7-2-12 PRELIMINARY THOUGHTS ON CONDITIONAL "LOVE"
Posted by Vincente E. Woodward on Monday, July 2, 2012
Many of us speak in terms of conditionality when we speak about love.
We can be heard speaking of conditional and/or unconditional love.
Likewise with affection, and social company, and social standing in your family unit, etc.
When we look around we notice that our relationships with our closest loved ones are almost definitely conditioned upon certain behavior, or fulfilling of certain expectations.
These "expectations" seem to be ever present and ever prevalent, as a simple fact of life.
Conditionality is likely found at the very foundation of many or most interpersonal relationships.
We acknowledge this fact when we say, for example, "I am not going to take any more of this nonsense", or words to that effect.
This is a way of saying that there are boundaries and limits which either must be respected or there will be no more interpersonal relationship.
These rules are fluid, in the extreme.
One of the funniest things about humans is just how elastic they can be with one person one moment, while being completely inelastic with another person, within seconds of the first.
Now, when I think of this subject of "conditional love"
I immediately think of two things.
The one is the fact that many, or most, of my very closest relationships are based upon unconditional love.
If they were not, I very much would not be having the relationships in the first place.
When you spend nearly every hour of every day with a person or persons for decades, there is a lot of forgiving and forgetting which must be done, if everyone is to continue talking and communicating with one another.
It is only after fully comprehending the totality of the situation that one can come to the conclusion, whether reasonable or not, that I am going to put up with this nonsense, at least for the time being, typically for what I perceive as some, hopefully, much higher cause/s.
The fluid rules of interpersonal relationship have now become, should I say, VERY fluid.
This kind of continuous forgiveness should only be reserved for the very finest of persons.
Persons who will make mistakes and do stupid things, but who will learn from it and not continue down the same ridiculous path.
We call this GROWTH.
And the only way I have ever been able to find to consistently encourage it over time is by forgiving much and forgetting much and putting up with a whole lot which I would really rather not put up with, sacrificing my needs for the needs ot my loved ones.
Now, the second thing which the subject of "conditional love" brings immediately to mind is the NARCISSIST child (the offspring of the narcissistic parent/s).
Here everything to which I have alluded above about "unconditional love" and "forgiving" and "forgetting" and living for others self-sacrificially, will have been turned completely upside down.
Only, it will be done in a very sly, devious, and underhanded way.
Here the "love" is HIGHLY! conditional.
And the poor internally miserable child of the narcissist is nearly continuously being reminded of it in the most cruel and horrific ways imaginable.
The pain is deep and constant and will never let up so long as the parent is alive, and likely not even then.
The child is encouraged to NOT INDIVIDUATE, as intended by nature, so as to NOT divide off from the parent into a completely separate and healthy personality and fully integrated psyche.
Instead, the child is forced, in many ways, both psychically and materially/economically, to remain bound to the parent, almost as an appendage, or maybe even as an afterthought.
And the child knows from numerous bitter experiences that "the fix is in" and the "deck is stacked" with a vengeance, with little or nothing he or she can do about it.
Where nature has provided for the child to emotionally and psychically INDIVIDUATE
(i.e. to "divide off" and become
a separate and distinct INDIVIDUAL)
as it becomes a mature adult life form, here that is just simply not going to be allowed to happen, for any of myriad self-serving reasons.
In effect, the child has been taken prisoner, and his or her emotions are now held hostage, in bondage.
And emotional blackmail and extortion, in all of their numerous and ugly forms, becomes just one more INTOLERABLE! day in a long and torturous series of such days as life, itself, has now become fully intolerable.
That sounds like some pretty serious stuff.
What in the world could cause such a strange and frightening thing to take place, anyway?
C'mon, you all know it.
You have seen it a million times if not a thousand million times.
It is the mom who wants her little girl to be a ballerina, because mom wanted to be one, and couldn't.
It's the dad/s at EVERY SINGLE LITTLE LEAGUE game who hope that his kid won't turn out to be such a loser, like him.
Instead, maybe, who knows? He might be the next Babe Ruth or Ty Cobb: " --- my son the hall of famer".
And every lawyer who insists that his son go to law school and pass the bar, and become a lawyer, JUST LIKE DAD.
Because the son's identity has effectively become trapped inside the father's need for further "self-identification", like the little bugs which can be seen, caught inside of amber.
How about the father who would never go see his son play piano professionally because he considered the job of pianist too demeaning for HIS son.
And that when his son was regionally famous.
How about the actor, whose son must be an actor, just like dad, even though the kid has no acting talent whatsoever, or is marginal at best (seen a lot of those over the years).
In essence, it is all about trying to live out your dreams through someone else's labors and talents (the ultimate free lunch? remembering Woodward's First Law of Econodynamics
= their ain't no such thing as a free lunch;
SOMEBODY ALWAYS! pays;
just not the guy
who is so voraciously consuming the lunch,
without regard,
apparent or real,
for the consequences of these actions.)
Now, remember, there is a healthy and socially/psychically helpful and useful way such things can be done.
But here, the one person's psyche has become so ENMESHED
in the other person's that the one has, effectively, become the extension or further outward manifestation of the other.
It's THEM versus the world.
or should I say,
it is ENMESHED THEM versus the world.
It is not a pretty sight to behold.
And is a constant temptation and invitation to predators.
(NOT GOOD for the guy having to do the guarding.)
8:12 a.m.
Ventura, California, USA
7-2-12
Back in town.
w/love to all
vw
We can be heard speaking of conditional and/or unconditional love.
Likewise with affection, and social company, and social standing in your family unit, etc.
When we look around we notice that our relationships with our closest loved ones are almost definitely conditioned upon certain behavior, or fulfilling of certain expectations.
These "expectations" seem to be ever present and ever prevalent, as a simple fact of life.
Conditionality is likely found at the very foundation of many or most interpersonal relationships.
We acknowledge this fact when we say, for example, "I am not going to take any more of this nonsense", or words to that effect.
This is a way of saying that there are boundaries and limits which either must be respected or there will be no more interpersonal relationship.
These rules are fluid, in the extreme.
One of the funniest things about humans is just how elastic they can be with one person one moment, while being completely inelastic with another person, within seconds of the first.
Now, when I think of this subject of "conditional love"
I immediately think of two things.
The one is the fact that many, or most, of my very closest relationships are based upon unconditional love.
If they were not, I very much would not be having the relationships in the first place.
When you spend nearly every hour of every day with a person or persons for decades, there is a lot of forgiving and forgetting which must be done, if everyone is to continue talking and communicating with one another.
It is only after fully comprehending the totality of the situation that one can come to the conclusion, whether reasonable or not, that I am going to put up with this nonsense, at least for the time being, typically for what I perceive as some, hopefully, much higher cause/s.
The fluid rules of interpersonal relationship have now become, should I say, VERY fluid.
This kind of continuous forgiveness should only be reserved for the very finest of persons.
Persons who will make mistakes and do stupid things, but who will learn from it and not continue down the same ridiculous path.
We call this GROWTH.
And the only way I have ever been able to find to consistently encourage it over time is by forgiving much and forgetting much and putting up with a whole lot which I would really rather not put up with, sacrificing my needs for the needs ot my loved ones.
Now, the second thing which the subject of "conditional love" brings immediately to mind is the NARCISSIST child (the offspring of the narcissistic parent/s).
Here everything to which I have alluded above about "unconditional love" and "forgiving" and "forgetting" and living for others self-sacrificially, will have been turned completely upside down.
Only, it will be done in a very sly, devious, and underhanded way.
Here the "love" is HIGHLY! conditional.
And the poor internally miserable child of the narcissist is nearly continuously being reminded of it in the most cruel and horrific ways imaginable.
The pain is deep and constant and will never let up so long as the parent is alive, and likely not even then.
The child is encouraged to NOT INDIVIDUATE, as intended by nature, so as to NOT divide off from the parent into a completely separate and healthy personality and fully integrated psyche.
Instead, the child is forced, in many ways, both psychically and materially/economically, to remain bound to the parent, almost as an appendage, or maybe even as an afterthought.
And the child knows from numerous bitter experiences that "the fix is in" and the "deck is stacked" with a vengeance, with little or nothing he or she can do about it.
Where nature has provided for the child to emotionally and psychically INDIVIDUATE
(i.e. to "divide off" and become
a separate and distinct INDIVIDUAL)
as it becomes a mature adult life form, here that is just simply not going to be allowed to happen, for any of myriad self-serving reasons.
In effect, the child has been taken prisoner, and his or her emotions are now held hostage, in bondage.
And emotional blackmail and extortion, in all of their numerous and ugly forms, becomes just one more INTOLERABLE! day in a long and torturous series of such days as life, itself, has now become fully intolerable.
That sounds like some pretty serious stuff.
What in the world could cause such a strange and frightening thing to take place, anyway?
C'mon, you all know it.
You have seen it a million times if not a thousand million times.
It is the mom who wants her little girl to be a ballerina, because mom wanted to be one, and couldn't.
It's the dad/s at EVERY SINGLE LITTLE LEAGUE game who hope that his kid won't turn out to be such a loser, like him.
Instead, maybe, who knows? He might be the next Babe Ruth or Ty Cobb: " --- my son the hall of famer".
And every lawyer who insists that his son go to law school and pass the bar, and become a lawyer, JUST LIKE DAD.
Because the son's identity has effectively become trapped inside the father's need for further "self-identification", like the little bugs which can be seen, caught inside of amber.
How about the father who would never go see his son play piano professionally because he considered the job of pianist too demeaning for HIS son.
And that when his son was regionally famous.
How about the actor, whose son must be an actor, just like dad, even though the kid has no acting talent whatsoever, or is marginal at best (seen a lot of those over the years).
In essence, it is all about trying to live out your dreams through someone else's labors and talents (the ultimate free lunch? remembering Woodward's First Law of Econodynamics
= their ain't no such thing as a free lunch;
SOMEBODY ALWAYS! pays;
just not the guy
who is so voraciously consuming the lunch,
without regard,
apparent or real,
for the consequences of these actions.)
Now, remember, there is a healthy and socially/psychically helpful and useful way such things can be done.
But here, the one person's psyche has become so ENMESHED
in the other person's that the one has, effectively, become the extension or further outward manifestation of the other.
It's THEM versus the world.
or should I say,
it is ENMESHED THEM versus the world.
It is not a pretty sight to behold.
And is a constant temptation and invitation to predators.
(NOT GOOD for the guy having to do the guarding.)
8:12 a.m.
Ventura, California, USA
7-2-12
Back in town.
w/love to all
vw
