What Is The False Self?

In this video, Stefan Molyneux explains the concept of "the false self".

The Feminist Movement Revised

Check out this video about the flaws of the current feminist ideology, and how it is counter productive to the stated goals of feminism, namely gender equality.

Ayn Rand VS Jesus: Love

{5:44} But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; {5:45} That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. {5:46} For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?

source: The Christian Bible / Matthew 5:42-46 (PDF)

When it comes to love, the highest of emotions, you permit them to shriek at you accusingly that you are a moral delinquent if you’re incapable of feeling causeless love. When a man feels fear without reason, you call him to the attention of a psychiatrist; you are not so careful to protect the meaning, the nature and the dignity of love.

Love is the expression of one’s values, the greatest reward you can earn for the moral qualities you have achieved in your character and person, the emotional price paid by one man for the joy he receives from the virtues of another. Your morality demands that you divorce your love from values and hand it down to any vagrant, not as response to his worth, but as response to his need, not as reward, but as alms, not as a payment for virtues, but as a blank check on vices. Your morality tells you that the purpose of love is to set you free of the bonds of morality, that love is superior to moral judgment, that true love transcends, forgives and survives every manner of evil in its object, and the greater the love the greater the depravity it permits to the loved. To love a man for his virtues is paltry and human, it tells you; to love him for his flaws is divine. To love those who are worthy of it is self-interest; to love the unworthy is sacrifice. You owe your love to those who don’t deserve it, and the less they deserve it, the more love you owe them - the more loathsome the object, the nobler your love - the more unfastidious your love, the greater the virtue - and if you can bring your soul to the state of a dump heap that welcomes anything on equal terms, if you can cease to value moral values, you have achieved the state of moral perfection.

The degree of your ability to live was the degree to which you broke your moral code, yet you believe that those who preach it are friends of humanity, you damn yourself and dare not question their motives or their goals.

Ayn Rand

How Good Is Greed?!

Is greed a virtue or a vice?! Economist Walter Williams believes that greed is the noblest of human motivations... I happen to agree, do you?!

See this video of Walter Williams explaining the virtues of greed.

The Psychology and Politics of Self-Responsibility

Dr. Nathaniel Brandon is a well-known psychologist and gives a talk about self-esteem and self-responsibility, and how it affects the political arena of the current world.

Click here to see the video.

The Disposable Male

Check out this video about the social double standards in regards to the treatment of men and women in society, and how men are also oppressed under "patriarchal" systems.



PS: If you find this video interesting, check out it's continuation here

Communication in The Paradigm of Open Relationships

It is my personal belief that honest communication plays an important role in interpersonal relationships. I have stumbled upon an interesting and eye-opening YouTube video that clarifies that importance of honest communication in relationships, and the role of opening up relationships and it's positive effects on communication between partners. Highly Recommended.

Non-Sexual Open Relationships - Part 1
Non-Sexual Open Relationships - Part 2

Words From Ayn Rand: Love and Happiness

Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values.

Love is a command to rise to one's highest potential, the best and noblest vision of oneself. Love is a reward, the greatest we can earn, granted to us for the moral qualities we have achieved in our life.

Love, friendship, respect, admiration are the emotional response of one man to the virtues of another, the spiritual payment given in exchange for the personal, selfish pleasure which one man derives from the virtues of another man’s character.

A desire presupposes the possibility of action to achieve it; action presupposes a goal which is worth achieving.

Romantic love, in the full sense of the term, is an emotion possible only to the man (or woman) of unbreached self-esteem: it is his response to his own highest values in the person of another —an integrated response of mind and body, of love and sexual desire. Such a man (or woman) is incapable of experiencing a sexual desire divorced from spiritual values.

Achievement of your happiness is the only moral purpose of your life, and that happiness, not pain or mindless self-indulgence, is the proof of your moral integrity, since it is the proof and the result of your loyalty to the achievement of your values.

“To say 'I love you' one must know first how to say the 'I.'”

To love is to value. The man who tells you that it is possible to value without values, to love those whom you appraise as worthless, is the man who tells you that it is possible to grow rich by consuming without producing and that paper money is as valuable as gold....

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There are two aspects of man’s existence which are the special province and expression of his sense of life: love and art.

I am referring here to romantic love, in the serious meaning of that term — as distinguished from the superficial infatuations of those whose sense of life is devoid of any consistent values, i.e., of any lasting emotions other than fear. Love is a response to values. It is with a person’s sense of life that one falls in love —with that essential sum, that fundamental 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 is not a matter of professed convictions (though these are not irrelevant); it is a matter of much more profound, conscious and subconscious harmony.

Many errors and tragic disillusionments are possible in this process of emotional recognition, since a sense of life, by itself, is not a reliable cognitive guide. And if there are degrees of evil, then one of the most evil consequences of mysticism —in terms of human suffering— is the belief that love is a matter of “the heart,” not the mind, that love is an emotion independent of reason, that love is blind and impervious to the power of philosophy. Love is the expression of philosophy —of a subconscious philosophical sum— and, perhaps, no other aspect of human existence needs the conscious power of philosophy quite so desperately. When that power is called upon to verify and support an emotional appraisal, when love is a conscious integration of reason and emotion, of mind and values, then —and only then— it is the greatest reward of man’s life.

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Ayn Rand

Compersion: Polyamory Realized

Compersion is defined as taking joy in the joy of others. It is the opposite of envy, which is characterized by feelings of spite towards the joy of others. In the context of relationships it is the healthy alternative to jealousy.

Love is a joyous emotion. If a friend or somebody we care about falls in love, we'd be happy for them. We would share with them their joy, and wish them the best of luck, and sincerely hope it will work out for the best for them. We would take inspiration from their smiles and enthusiasm...

Isn't it odd that when people claim to be in love they would express intention of compersion, and tell their partners that their own happiness is elevated when their partner is happy, yet if their partner fell in love they would deny those feelings of compersion and indulge jealousy instead?!

Isn't it odd that some people can share the joy of love with friends and acquaintances, but not their significant others?!

Nightmares That Kill 3: Far Away From Home

Sometimes people have experiences that help them realize certain wisdom that is not commonly accessible to the common folk. Such wisdom can be extremely insightful, and I have been looking around YouTube for such inspiring insights. Transgenderism is a unique experience and so I want to share a video I especially liked.

This video is one of a Female-to-Male transguy sharing his experience of how he discovered his transgendered identity. It touched me a lot at a personal level, and here are some of the parts I especially liked:

I knew right from the start that I wasn't a lesbian. And I think we just innately know our communities, so I just knew it wasn't my people. In a sense that was scary; I was like shit, am I somebody who is obsessed with alienation or what?!

So I think I had my big AHA moment when I moved to the little city I am living in now about three years ago. I went to see a show by this transguy hip-hop group, it was for female-to-male trans folk and sang a lot about their trans experience, and I specifically remember being at that show, and like first or second song I was like that is me, that is my experience up there. It was such an incredible moment, it was like that moment of feeling like I found my people for the first time. Can you imagine?! I never had that feeling like I was with my people, and I always felt like I was looking. And I was like that's my experience, but at the same time: "That's me, I am a tranny, what do I do now?! Oh my god, how am I gonna deal with this?! Is this really my experience?! Am I really brave enough to make all those changes?!"

In a sense, we have this innate compass of who we are, but we are always like trying to pull it up to find the words to tell ourselves... And a lot of the ways that we discover things is like in each other... So basically I just never had a mirror to look at, you know?!

Like when I went to this camp this summer I completely freaked out! And the thing in part, I had never been in a place with all trans people! It was really awesome but it was also really scary, because I also knew that I was not taking steps to be who I was.

PS: Check Nightmares That Kill 1/2

Alice in Wonderland (2010): The Best Love Story

Alice in Wonderland, how did I forget this astonishing movie!! I still remember the first time I watched it, I was thinking "Wow!". And I am not wowed easily! It's a story about love... But not everyday love, but what I would definitely call "true love"! It was like the writer tapped into my head, read my mind, and made it into a movie!

Behind its fantasy and out-of-this-world narrative lies great truth and wisdom. I am not sure that everyone would understand the symbolism behind this great movie, but let's see what readers make of it. So, yeah dear readers, consider this a homework. Watch this movie and share your thoughts on what you understand from it.

Every scene has lots of wisdom in it, I can write a post about each and every scene in this movie. But I will not do that, maybe sometime in the future, but not in the near future. However, I will make one post that highlights the main story line, and the most prominent wisdom that can be gained from this movie. This post should be there next week hopefully.

The movie has a lot to say about love, politics, religion, life, and psychology. But I will focus on the topic of love, so as not to confuse readers. The main idea of the movie focuses on the post I made titled "The Choice Between Love and Fear", and in a more indirect manner the post titled: "About Love: Love and Curiosity". So, if you liked those posts, this homework is made especially for you!

So once again, watch this movie if you hadn't already and share your insight.

Download this movie: (torrent) (avi)

About Love - Part 2: Love and Curiosity

Curiosity is the most important aspect of love.

To love someone is to think that they are interesting. And for them to be interesting to you, this means that they instill a feeling of curiosity. The desire that emerges when you get to know someone, that you want to know more about them. Understand their feelings, experiences, views, and thoughts. Or more generally, understand who they are. This desire in my opinion is the most definitive feature of the emotion of love. And this desire is why a relationship is created and how the relationship is maintained.

Curiosity is the reason you make the time to sit with a person, have a conversation about all the different subject matters. It is why one would listen to another talking about their day, their passions, their opinions, or what have you. And it is through this process that intimacy grows and creates the experience of love.

And the satisfaction of this desire of curiosity and learning creates a very pleasant experience, which would reinforce the desire and be the basis of love.

Within this view, let's address how closed relationships and open relationships manifest their effects on the emotion of curiosity. While some people might interpret a statement of exclusivity from their partner as a positive commitment, I see it negatively. Because when we meet other people, our lives get enriched. In other words, we become more interesting in the sense then we have more things to talk about, share, and teach our partner. We as humans acquire knowledge and insight through our experiences, and the most profound class of experiences are interactions with other human beings. By limiting the depth of our experiences with other people, we are shutting the door for numerous experiences that will enrich our life, develop our personalities, and give us insight about ourselves, others, and life in general.

Consequently, the way I see things, someone who proclaims exclusivity is basically saving: "I have no intention of making myself more lovable, by the means of enriching my life." And in this sense, when your partner has no interest in enriching your life with the knowledge they give you, they are defying the very constituent of love, namely being worthy of curiosity, and consequently worthy of your time and love.

When you meet someone and find that they are interesting, that they have a unique perspective on life, and their mind works in a beautiful way; The more natural impulse is that you want that person to experience life more fully, because in that manner they are going to gain the insight and the experience to be more insightful and interesting. I find it extremely odd that one would think that someone is interesting, but not give them the tools to put their talent at work to come up with something that might as well be ground breaking!

Same idea applies when your partner asks you to be exclusive to them. They are basically saying: "I love you for a reason other than that I find you interesting." Which would consequently put into question whether or not they love you to begin with. Curiosity knows no bounds, and no matter how much you already know, you still have the desire to know more. If you have no desire to know more, then you have no curiosity, and when you are not curious, the emotion of love loses it's momentum.

And the idea of this deep connection between the emotion of love and curiosity is very evident in the general conception of 'true love'. Most people would argue that sex is not the most important aspect of love, but rather admiring and respecting the personality of the loved one. And this raises the question: How would it be that you admire and respect someone's personality if you don't think they are interesting? Or in other words, feel curious about them? So it seems to me that the people who profess that the closed-relationships model for relationships is compatible with the conception of 'true love' as being highly self-contradicting and self-refuting!

In this series:
About Love - Part 1: Love and Jealousy
About Love - Part 2: Love and Curiosity
Next: About Love - Part 3: Love and Sexuality
Next: About Love - Part 4: True Love

The Theory and Psychology of Honor

When talking about Honor there are various concepts that need to be identified: Valuables, Honor, Reputation, Honor Codes, and Honor Systems.

Lets make a rough definition of each of those concepts:
Valuables: It is a set of material possessions and conceptual values that are considered to be valuable for the individual, and an important asset to their survival value. The most common examples of valuables: Land ownership, houses and real-estate, family members, reputation, and livelihood.
Honor: Acts of aggression to anyone who takes or threatens those valuables. Common examples of honor acts include: A house owner who shoots a burglar who broke into his house, a person who revenges the murder of a family member, a husband who kills his wife for sexual infidelity, a person who kills another in self-defense.
Reputation: The knowledge of people that a person would act in a specific manner in response to a specific situation. Examples include: A person having a reputation of accepting bribes when offered one, a person having a reputation of engaging in violent fights when insulted, a person having a reputation for enacting revenge upon anyone who crosses his path.
Honor codes: The set of reputations of specific action tendencies in matters of Honor of a particular individual. Examples include: Action tendency to killing burglars if they break into your house, action tendency to kill a cheating wife, action tendency to protect your family in dangerous situations. To be more elaborate, honor code is not only the action tendency, but it also includes a declaration of those action tendencies. So in the example of killing the cheating wife, honor code is established when the husband lets his wife know beforehand that cheating will result in death, as this is the part where the reputation of action tendencies is created.
Honor system: The collection of honor codes of various individuals and the system that results from the various interactions of the individuals and their honor codes. Those individuals might have common interests, or conflicting interests depending on the specific situations.

Honor and reputation are very important concepts in terms of survival. It is the mechanism that creates penalty for attempting to take or threaten an individual's valuables. An individual's tendency to act aggressively makes him capable of protecting his own, and other people's knowledge of someone's capacity for hostile retaliation acts as proactive measure against being threatened in the first place.

Any serious discussion about Honor must address the issue of reputation. So, first, I will address the topic of reputation.

The theoretical basis of Reputation using Game Theory

Game Theory provides an understanding of the mechanisms through which reputation emerges. Economists, evolution theorists, and evolutionary psychology all use game theory for analytical models in those theories. I will provide few examples to illustrate this point.

Example 1:
First, let's take an example in Economics. This is a popular textbook example, and many people might be familiar with it. In this example, we hypothesize a situation where one company has a monopoly for a particular product or service. Assume that the monopolist has yearly income of 3 million dollars. One company is considering entering the market. At this point, the monopolist has two alternative strategies: Either to fight the entrant, by driving prices very low, at the risk of making no profit for that year. If the monopolist chooses this strategy, the entrant company will suffer losses of 1 million dollars, and will be forced to exit the market. The other strategy is to allow the competitor to enter the market, and sell products at a competitive price, such that the both companies would make 1 million dollars per year.

	Monopolist	Entrant
Not Enter	3mil$ profit	0$ profit
Enter with Fight	0$ profit	1mil$ loss
Enter without Fight	1mil$ profit	1mil$ profit

One thing the monopolist might do, is to announce to all companies that intend to enter the market that they will fight. Any competitor who actually believes that the monopolist will fight would not enter the market, because they know that the end result will be a net loss of 1 million dollars.

But some competing company might think: "Yes, they say they will fight, but that's just a scare tactic. However, if we actually enter the market, they will not fight us, because they want to create profit, so they will not fight because making one million dollars in profit is better than no profit at all!". So, lets say this company decides to enter the market.

What should the monopolist do? If they decide to fight, in the short-term, they will suffer because they are not making any profits. However, in the consequent years they will still make good profits, better than those they would have if they allowed competition to enter the market.

Another concern is: What if in the next year some other company decided to enter the market, should the monopolist fight them as well? Again, fighting in the short-term seems undesirable. But one thing is left out of the equation, which is reputation. Once the monopolist had enacted the threats they made, it is much less likely that another company will try to enter the market. The monopolist had made an example of that previous company, and anyone who suggests that the monopolist was bluffing will be forced to reconsider. The monopolist is said to have created a reputation of fighting competitors.

Example 2:
The prisoner's dilemma is another example of emergent behavior where reputation plays an important role. The prisoner's dilemma hypothesizes a situation where two suspects are held for interrogation. The police does not have enough evidence to convict them. Both suspects are offered the same deal: If you rat out the other suspect and they stay silent, you will walk out free, and the other suspect will get a five-years sentence. If you stay silent, and the other suspect rats, you will get a five years sentence, and the other suspect will walk out free. If you both rat each other, each of you will get a three-years sentence. If you both stay silent, you will be sentenced for one-year for a minor offense.

	Prisoner A silent	Prisoner A rat
Prisoner B silent	1 year for both	5 years for B
Prisoner B rat	5 years for A	3 years for both

The trick in this scenario is that both suspects have motive to rat the other person out. Regardless of what the other person does, you get the better part of the deal by being a rat. If the other person was a loyal and remained silent, you will go free by ratting him. If the other person was a rat, you will get a three-years sentence instead of five-years sentence.

However, the dilemma is that when both of them chooses to rat, they will both get three-years sentence, when it would have been better if they both could stick to staying silent, and just serve one-year sentence. The idea here is that by both being self-interested and uncooperative they get the worse part of the deal (3-years), although if they were cooperative and trusting they would have got a better deal (1-year).

So now, if we let reputation enter the picture. If both suspects had a reliable reputation of being cooperative and not rats, each one of them can trust the other person to stay silent. And none of them would rat the other person, because this will break their good reputation, and if a similar occasion arises their bad reputation will get them the bad part of the deal.

Evolution of Honor as a Psychological Mechanism

It is important to understand that evolution is a slow process, it takes ages to develop. And evolution is also a heuristic process, in the sense that it does not provide optimal solutions in minimal time, but rather depends on random occurrences, epiphenomena, indirect solutions to problems. In evolutionary psychology, psychological mechanisms are processes that arise to help solve certain problems that humans faced for prolonged periods of time. However, psychological mechanisms can be indirect solutions to problems. For example, sexual pleasure and sexual desire are epiphenomena that drive individuals to engage in acts that will likely cause them to procreate. So sexual desire is a psychological mechanism using which nature ensures that individuals procreate. Loving your child is a psychological mechanism using which nature ensures that parents look out for their children after they are born. And finally Honor is a psychological mechanism that ensures that individuals fend off for the things that improve their chances of survival.

However, as mentioned earlier, evolution is heuristic. For example, from procreation point of view, a sterile man or woman has no value for sexual desire. But the thing is, when people experience sexual desire, they are not directly thinking of procreation, and that's what it means to call it a psychological mechanism; Procreation is a by-product of sexual desire, but the psychological experience itself is not defined by procreation.

So when we apply what we discussed to the concept of Honor, we see that Honor is a psychological mechanism that solved problems for humans in the past. One problem is parental investment. From a parent's perspective, he or she is investing time and effort to support the immediate family. However, this behavior is usually motivated by a desire to invest in one's own offspring. Your children carry your genes so protecting them has survival value. However, if you were investing time and effort in some child, it is important to be sure that they carry your genes. When it comes to women, this is typically not a problem, because when she gets pregnant the child is without doubt her own. However, when it comes to men, things become less obvious. For this purpose, sexual fidelity becomes valuable. For the most part of human evolution, the technology of DNA tests was not available, and consequently the only way to be sure was to require sexual fidelity.

In this example of sexual infidelity, one question arises: What is the best strategy to handle infidelity? Several answers come to mind: Homicide is arguably one solution. Abandonment, abortion, DNA testing also seem like viable solutions. It is important to note that DNA testing is a recent technology, so human evolution has not yet adapted to the existence of this technology, and so our psychological mechanisms are unlikely to factor this option in. Homicide is a very aggressive solution, yet it is commonly used. This is for several reasons. For one, severe aggression imposes a high cost on sexual infidelity. Another reason is to create reputation and precedence which would deter future partners from sexual infidelity.

Just as the case of a sterile person having sexual desire seems misplaced. Honor can at times be misplaced, and sometimes even go plainly wrong. In the case of a husband killing his wife, some anomalies exist. What if the woman was sterile? What if she was using birth control? What if she was menstruating? These are situations where sexual infidelity might seem inconsequential, yet Honor is provoked because it is a psychological mechanism that is experienced independently of its purpose.

There are cases where Honor has obviously gone wrong. The most obvious example is suicide practiced by the Samurai as a form of Honor. This form of Honor is very counter-productive and provides no survival value, quite the contrary! There are other cases which are not as obvious. For example, Honor crimes committed against female family members. While in the case of a husband killing his wife, the reasons are pretty much obvious. It is much less obvious why a father would be concerned about sexual infidelity, premarital sex, or illegitimate children of his daughter. From an evolutionary perspective, immediate family members protect each other because they share some genes. Killing one's offspring seems like a waste of the time and resources invested in the upbringing of the offspring. However, this kind of behavior is not as clear as the case of Samurai suicide. At this point, the concept of Honor systems plays a major role.

Emergence of Honor Systems

Individuals in a society interact, and interactions lead to divergence of interests and creation of conflicts. Let's take the example of a father killing his daughter for premarital sex as a case study. In this scenario, it is clear that a parent has no immediate reason to make such a response. In fact, at first glance it might seem like a counter-productive behavior. However, once we realize that this parent lives in a society where individuals have their own agendas and honor codes the picture changes. The parent has invested time and effort in the upbringing of his offspring. But this interest does not end at his immediate offspring, but also in the offspring of his offspring. So given that men have developed psychological mechanisms that makes them avoid non-virgin women as partners, conflict of interests arises. Even though the parent may not have immediate concern of who the father of his grandchildren is, he is still concerned that his daughter procreate because a dead-end offspring has very little survival value. As a consequence, a need to protect the investment in his offspring arises. This example shows how Honor codes of the individuals is influenced by the Honor codes of other individuals who they interact with. The result of this process is an Honor system.

It becomes obvious that interactions between members of a society shapes and reshapes their conception of Valuables and the Honor codes that they have, and adapts to situational circumstances that the individual faces during their course of life.

Emergence of Law and Order

As societies progress, Honor systems become unwritten laws that societies abide in their day to day life to avoid aggressive conflict. However, as the social order among these societies keeps advancing, those unwritten laws usually transform into written laws that are used to keep order in those societies. While it might be a normal occurrence in some societies to shoot thieves that break into one's house to protect one's property, this type of transgression is now customarily handled by the police and courts to settle those sorts of conflicts.

In a civilization of law and order, it is usually discouraged that people take the law into their own hands and seek retribution. However, there are occasions when the law does not satisfy the needs of the individuals, and consequently, some individuals become determined to enact retribution outside the framework of the law.

The Intimacy Process Model

In psychology, one of the important theories is what is referred to as the "intimacy process model". Intimacy is a sense of closeness, familiarity, and affect toward another person. Intimacy plays a major role in interpersonal relationships as it is the basis of friendship and love. In this post we will look at the intimacy process model to have a better understanding of how intimacy is cultivated in interpersonal relationships.

To help put things in perspective, let's look at a diagram that sums up what this model suggests:

In this diagram, 'A' is someone who is disclosing information about him/herself to 'B' (I'll use the male pronoun for 'A' from this point on). Any kind of information that a person counts as significant about themselves counts. 'A' could be talking about a book they read, a movie they watched, an experience they had. 'A' could be talking about their feelings towards 'B' or someone else. Or he might be discussing some of their hopes, dreams, fears, ...etc.

Once 'A' shared some personal information, he is going to observe 'B''s reaction. 'A' is looking for confirmation from 'B'. The idea is that the feelings of intimacy that 'A' experiences towards 'B' will grow, insofar that 'A' feels understood, validated, and cared for. 'A' will be asking himself questions like: Does this person get me? Can he/she relate to what I am talking about? Does this person like me more or less now that I shared this information? Does this person's reaction show them to have interest in me?

'B''s reaction depends on two things, his/her interpretation of the information being revealed, and his/her own set of motives, needs, goals, and fears. 'B''s interpretation will depend on many factors, including -among others-: Past experiences, prejudices and biases, goals and dreams, fears, cultural background, sometimes even state of mind (eg. angry, excited, aroused).

Once 'B' has responded to 'A', now the same process of interpretation is going to happen. 'A' will interpret 'B''s reaction, and depending on how much his interpretation of 'B''s reaction is perceived as a sign of understanding, validation, and caring intimacy will grow. And of course, the cycle continues as long as 'A' keeps revealing information about themselves during the course of the relationship.

Needless to say, intimacy needs some balance. In other words, sharing and revealing of information should be a two way road. Both persons need to disclose something about themselves during conversations that take place in the course of the relationship. Lack of disclosure about personal information is usually perceived as lack of interest.

This process is significant throughout all the interactions between people, right from the moment you first meet a person, and all through the later stages of the relationship. It is important to be aware of how intimacy works, and how it is affecting your relationships with others.

Practical Advice on Interpersonal Relationships

In the past, I have addressed interpersonal relationships from a theoretical standpoint. While I consider the theory of relationships to be extremely important, yet the practice of relationships is equally as important. Theoretical understanding of relationships is not complete without a practical approach that allows the theory to become reality.

This entry is part of the general theme of posts addressing open-relationships. However, the advice applies just as well for closed-relationships as it applies to open-relationships. The reason that open-relationships are not common is because people find it difficult to handle relationships effectively, and the open nature of open-relationships would put lots of stress on any shortcomings in the way relationships are being handled. Closed-relationships avoid the types of situations that would bring problems in a relationship to the surface, and downplays the significance of trust, communication, honesty, and openness. On the other hand, open-relationships require lots of trust, communication, honesty, and openness, and any shortcomings in those areas would quickly cause problems and stress in the relationship. And if those issues were not handled promptly and skillfully, the relationship would deteriorate. It is for this reason I am writing this entry to share my insights about handling such issues in practice.

The basic guidelines to the survival of relationships includes five important tenets: 1- Being realistic and grounded 2- Being attentive and appreciative 3- Openness 4- Verbal communication 5- Honesty

Allow me to elaborate on those five general guidelines:

1- Being realistic and grounded:
It is important to be in touch with reality and being able to do reality checks. Having unrealistic expectations in a relationship can cause lots of problems and stress in a relationship. Any demands or expectations should be reasonable, otherwise your partner might feel overwhelmed or unappreciated. Another aspect of this advice is being able to translate what is "intangible" into something "tangible". Relationships deal with intangible issues, and being able to translate something that is intangible into something tangible would make handling such issues much easier, and allows you to make realistic claims.

For example, how do you know that someone is interested in you? They would talk to you, pay attention to what you are saying, ask questions that allows them to know you better, return your calls. How do you know that someone misses you? They would call if some time passed without seeing you. What makes a friendship? Investing time and effort in the continuity of the relationship and making it progress and develop over time.

The point being, those associations between behaviors and what those behaviors imply create a solid foundation on which intangible claims can be verifiable. This is the foundation on which trust is established. If those associations are available to you, then next time someone makes a claim you have something to indicate whether that claim is true or not. If someone says something like: I missed you, I am your friend, I love you, ...etc you have something to refer to, and attempt to qualify the claim. You don't need to take the person's word for what they claim, but rather have an apparatus to gauge how much the claim is real. And when those claims are revealed to be backed up by behaviors that support those claims, trust can start to grow.

So what every person needs to do is to think hard and deep about reliable indicators of people's intentions, and create a mental apparatus that allows them to reliably associate behaviors with intentions, feelings, attitudes, and all of the intangible values that are important in a relationship. The person needs to have this powerful tool present in their mind so that they can use it when needed.

2- Being attentive and appreciative:
Once a person has the mental apparatus mentioned above available to them, they need to use it. They need to pay attention to the different behaviors that their partner exhibits, and try to make educated guesses about their partner. They also need to be responsive to those behaviors. For example, if someone's behavior indicates that they are interested in you, do something that shows them that you noticed their interest in you, and let them know you are interested as well. If someone's behavior indicates that they want to become good friends, acknowledge them and try to engage in friendship building activities.

In other words, be aware of what is going on in the relationship, and let the person know that you are aware of the efforts that they put in the relationship. You also need to use the behavioral association technique in both directions. That is to say, not only should you use it to attempt to interpret your partner's intentions, but also use it to show your partner your intentions towards them. If, for example, you want to show your partner that you want to establish a friendship, use the same behavioral patterns to give your partner tangible indicators about your intentions.

3,4- Openness and Verbal Communication:
When you notice an indicative behavior it is not enough to respond in a behavioral manner, a verbal response is also important. So when you see any behavior that resonate in your mind, it is a good practice to verbally let your partner know that you noticed their behavior and appreciate its significance. It is also important to let your partner know how their tangible actions translate into intangible intentionality. For example, when your partner calls after having not seen him/her in a while, it is good to say something like: "Thank you for calling because this lets me know that you are thinking of me!" This form of communication shows that you appreciate the action, and also explains why the action is significant. Moreover, it shows your partner the mental process using which you interpret their behaviors. This allows your partner to make a mental note of the behavioral associations that exist in your mind, and gives them an idea of how you interpret them and their behaviors.

It is important to let your partner know the behavioral connotations that you have. Both positive and negative connotations. So, if your partner behaves in a way that has positive connotations to you, let them know about it. Same applies when your partner behaves in a way that you perceive to have negative connotations. For example, if your partner makes an important decision without consulting you, it is a good idea to say something like: "I feel that being excluded in the decision making process on this issue indicates that you put your needs ahead of mine! This is why your behavior makes me feel neglected!" Or, if your partner doesn't spend as much time with you as they used to, you can say something like: "The time we spend together is the most important resource for the continuity of the relationship. I feel that if we don't spend more time together the relationship would deteriorate."

When communicating with your partner, it is important to address feelings, emotions, desires, and perceptions. This is because those intangibles are the heart of the relationship, and they are what matters the most. However, those discussions need to be grounded, tangible, and accessible in order to be effective. Otherwise, frustration, disappointment, and even resentment might enter the equation. For example, if one partner says to the other: "I feel that you don't love me anymore!" This statement describes some feelings, however, it does not provide justification for those feelings, nor does it provide any indication of how the situation can be resolved. In this case, the accused partner will feel frustration because they would think: "How the hell am I supposed to show or prove that I still love him/her?!" This is because emotions are intangible, and in the absence of a method to ground those emotions to something tangible the situation would be difficult to resolve. Another possibility is that the accused partner would feel unappreciated because they might think: "I did 1,2,3... I cannot believe he/she does not acknowledge my contribution to the relationship!" And those feelings of being unappreciated might escalate to feelings of resentment. A third possibility is that the accused partner would address the issue and modify his/her behavior. However, this third possibility runs the risk that the behavioral changes do not match what the accuser had in mind, leading to disappointment to be experienced by both partners because they could not resolve the situation.

People do not always agree on the significance of actions, and what those actions indicate. Other times people are not aware of their behaviors and how others interpret and react to their actions. It is for those reasons that it is important for partners discuss in an open and clear manner their expectations and perceptions and voice out their concerns. They also need to discuss the why and how those behavioral associations came to be, because when partners don't agree on what actions translate to, they need to address the mental process using which the translation is justified.

5- Honesty:
Honesty is the basis of intimacy and trust. Sharing information about oneself is how intimacy is cultivated. Getting to know one another creates familiarity and understanding. It is also the process through which trust is founded. Being honest all the time is a difficult task, and requires lots of practice until you can master this essential skill. However, as long as the people in the relationship do not engage in this practice, the relationship cannot grow and will get stuck at some level without any possibility of improvement.

The most difficult part of honesty is knowing the truth. If you do not know the truth, you cannot possibly tell anyone the truth, simply because you cannot speak of what does not exist in your mind. It is for this reason, the first step of honesty is being self-aware. Ask yourself difficult questions, and don't feel threatened by your own thoughts. After all, your thoughts are private and no one can read your thoughts. So, the first step is being honest with oneself. After you understand the truth, you should be aware of your lies. It is difficult to be honest right away, but it is important that you be aware of the information that you reveal about yourself and the accuracy of those information. The third step is to devise proper circumstances to disclose the truth. Understand why you feel the need to lie about yourself to others, then make sure that you are comfortable with who you are, then disclose information about yourself to people you feel comfortable with in non-threatening situations. Finally, after having practiced disclosing information about yourself in comfortable circumstances, you should be able to move to the final stage of disclosing the truth under all circumstances.

Honesty can dramatically improve the quality of relationships, so it would payoff to establish honesty as a norm in all of your intimate relationships. It is important to note that honesty does not only imply telling the truth, but also volunteering the truth. Lies of omission or simply not stating something because nobody asked about it is a form of dishonesty. Honesty involves desire to disclose information, not only truthfulness of disclosed information.

Intimate Partner Violence (Domestic Violence)

Introduction:
Throughout the years one of most visited posts I had was the emotional rape post. Many people have acknowledged that post touched a relevant topic to people. In this post, I will address the social phenomenon of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV), which I believe is a topic of extreme relevance, especially in the light of women issues.

This post is based on data and research done in the USA, and I am pretty sure that things are even worse when applied to Jordan and the general region that surround it. I am going to address this topic from surveys and sociology perspectives.

First, we must identify the two major types of IPV:

• 1- Common Couples Violence
• 2- Intimate Terrorism

Common Couples Violence (CCV) is the most prevalent form of IPV, and what differentiates CCV from Intimate Terrorism is not the degree or amount of violence, as CCV cover a wide range of violent behaviors from slamming the door in anger to attacking with a knife, and sometimes murder. But CCV is characterized as reactive, emotional, and motivated by frustration. CCV is a result of loss of control due to anger or some other forms of stress. CCV is usually mutual, in the sense that both partners participate in the acts of violence.

On the other hand, Intimate Terrorism is a much more dangerous form of IPV, and is believed to be less common compared to CCV. Intimate Terrorism is characterized as proactive, strategic, and motivated by desire to control the partner. Intimate Terrorism involves physical, sexual, and emotional abuse.

Common Couples Violence:

CCV is a sad reality of many intimate relationships. Everybody is pretty much familiar of how it happens; It starts with a heated argument, that escalates to name calling, then psychological aggression, and then physical violence starts. This physical violence manifests itself in various forms: Leaving the room angry, and slamming the door on the way out. Throwing something at the partner. Throwing a dish on the floor. Things might get even uglier where one partner hits, kicks, pushes, and maybe even punches their partner. There are several myths that surround CCV (and IPV in general), and I will address them now:

MYTH 1 - IPV is rare: Reasoned thinking might suggest that two people in a loving relationship would not hurt one another through violence. However, reality is not that simple; many people engage in violent behavior directed towards their significant other. In one survey, conducted by Straus in 1980, 12.1% of husbands and 11.6% of wives admitted that they engaged in physical violence against their partner. Note that this survey used self-reports methodology, in the sense that it asked participants to describe violence that they committed (as opposed to what they were subjected to). Obviously, this percentage is actually high, even considering that it must be an underestimate, since many people would not be willing to admit that they engaged in violent behavior.

MYTH 2 - IPV only happens between unhappy couples: Some people might argue that IPV only happens between unhappy couples or loveless marriages. Evidence does not seem to support this claim. Some studies have shown that 50% of newlywed couples (who also report that they are happy) engage in physical violence. Another study in 1992 has shown that high rates of engaged couples who engage in physical violence eventually get married.

MYTH 3 - Only men are violent: As the 1980 study by Straus suggests not only men are violent, but women too. In more recent studies, that also used self-reports methodology, women were reportedly being more aggressive than men. However, those studies have two known weaknesses. First, this result does not show that women are necessarily more violent, it could just mean that they are more willing to admit that they engaged in violent behavior. Secondly, those studies focused on behaviors without regard to impact. So, even if women were more likely to slap or punch their partners, the physical damage incurred in such occurrences is not symmetrical to a slap or a punch from the male partner towards the woman. So, studies that focus on violent behaviors can be misleading when the impact of violence is neglected.

MYTH 4 - IPV only happens between married couples: The rationale here is that only committed couples stay in violent relationships; Non-committed couples would simply walkaway. As previously mentioned, some engaged couples who experience violence do eventually get married. There is evidence that violence in relationships also happens in teenage relationships, college relationships, and cohabiting couples. Even some dating couples continue a relationship despite of violence.

Common Couples Violence can be categorized by the impact into two categories:

• 1- Moderately Aggressive: This includes throwing stuff, grab, shove, slapping, non-excessive punch.
  
• 2- Severely Aggressive: This includes: Bruising punches or slaps, heavy beating, threatening with a knife or gun, and attacking with a knife or gun.

In one study, newlywed couples were studied to see what is the relationship between CCV and divorce rates. After four years, 62% of non-violent couples were still married, 54% of moderately violent couples were still married, and only 7% of severely violent couples were still married. As it seems, severe aggression among couples was an important predictor of divorce, whereas moderate aggression was not a direct cause of divorce.

Many couples do not recognize violence as a problem in their relationship. In one study, women that were seeking couples therapy were asked: "What is the most important problem that you hope couples therapy would resolve?". Only 6% reported IPV as the answer to that question. On the other hand, 56% of those women reported that violence happens in their relationship. In other words, 50% of women seeking couples therapy reported that violence exists in their relationship, albeit it was not the reason they were seeking couples therapy.

This suggests that many couples don't see CCV as a problem in and of itself, but rather a manifestation of some other problems. So, if for example, one couple were arguing over a financial situation, and this argument escalates to physical violence, those couples are more likely to think that financial difficulties is the real problem, rather than CCV.

Intimate Terrorism:

Definition: A systematic and sustained effort to control and dominate a partner through physical violence, verbal and psychological abuse, sexual coercion and abuse, economic and social control, and threats.

CCV is reactive. Couples who fail to properly channel their anger and frustration, would let verbal fights escalate to physical violence. In CCV, couples lose control over their behavior an engage in hostile acts. However, Intimate Terrorism is proactive. It is purposeful and systematized. And the purpose of Intimate Terrorism is to control and dominate the partner. To put the partner in a state of fear and submission.

One of the mostly important contributions to the field of Intimate Terrorism is the "Power and Control wheel" (pdf).

This wheel shows "Power and Control" as the center as all the behaviors that are exhibited have one common goal, which is to gain power and control. The rim of the wheel shows "physical violence" because all of the behaviors being described are enabled through the use of physical violence. The behaviors mentioned are as follows:

• Emotional Abuse: Belittle and name calling. The idea is that the abuser tries to convince the victim that she is worthless, incompetent, and even not worthy of love. The abuser might say something like: "You are worthless. Luckily for you, I love you, because if I didn't love you, nobody else would!". The idea is that if she believes that she is worthless, then she would be broken, yet feeling in-debt to the abuser. Hence the abuser gains complete control.
  
• Sexual Abuse: Spousal rape. Disrupting sleep to have sex. Forcing unwanted sexual activities. Unfounded accusations of sexual infidelity.
• Isolation: To control who the victim knows, sees, or interacts with. Cutting ties with the family and the outside world, to make sure that the victim cannot get the help she desperately needs.
  
• Minimizing, denying, and blaming: The abuser denies that his actions are violent, convinces the victim that she is overreacting, blaming her for the violence. The abuser might say something like: "Well, had you done the things I asked you to do, I wouldn't have had to hit you. So next time be a dear and do exactly as I say."
  
• Using children: Making the victim feel responsibility towards the children, possibly by threatening violence towards the children if she does not obey.
  
• Economic Abuse: Denying women the right to work and making them dependent on the abuser. Closing their bank accounts, cutting their credit cards. All of these actions make the victim dependent on the abuser, and consequently giving them control.
  
• Male Privilege: Using social norms and gender roles to enforce and justify the situation.
  
• Intimidation, Coercion and Threats: Making threats of using physical violence.

One of the questions that arise is: Why do women who are with an abusive partner remain in the relationship? The question is difficult, but there are some good reasons that explain this behavior. First of all, those women are usually helpless. As explained by the behaviors mentioned above, those women are in a state of terror, their confidence is eroded, their ties with the outside world is limited, they are emotionally and financially dependent, and they are afraid that any attempt to escape will create extreme violent reactions from their partner. In USA, there are battered women shelters, which host battered women, give them protection, and in extreme cases those shelters would give the women new identities so that they can escape safely from their partners. However, some women in abusive relationships might not even know of the existence of those shelters, because their partner has cut down all routes of information which may be used to seek help.

Another important reason is revealed through the cycle of abuse (pdf).

The cycle of abuse happens in three phases (some might say four):

• Tension-building: The abuser shows signs of discontent, creates tense situations. This phase lasts for several days.
  
• Abusive incident: This is when the violence happens.
  
• Reconciliation: This is the most crucial phase. In this phase the abuser apologizes, promises to change, and promises the abuse would not happen again. The problem is that this phase creates positive reinforcement. After the abuse, the victim feels rewarded by for sticking around and not walking away from the relationship. The victim feels rewarded for forgiving her partner. It is also important to realize that the victim is highly motivated to believe those promises, because she is dependent on the abuser, and she is forced to a certain extent to put up with the abuse. And hence, this "honeymoon" phase is misinterpreted as a positive experience.
  

Studies have shown that the best way to resolve Intimate Terrorism is to help the victim escape, preferably with the aid of professionals who work for humanitarian causes.

Conclusion:
As usual, awareness if the first line of defense. So being educated about those issues should be crucial to battling those phenomena.


PS: This entry is based on lecture by professor Benjamen Karney, titled "Managing Differences, Part 2"

About Love - Part 1: Love and Jealousy

This post handles the issue of open-relationships, however it approaches the subject from the point of view of the emotions that are relevant to relationships. The notion of love is very critical to the conception of interpersonal relationships, because the emotion of love is one of the determining factors to the nature of that relationship.

Love is a general term. Consider the following statements:
- "I love chocolate."
- "I love science."
- "I love my parents."
- "I love my son."
- "I love being in love." (Or a general case of loving a particular emotion)
- "I love that person." (In the context of friendship)
- "I love that person." (In a context of romance)

As it seems, there are different notions of love. There are different types of things that can be the object of love. And there are numerous ways to love an object of a given category.

However, the general theme of love has to do with the feelings that are accompanied with the object of love. Generally speaking, pleasant and positive feelings. So when you say, "I love chocolate" your love is contingent on the 'reinforcing' feeling that occurs when you experience eating chocolate. Same applies to the statement about loving science, which implies that there are pleasant feelings that accompany the experience of studying science.

Let's take a moment and talk about the concept of a 'reinforcing feeling'. I will not discuss the causality issue of reinforcing feelings, but the phenomenon of it. A reinforcing feeling is the type of feeling that you will want to experience again. You eat chocolate, you like the taste, so you will want to eat more. You find studying science enjoyable so you will engage yourself in that activity. And this relationship between an experience and the feelings that accompany that experience, coupled with a contingency that the feelings in question are pleasant (hence reinforcing feelings) would be the basis upon which the emotion of love is realized.

So, let's further our discussion to the cases where the object of love is a person. In those cases, the interaction is more elaborate, and the concept of reciprocal love comes into light. If you love chocolate, the interaction is strictly one-sided since chocolate is an inanimate object. If you love your cat, the situation gets slightly more complicated since the interaction is two-sided. However, when you love a person there are many more elements that come into play. Reciprocity in love becomes a major element. However, in my personal view which is consistent with the view of reinforcing feeling, love of one person to another is independent of being 'loved back'. Hence, one-sided love is an actual possibility. In general, reciprocation of love acts as an amplification tool. In other words, if you find that being with a person is a pleasant experience, and they in return find your company pleasurable, two things will happen: First, the two-sided positive interaction will make the experience more pleasurable, and hence would enhance the 'quality' of the experience. Second, the two people are naturally going to spend more time together, and thus will increase the 'quantity' of the experience. And the combination of those two effects would amplify the experiences which realizes a more profound notion of love.

This conclusion is important, so as to differentiate love as a feeling directed towards a person, and love viewed in the context of a relationship. This implies that the conception of love in the context of a relationship needs to be a pleasant experience in the case of bestowal of love, as well as, the reception of love.

While the concept of love that I just described is highly self-centered, but still this love involves the concept of a relationship (in the general sense) and can also be related to interpersonal relationships. If we consider the statement "Person-X loves Object-Y", we are describing an interaction between 'Person-X' and 'Object-Y', and not only are we implying that there is an interaction, but that this interaction is considered to be a pleasant experience from Person-X's point of view. And this interaction embodies the relationship in question.

After this crude introduction to the emotion of love, let's divert our attention to the emotion of jealousy. Again jealousy means different things to different people, but the most general theme about jealousy is fear of loss. This is the main property that I will assume to be characteristic to the emotion of jealousy. And to make a stronger notion of jealousy, jealousy is about fear of loss of ownership.

To make an example outside the realm of sexuality and fidelity, let's consider this typical scenario concerning children. Let's consider two little kids, and they are playing together in a room. And in that room there is a toy that belongs to one of the kids. At some point the kid that does not own the toy, goes ahead and starts playing with that toy. Now, the kid who the toy belongs to would notice this action, and this would trigger the emotion of jealousy, and consequently would go to the other kid and asserts his sense of ownership. He might say something like: "Give it back, it's mine!". This scenario illustrates a display of the emotion of jealousy.

And this is exactly what happens in a sexual context or even a pseudo-sexual context. If a man sees another man hitting on 'his woman', it would trigger an emotion of jealousy, and would consequently try to assert his sense of ownership. Needless to say, this is a general theme that applies to girls being jealous towards another girl, and it also applies in a context of non-heterosexuality. That being said, the general theme here is that people are acting based on a perceived sense of ownership.

However, this sense of ownership needs to be put in question. It is a generally accepted notion that people who are in love 'belong together'. But jealousy is actually demonstrating a different notion that people who are in love 'belong TO each other'. Personally, I consider both notions to be misleading. And I also consider the notion of 'belonging-to someone' as not only misleading, but insulting as well. In other words, I would consider the notion that 'Person-X belongs to me' as an insult towards Person-X, and I -personally- find that insulting someone I love as an action that is not in my best interest. Likewise, I would put into question a statement of love from a person who is insulting me.

So, if we go back to the view that love is correlated to pleasant feelings, I find that insult does not fit the profile of love, and consequently jealousy and love are at direct contradiction (at least based on that particular view of insult and unpleasantness).

There is a notion that some people believe that jealousy is an act of love. The argument would go something like: "If you love a person, it is a normal -maybe even healthy- to display the emotion of jealousy." Personally, I dismiss such an argument based on my above mentioned views. However, there are some more generalized accounts based on which we might dismiss this argument. One such account is the view that jealousy is a 'distancing emotion' and it also is a display of distrust. Jealousy at its core is a fight of "me" against "them", and in this mental picture, the person views himself at a distance, and views that his partner and the third party are forming a bond which he needs to break. And hence, the person who feels jealousy continuously perceives the relationship to be in flux, where the relationship is suffering from continuous ups and downs that he needs to fix. This shows that the person feeling jealousy sees the relationship as 'hanging-by-a-thread', and also shows a great amount of insecurity regarding the trustworthiness of his partner.

Jealousy in terms of the objects that the dynamics are occurring can be thought of as a 'threesome'. It is a 'threesome' in the sense that it involves three entities. The lover, the object of love, and the rival. When talking about jealousy we are often discussing the theme of a love triangle. A guy is in love with a girl, and there is another guy trying to win the love of that girl. However, if we take one step back, and see the larger picture, we find out that jealousy (in the sexual context) is actually a 'foursome', the fourth entity being society. This is in the sense that the jealous person is not only concerned about his personal interest in the loved one, but also concerned about the feelings of shame and embarrassment that is associated with infidelity. There is a social pressure that if a man sleeps with your wife, then you will be socially rejected. If we want to discuss jealousy in terms of fear of loss, we can easily see that a person has not only a loved person at stake, but also a perceived notion of 'honor' as it is applicable in the social context. I will not go into further details about this problem, but it is obvious that the social context of a relationship is influential.

In addition to jealousy, there is a related -but very different- aspect of negative emotions that are emphasized in closed-relationships. This aspect is mostly illustrated in discussions I have about open-relationships with guys, namely envy. The argument goes as follows: "Imagine that you got a girlfriend, you agree to have an open-relationship, and the end result is that your girlfriend is having sex with a new guy every day, while you are failing at finding any sexual partners. Would you still want the relationship to be open?" Now, obviously this argument reduces open-relationships to a contest of which partner 'scores' the most. Envy is the emotion that is characterized by distress over other people's good fortune, which is exactly whats going on in this particular argument. This kind of argument shows deep misunderstanding of the person making that argument as to what open-relationships are really about, but it also demonstrates a very negative aspect of closed-relationships. Jealousy is an emotion directed towards a third party, who is perceived as threat to what we own. On the other hand, envy is an emotion directed towards your partner in such a way that you'd hate for good things to happen to your partner. And this emotion of envy, in my opinion, is at much more contradiction with regards to love, compared to jealousy. In other words, if the concept of love leads to destructive actions directed towards your partner, then that conception of love is self-refuting.

Now, let's talk about a concept that many people have, namely 'true love'. The notion of 'true love' implies the existence of another notion of 'false love'. I am not interested in the exact definitions of those notions, but the fact that we differentiate those categories is revealing. The distinction implies that 'true love' has specific features that do not exist in the general concept of love. And since we are considering love in terms of the feelings that accompany it, this means that the person making the distinction has a different set of feelings to describe 'true love' as opposed to 'false love'. So, for the sake of argument, let's define 'true love' as the type of love someone is interested in. Which means that the person looking for 'true love' is looking for a specific set of feelings that accompany that emotion of love.

Going back to the emotion of jealousy, some people might argue that in fact jealousy leads to pleasant feelings. To demonstrate that, let's go back to the example of the kids, where one kid starts playing with a toy that does not belong to him. To view the events in terms of causality we can say that:
1- The kid who displays jealousy has a perceived notion of ownership of the toy.
2- The kid then perceives a situation where his sense of ownership is threatened
3- Based on that perception the emotion of jealousy is triggered
4- The kid decides to act upon his sense of ownership
5- The kid consequently asserts his sense of ownership
And at stage 5, our example has ended. But let's consider the continuation of this scenario, by supposing that the other kid concedes and gives back the toy.
6- The toy is returned
7- At this point, the kid to whom the toy belongs to might get a sense of authority over the other kid.
8- This perceived sense of authority is interpreted as a pleasant feeling.

We can see that jealousy has a causal relationship with pleasant feelings under some circumstances. And this leads some people to find a correlation between love and jealousy. Basically, the person who asserts that his notion of love requires sexual fidelity, is indirectly trying to satisfy a need for authority. So when a person tells a loved one: "I expect you to be sexually faithful", he is indirectly saying: "One of the pleasant feelings that I experience with you is a sense of authority, and you need to keep it that way, because my love for you is contingent on that pleasant feeling." In other words, love is reduced to a tool using which a person maintains his sense of authority.

At this point we can go back to the notion of 'true love', and ask ourselves: "Is that sense of authority a feeling that I would ascribe to the kind of love that I am interested in?". For some people the answer is 'yes', but for me, the answer is 'definitely not'. Obviously, this argument implies that open-relationships does not work for everybody, only the subset of people who reject the view that jealousy is a desirable feature of love.

Of course, some people would argue that expectations of fidelity have less to do with the sense of authority, and more to do with the sense of security. I agree that in this view expectations of fidelity can be viewed less harshly, but once again the question is raised: "Is that sense of security a feeling that I would ascribe to the kind of love that I am interested in?"

Finally, this series of posts handles only a small part of my personal theory of open-relationships. Open-relationships can be approached in terms of emotions, psychology, dynamics of relationships, ethics of relationships, or practice. This post discussed the emotions of love and jealousy. But this is not the most important issue regarding open-relationships in my opinion. The issue the I think is most important is the dynamics of the relationships, which I introduced (without details) in this post. In the context of that post, love is part of the motivation to be in a relationship. And thus, this series is merely one aspect of the broad topic of open-relationships.

In this series:
About Love - Part 1: Love and Jealousy
About Love - Part 2: Love and Curiosity
Next: About Love - Part 3: Love and Sexuality
Next: About Love - Part 4: True Love

Meta-Religion: RHP vs LHP

One of the main concepts that need to be addressed when analyzing religions is the difference between a Left Hand Path (LHP) religion, and a Right Hand Path (RHP) religion. Since the exact definition of the RHP and LHP is not well established, I will approach those concepts from a point of view that is most meaningful for my personal views.

Most mainstream religions follow the RHP; Examples include all Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Islam, Judaism). Most Satanic divisions follow the LHP.

So what do those paths entail?!

The main difference between those two paths is their views to individualism, morality, meaning, and the way their followers perceive idealism. First of all, LHP religions emphasize individualism and self-reliance. The RHP emphasizes the need for a deity or a divine being. The RHP believes that humans cannot achieve goodness on their own. The intent of "Right-Hand Path" belief systems is to attain proximity to divinity, or integration with divinity. That's why we find RHP followers try to connect with a divine being through different methods. The RHP conceives perfection of its deity, and tries to achieve that perfection through methods dictated by that deity, or by imitating that deity.

We find that this issue in particular is a major attack point of RHP followers against LHP followers. Although atheism is not strictly a LHP (some atheists might subscribe to the RHP), but we find that RHP followers are afraid of atheists. Atheists are usually described as being immoral while "God" followers are described as moral. A common argument that RHP followers usually present is that they attain their morals from their holy books and their God, then they ask where do the atheists get their morals from?!

"Codes of morality, of course, have always been grounded in religion. For those of us in Western civilization, its tenets emanate from the Judeo-Christian ethos. By casting this heritage aside, and replacing it with nothing more than the conscience of lone individuals, we lay the groundwork for moral anarchy." — Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League

"How do we define 'good' if we don't believe in God? God in his word, the Bible, tells us what's good and bad and right and wrong. If we are each ourselves defining what's good, it's going to be a crazy world." — Tim Wildmon, American Family Association

If we look in depth at that argument we find that those RHP followers cannot perceive morality to be attained without a deity. This approach is very dangerous; A good article on this subject called: "Positive Atheism: Ethical Stability" demonstrates the volatility of the RHP approach to morality.

"If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed." — Albert Einstein

While the above quote handles a slightly different issue that might not apply to all RHP religions, this is another argument about the moral volatility of some mainstream religions.

In short, the RHP religions are based on the belief that humans need a deity to achieve goodness, morality, idealism, giving their life meaning, deliverance, and many other concepts that they believe that they cannot achieve on their own. In contrast, the LHP is based on the belief that humans need to work on and make an effort to achieve goodness, morality, meaning, ...etc, and that humans can achieve those results on their own. Results may vary, one person might find meaning different than another, another might find morality different than another, and some might define goodness different than others. Some might achieve their set goals, other might not. No deities are needed, no supernaturals, only the work of human hands. As we can see, choice and responsibility are very necessary for the LHP.

RHP is based on the belief that humans need to be part of something larger than themselves. They need a deity to give their lives meaning. The RHP religions usually require submission to a collective group and\or a deity. For this reason, we find that RHP followers are usually involved in working for a "greater will", a "divine plan", or "God's will"!! All those concepts diminish the value of the individual because those individuals are only perceived to have value through their connection to the deity. On the other hand, the LHP emphasizes the value of the individual independently of any groups they might participate in. The LHP is solitary, individualistic, personal, based on self-development, self-analysis, and self-empowerment.

This shades some light on the common questions Satanists receive by those with a RHP background. "Why do you worship Satan?", "Who do you worship?", as pressing as it might seem to the RHP followers to know "who to worship", this question is of least significance in the LHP, and is also pretty much meaningless question. The need of an object to worship is a characteristic of the RHP that can be very blinding when applying this methodology to a LHP religion. The RHP followers fail to perceive a religion where there is no-one to worship, where there is no leader to follow, where there is no absolute book of truth.

Another aspect where the LHP and RHP differ is their attitude toward the concept of darkness. LHP usually embraces darkness, while RHP usually fears darkness. Darkness symbolizes lack of sight, or more generally lack of knowledge. Darkness also symbolizes the unknown.

So why does the RHP fear the darkness while the LHP embraces it?!

The reason is that RHP is based on the belief that the humans lack the ability to learn and to explore the unknown. RHP is based on the concept of guidance. RHP depends on a divine being guiding its followers, a divine being to light up their path and show them the way. In contrast, the LHP is based on self-reliance. LHP encourages exploration of the darkness. LHP is based on the the humans' ability to create light in the darkness. So LHP does not avoid the darkness, but encourages its followers to explore that darkness, uncover its deepest secrets, and bring it into the light.

The conception of "God" is an obvious example of the RHP disbelief in the humans' ability to explore the unknown. While the exact details of the origin of the universe is unknown, the RHP simply does not give humans the chance to explore, and discover the reality of the origins of the universe on their own. Instead, the RHP provides unfounded conception of "God", thus releasing its followers from the need to explore.

In addition to what has been said, the LHP differs from the RHP in that the LHP emphasizes on freethought, whereas the RHP is usually dogmatic with strict rules. The LHP expects its followers to individually investigate, analyze, and decide their own set of beliefs, morals, ethics, make their own decisions, and plan their own lives. This is evident in all LHP literature that leaves so much for the individual to decide on their own. On the other hand, the RHP expects its followers to follow a strict set of rules and dogma. Many followers of the RHP become too engaged with following rules, and if no rules exist in their books, they might consult a theologian of their respective religion. Some RHP religions reach ridiculous extents in such rulings, that some RHP religions interfere with the personal life of its followers. For example, Islam and Judaism have strict rules of what its followers may and may not eat... In my personal opinion, those fine-grained rules that handles the most trivial issues, such as what and what not to eat, shows how much those RHP religions are absorbed in the process of dogmatism and the dire need for submission.

To make it in few points:

• RHP is the path of dependence on and\or submission to an ideal being, with perceived perfection, usually a deity.
  
• RHP is the path lightened by the perceived ideal, and guidance is provided through that ideal or its teachings.
  
• RHP is the path of integration with something larger than oneself, usually a deity, or the group of followers.
  
• LHP is the path of independence and self-reliance.
  
• LHP is the path of freethought.
  
• LHP is the path of responsibility through choice.
  
• LHP is the path of creating your own conception of morality, goodness, and idealism.
  
• LHP is the path of unguided explorations, and uncovering the unknown.
  
• LHP is the path of appreciating your own individualism and uniqueness.

Keeping Myself Alive Through Your Empathy

Keeping myself alive...
Through your EMPATHY (Slipknot - Skin Ticket)

Begging is an art. Sure we all get annoyed by those nuisances who get in our ways in public places asking for our money. But from a different perspective, they have learnt some lessons in life that an average person wouldn't know: The human fragility, ego, sympathy and empathy.

Humans express a wide range of emotions, and being able to interact with those emotions is an art. Consider this little girl, dressed in a nice modest-looking dress, selling a small white or red flower for at some overpriced rate. Guess most of us have seen her one time or another.... A classic, we've all heard bedtime stories about a princess with a flower in her hand... So boom, there goes that girl shattering all that you know as child, asking for your "generosity"... Can you resist the temptation?!.... So, how much of an effort did that girl put to come up with such a brilliant idea?! It needs an expert psychologist to figure this one out!!!

In some cultures, parents would not give their daughters to a man for marriage if he didn't get out begging for at least a week. They believe that a man who cannot beg is not worthy of their daughter... Why is begging so important in such a culture that it can make a difference between a worthy husband and an unworthy one?!

It is true that in many cases a nice word or a simple gesture, can achieve more than hardship. Maybe this is the lesson that beggars understand better than anyone else. Maybe we can have a new requirement for certain jobs to get a "begging tour". Jobs like customer care, or maybe sales representatives (practically, "sales" is "corporate beggary") can make use of experience gained through begging.

Omnisexuality: The Unrestrained Sexual Orientation

Introduction and Basic Definition:
Omnisexuality (sometimes called Pansexuality) is a term used to describe undiscriminating choice for sexual and\or romantic partners. Most people are familiar with the term "bisexuality", which includes both "homo" and "hetero" partners for sexual and\or romantic affairs. Pansexuality extends beyond bisexuality, to include the sexes that are usually referred to as "others", including -but not limited to- transsexuals (people who undergone a sex-change operation) and intersexes (people who don't fall in either male or female profiles). Omnisexuality even expands beyond pansexuality to include sexuality with non-humans.

Personally, I like to identify myself as omnisexual, which roughly means: "I'd fuck anything that has a hole I can put my dick in!" Okay, that was an overshoot of a simplification, but guess you got the idea.

Some might think that extending sexuality to non-humans would include "zoosexuality". Technically yes... But since I consider consent to be an important precondition to sex, which pretty much excludes animals of the list. The reason I extend non-human species on the list is because [in my futuristic fantasy] I would be open to have sex with intelligent alien species - [Okay, guess Star Trek messed me up in this part]. So, I consider myself open to relationships with any species that I can have a mind-to-mind chat with.

Sensual Side of Sexuality:
Sexuality is a primary carnal drive. Sex is generally considered as a source for pleasurable sensations. Since, the primary reason for engaging in sexual activity is pleasure, then it seems unreasonable to discriminate pleasure according to its source. That's to say, if two things provide exactly the same sensual experiences, then those experiences are equal regardless of their source.

Consider this simplest act of getting a blow job, that is, using the mouth for sexual stimulation. Since a male's and female's mouths provide roughly equivalent experiences, then if you close your eyes and someone (either male or female) gives you a blow job, the sensation is the same, and the pleasure is the same!

I remember a friend once telling me about a film where the camera starts rolling with really nice feet, moving up to show nice shaved tall legs, moving further up to show a really nice ass... At that point, as that friend describes started wanking his dick... The camera kept moving up until it was revealed that the person shown was a guy - not some hot chick. As that friend describes, it totally blew the moment! He then goes on to explain that he thought about the incident for a while and later on realized that, since that nice ass was indistinguishable from a hot chick's ass, that the marginal fact that its a guy's ass shouldn't stop him from enjoying that nice ass!! And I totally agree with him, it's exactly the point I am making.

Emotional Side of Sexuality:
In my personal understanding, sexuality represents acceptance. When you can accept someone then you would not mind getting naked around them, and allowing the exchange of pleasure. In this understanding, it seems to me, the more people you accept, the wider the sexual orientation would expand.

Mutual acceptance seems that most emotionally gratifying product of sexual activity.

In that light, I consider my hypothetical acceptance of the idea of having sex with an alien, as a symbolic acceptance of what might seem weired or "alien" to us as earthlings.

Conscious Choice of Sexual Orientation:
Opposed to the popular view that sexual orientation is determined during early stages and is immutable, I disagree and think that sexual orientation is a choice conscious choice plays an important [but NOT exclusive] role in sexual orientation. I think that anyone would naturally attain gratification from any sexual experience, and that the choice of limiting the sources of sexual gratification is a product of a psychological process biological AND psychological factors on both conscious and subconscious levels, as well as prenatal experiences.

It is known that most people have bisexual urges, but people later on focus their sexual orientation towards one of the sexes (usually the opposite sex). I don't really see why some people insist on limiting their sexual orientations to "hetero only" or "homo only"... It doesn't make perfect sense to me. Why make only 50% of people as potential sources of pleasure, when it is possible to have 100% of people as potential sources of pleasure?!

Obviously, our social constructs increase the tendency of people to pick one of the genders as potential sexual partners. These constructs usually defined stereotyped views of males, females, and the relationships between people of different genders. For example, the socially constructed views about the importance of sexuality between males and females drive most people to the opposite sex, while this social pressure might negatively affect others and drive them away from the opposite sex towards the same sex. In my opinion, in many cases [but not all] sexual orientation is an extension of gender stereotypes AND stereotyped gender roles formulated by the society which are strongly reinforced by the society.

Edit: The last section was modified to resolve some ambious interpretations