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Originally posted by Mantus
- You spoke about the connection being mostly self-contained. The Jungians came up with a concept of the human mind projecting pre-determined images on people we meet. So if one meets a potential mate you will immediately envelop them in your pre-determined idea of what a your mate should be. All their actions will be in context of your image of a perfect mate. Our common problem is that we tend to envelop people we know in one kind of image. For example: we look at our mothers in the image of what a mother should be. We forget that our mother is also plays a role of a lover, a friend and many other roles. The same can happen in the case of our lover. The Jungian concept defiantly holds some truths, yet I feel that it is missing something.
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Hmm... I guess one thing about that, which I relate specifically to this girlfriend I just had is that I didn't think she was the perfect mate. Well, at least, I have no idea what the perfect mate is. I am familiar Jung somewhat, but I think it sort of fails the same way that Hegelianism fails - it ignores individuality. That was what drew me to that girlfriend, she stood out to me as being different. Before I even thought of going after her or even felt sexually attracted to her I just found her to be interesting. Archetypal thinking provides insights into patterns, I found that more than evident in my past, but I've made attempts over the past 5 years to catch on and look for something different. This was different.
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- A human being is controlled by instincts, habits and the consciousness. Instincts are programmed. Habits are like learned instincts. If you do something often enough and manage to survive, then it must be good for you – thefore your instinctive brain encurages it - of course since it can be wrong. The consciousness is the newest kid on the block, the least developed but has the most potential. It can override both instinct and habit, but this skill (willpower) takes practice to develop.
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You seem to be focusing on this issue in a much more Joseph Conrad - Heart of Darkness kind of way than I have been. It is interesting for me to reasses my approach. I don't know if I have been too focused on the impetus on choice from reading lots of existential texts and have been ignoring too much other angles at looking at humanity.
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- Emotions are a bridge and a safety between instincts and the consciousness. They are there for two reasons. 1) To give the mind a false illusion of being in control. Can you imagine how terrifying it would be to lose control of your body, while all you can do is watch? This is exactly what happens when instincts take over. 2) To allow instinctive behavior to adapt and grow. All instincts are very base, by justifying themselves to the mind as an emotion they are able to hijack its processing power to adapt to complex situations.
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Hmm... I guess that I understand emotions as an adaptive trait... but I don't really feel like that is too helpful for me now as a conscious agent capable of choice and manipulating myself (that sounds bad somehow, doesn't it?). One thing that has been challenging to me is that my instincts about relationships up until I turned about 20 was to flee or essentially put myself in a situation that left me unattainable. Since then I gone through a transformation towards action and making tangible decisions towards real goals. My difficulty now is to figure out what I want my goals to be. Additionally though, that instinctive urge towards wanting sex does seem to get in my way, even now. I find myself at times entertaining the most ridiculous thoughts of sex and then having to stop myself because of all the emotional damage it would cause me to put myself in these contrive situations I imagine. I do my best not to fight against my instincts, but to have them help me, and lately they haven't been of much help.
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- Emotions are necessary, we are not ready to let go of them. Yet they can be dangerous as they are much too basic to guide us though our evolved society.
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I can't imagine an existence that isn't affective. Without emotions, the fundamental question of suicide would have been a moot point. I'm a firm testament towards living in rebellion to the absurdity of existence. Before ever touching Camus way back in 7th grade, the weight of meaninglessness hit me with a crushing blow that I resisted and kept from destroying me. I've been thinking a lot about how our culture has adopted a dualistic view of being, that of mind and body. In many ways they are one and the same, though not to contradict what I said in earlier posts. There are certain feelings I need to feel and certain mindsets I need to be in to be fully in a creative mode. Hmm... and how evolved is our society really?
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- Love – is when a person makes a conscious effort to develop a cerebral attraction to their partner. It is far from natural and far from everlasting. Love requires a constant effort. The idea is to gain control of your instinctive reproductive drive and master its energy.
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Agreed that love takes constant effort. I've taken a broader definition of love for myself though. I really have tried to come to live my whole life with love. This works well when I am alone and when those around me are receptive. In fact, my girlfriend was receptive until she got spooked. I know that I have the energy and patience to maintain the needed effort to make love lasting and passionate. It is interesting that you say the idea is to gain control of that instinctive reproductive drive and to master its energy... I think that there is something to that, and maybe what I've been hung up on is the absolute unwillingness to objectify others. In this case, the only way for me to really harness this energy is to find a <i>subject</i> to focus my energy towards. This might be the a missing link that I didn't think about enough, what solitude lacks is a means towards focusing that energy in a creative way that doesn't objectify something. My failure in high school was that I was addicted to courtly love. I filled pages and pages of poetry towards my object of desire. And that worked out then, but now I really need that to be a subject and I need it to be teamed with personal action.
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- Both people have to be aware of this and be working towards the same goal. True growth in love can only happen when both partners are fuel and sustaining each other. If one tried to develop love by oneself then a love/hate feeling begins to develop for the person of affection. The hate comes from constant feeling of incompleteness, hollowness, futility and most importantly distance
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Hate is a choice... I know that impulse can be put away. But it takes a lot of effort to overcome it, esp. if you get caught up in the situation. I found my way out of that tendency was to focus on understanding the other person. If I could understand, then I could endure anything without any malice. But, you're absolutely right, there's a wall that will be hit if the other person doesn't put out the effort to grow and foster those mutual connections. It is interesting... I don't know if this is actually helping me decide my approach and what my next phase of action will be, but it is helping me isolate the issues a little.
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- Most people attempt to bury the hate. It eventually surfaces.
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I think one thing is to identify your limits and clearly and directly share them with the other. My rocky relationship could have continued longer if I hadn't brought up that I thought she was intentionally focusing on things that weren't really problems because she was looking for a way to justify getting out of the relationship. By calling her on it instead of letting it sit inside I was free of it, and it became her burden... which she then used to immediately jump out of the relationship with. It has been difficult, but I'm glad that I went through all of it if I can learn from it.
And I'm sure there is a lot more, but that is enough for now.