - just some very mild/minor nice feeling (in the best case scenario). Conversely, should they die suddenly, or should they get a serious illness, the distress will be very intense. This kind of means that the expected utility (that we get when comparing the expected costs and benefits) of having them around is negative.

My dad got diagnosed with brain cancer when I was 15. He passed away when I was 20. He was 47. The distress I felt during those five years had certainly been Intense. The way I see it, each "loved one" is a huge liability - a ticking time bomb that doubles as a fun toy (e.g., something that gives you mild enjoyment every day, until the day when it goes off without warning and makes your life a living hell).

You want to minimize the number of "loved ones." You can't do anything about the existing members of your family, but at least don't do anything to increase the size of the family (e.g., bring strangers into the family, and that includes kids).

 

Why is it important to you whether or not there are people out there who have this affection for you?

When you live with other people, you have to make compromises. By definition, life without compromises is more fulfilling then life filled with compromises. This "affection" you talk about is subjective. The alimony payments, divorce settlements and the constant compromises are Objective and real.

I am more of a "each lamb carcass is hanging by its own feet" kind of a guy.

 

Bill I disagree with pretty well everything you say.
I appreciate all contributions to civilisation.
Why would I not?

What is it.......etc?
They show me love, which I truly appreciate having had a loveless childhood.

For the people you had known....etc?
The pleasure ‘is’ intense.

Conversely should they die.....etc?
My beautiful daughter died of breast cancer at 36.
Her husband, my son in law, died at 48 of osophageal cancer.
Another son-in-law committed suicide with bi-polar bisorder.
All were considerably younger than me of course.
I love them all still, and could not possibly regret my relationship with any of them.

I have never thought of my loved ones as ticking time-bombs, though of course I worry about them when illness strikes.

I am bound to consider that I appreciate my personal relationships, draw more from them, than you do.
They are not liabilities to me.
Perhaps I am naturally more sociable, more gregarious.

 

My point was that I agree that the sentence "heaven is other people" applies to Those people, but that I thought that when you used that sentence you had the people you actually get to interact with in mind (and those are the same people that Sartre was talking about).

Why do you care?

What is it that they do that you like?

I am very sorry that you had to experience this...

"Gregarious" is the one thing that I definitely know I am not.

 

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I regard all personal interactions (I am talking about the interactions that don't involve the members of my family) that I have to be part of as rape (in the sense that they are happening against my will). For over 20 years now, after every interaction, I have asked myself whether it was worth it. Did I learn anything interesting? Useful? Funny? The answer has, without exception, always been "NO."

 

You are an interesting case to me Bill.

I tend to feel an affinity for everybody, unless and until they destroy the charitable attitude that I extend to them with disinterest, disrespect, cynicism, aggression, or some similarly unattractive trait.
I tend to like people, understanding that my own painful experiences may well be reflected in their own.
But I am clearly no saint.
Having been disrespected, I can be quite a force to be reckoned with.
I have never attempted to emulate Jesus Christ.

 

I also feel affinity for everyone. I wish them all well. I just don't want to be in the same room with them.

It is very natural to care about what other people think, but in my opinion the key to happiness is to get myself to end this habit.

 

They aren't objective and real unless they actually occur. They are negative possibilities that can happen but aren't guaranteed to. It's a paranoia. I understand though, to a degree. With other people you lose a part of your control. This is because you cannot control what other people do and you fear their actions will negatively affect you.

We still commit to these relationships regardless of potential negative consequences because that is what trust is. I have seen you trust some of the members here, though. You trust them even though there is no confirmed medical basis to what they say, which is also a risk.

This is just what life is, a weighing of risks versus rewards. Every part of your life is exactly that, not just relationships.

I don't know what exactly about this thread got you going. I don't disrespect your lifestyle. It's just rather rare. You know it works for you.

For others, relationships are very rewarding. My SO has been incredibly supportive with my aversion to loud noises. Once when our apartment fire alarm went off, I was so panicked to get out quickly that I went out in my PJs without my glasses. He went back into our apartment and grabbed my glasses, a change of clothes, and then he cruised me around in his car to help calm me down.

My SO drives for a living and is very observant. If he suspects a loud noise is coming, he will warn me ahead of time. There are countless small things he does to protect and support me.

I trust him fully and he has never done anything to harm me. I simply cannot imagine life without him.

Love isn't a horror story for everyone.

 

The compromises are bound to occur. The other things are real things that have a real possibility of occurring. If I remember correctly, the divorce rate is around 50%, right?

One has to take the preferences of the other people into account. For example, when I travel, I enjoy just taking in the scenery around me. Once I stopped the car and watched the wind swaying the tall grass and the wild flowers. I was there for close to two hours. It is one of the highlights of my life - a time when I felt completely relaxed and at peace. If another person were to be there with me, if their optimal time to spend there were to be different from my optimal time, it would ruin the experience. Even if their optimal time were to be exactly the same as mine, I would not be sure whether they are telling the truth, and would be thinking about the awkwardness of it all, instead of relaxing and enjoying myself. Hell is other people - nothing that is good about life can actually be enjoyed while I am around those other people.

The only people I will (or have ever) trusted is my mom and my grandmother. I have been rewarded for following this policy on many occasions, and I had never had a reason to regret it.

Each post is an observation, a data point. I update my beliefs about what is safe and what isn't based on these observations.

I agree. In relationships, one's partner can do so much damage if they feel like it, that to me it seems irrational to even consider being in one.

It was the desecration of my favorite quote of all time. Heaven is other people?!!?!

Just kidding. Nothing got me going. I was just talking. This is another reason hell is other people - I need to think carefully about what I say. I am already biting my tongue all of the time. The atom at the tip of the iceberg (representing the things that I force myself to not say out loud) does inevitably get out and, inevitably, ends up upsetting the people I am conversing with, reminding me that I shouldn't be talking to anyone to begin with.

 

Bill - knowing what your favourite quotation is, which I have known for a long time by the way, I have often wondered why on Earth you are prepared to relate to any of us on this forum, even at one remove - just verbally.
And now I’ve just desecrated your code for living.
Where do we go from here?

 

Your favourite quotation does not apply universally then Bill.
See - mother and grandmother.

Did you ever fall in love Bill?

 

I don't think I will, nor do I want to, change your mind on this. So I will just talk, as you are, and speak on this.

I believe it is actually a normal thing to feel we are biting our tongues. I most certainly hold a number of unpopular opinions. For a time, I've lamented not feeling able to speak on them. However, over time I've realized opinions are cheap and not special. Most ideally is the ability to express them as diplomatically, empathetically, and succinctly as possible. That is an incredibly difficult thing to do.

Overall, I bite my tongue because my tongue is not valuable. I find there is more worth in interacting with people as people rather than just seeing them as a walking collection of opinions. After all, everyone is at least a little bit evil and I'm not interested in that part.

 

I have been reading this forum to learn more about this condition. Sometimes people ask questions that I can answer, and I do just that. There is no downside. If a downside ever manifests itself, I can always stop posting (I intend to continue reading the posts here).

It's all good.

I don't know what that means. I like (and have great affection for) most people I ever got to know (not counting some of my co-workers).

True story: the last woman that I had ever loved (in the Biblical sense) was this lady from Colombia. We met when our eyes met when I was visiting Amsterdam in 2012. She was sitting in this store window... There were other women sitting in other store windows on that street, but I knew that she had to be the one. In any case, a little later that day, I told her that she was so cute that I wanted to write love letters to her every day (in case you are not sure - I was joking). As luck would have it, her English was very limited, and I don't think she understood a word I said. She wasn't interested in my love letters, and she wouldn't let me take a picture of her pretty face. Too bad!

 

Where does this worth come from?

 

Bill - a lovely story.
It’s the kind of thing that I am capable off.
Thank you for sharing it Bill.
I’ve just decided - you are actually a
‘human bean.’

 

My own personal beliefs: that humans are inherently selfish, are disappointingly lacking in self awareness, and are highly destructive animals. ('Animal' here, not used as an insult) To be above that is to be selfless and consider how one's actions interact with the world around you. The 'worth' here comes with not falling into the usual traps that most other people fall into while being respectful of others.

 

Unfortunately, not all are selfish. Some get converted to cults and religions that take advantage of their gullibility (and, in that sense, these days people are more religious than ever) and make them act in unselfish ways to benefit the people behind the cult. Most of the evil in this world is the result of people acting irrationally (unselfishly).

They are mostly (and most!) destructive when they are unselfish. In a healthy society, selfish people get paid when they help others (and most need to be selfish for the society to be healthy), so most people end up working for the benefit of others/paying customers (as this is the easiest way to benefit oneself), and so are productive and not destructive.

What is the point of talking to others if everyone is not going to be saying what they are actually thinking and the conversation is going to be cliches and small talk?!

 

sounds like you're hanging out with the wrong people, man. I've got no patience or time for people who won't call a spade a spade. I hang out with and talk to other people because I get a feeling of warmth and joy from their presence, and they are able to turn me on to new ideas I had not and would not have thought of myself, and selflessly put a hand out when I'm down and say "hey linearB I know you're in a rough spot but I've seen you come through them before and you're going to come through this one, I love you". I try to have the awareness to return that gift when it's warranted.

There's nothing magical about this; humans gravitate towards group interactions and hierarchies because it was evolutionarily advantageous. I am sure there are maverick people out there who literally do not want or need the support of groups, but I'm not one of them; when I feel my worst, I actively need other people to remind me I'm not alone and keep me moving forward with life.

Yup, I agree, and words are much easier than actions. I fault myself sometimes for being better at saying "I love you and I'm here for you, always" than actually doing it in the moment. But, it's something I work on, and I think metta-type meditation is a pretty rock solid way to cultivate that kind of awareness.

Well, everyone has their limits, right? On some level, everyone is just consumed with watching the narrative movie of their own lives in their head. My wife has been incredibly supportive and helpful to me during all my battles with health issues, but I very consciously try to not hit her over the head with them if I can possibly stand not to, just because she's got her own problems and pain, too, and I don't want to take that seemingly bottomless compassion if I don't absolutely have to -- I'm sure there is, in fact, a bottom there somewhere, I just haven't found it yet after 15 years...

 

What is the point of talking to others if everyone is not going to be saying what they are actually thinking and the conversation is going to be cliches and small talk?!

We have to be sincere.
I guess conversational small talk is the normal way to approach bigger talk, which is fine.
But cliches and platitudes are not worth the paper they are written on.
Perhaps it’s time to introduce this little guy......