How Can We Be Friends?

As this election ends, this question seems to be on a lot of people's minds. I wanted to wait a few days before saying something to see how people have been reacting.

On one hand, I am inspired by the emotional tact that people have been sharing. Hugs for each other regardless of how we voted. This was a rough time, and people are recognizing it as such. We're all pretty tired, and most of the people I've encountered have been able to see this emotional exhaustion in others and empathize.

Still, there is rioting, anger, and calls for unification in a divided climate. People are mad, and people were going to get mad regardless of how the election turned out. And the rhetoric has still continued out of the election, rhetoric that both sides hold to be (at least in part) true. Crybaby liberals and racist conservatives. Hm, maybe I can be a bit nicer here. Electoral college reform liberals and enabling conservatives.

Yeah, those titles really don't make it any easier. But it helps me to realize something. We're not really treating each other as if we're friends. We're treating each other like we are enemies. And how can we be friends with our enemies?

I don't know if we can. We certainly can't if our idea of a friend is someone who either deeply agrees with everything we have to say or someone who disagrees quietly and respectfully. And good riddance to that type of friendship. People who can only be friends with those who have the same views and values as them are ultimately self-idolizing, limited, pseudo-narcissists incapable of deep love for anyone outside of themselves. They circumnavigate the difficulty of reaching out to love another by dragging the other into themselves and then continuing to love only themselves.

And yes, both parties do this. Don't kid yourself into thinking your party is the selfless one. Once that distinction has been made, this masturbatory self-love continues blind and unchecked.

Thankfully, people are complex, and the closer we get to someone the sooner we will realize that "Oh shit, they're not like me at all." And good fucking luck dealing with this moment when all you have to fall back on is confusing intimacy with "Well, I'm friendly and mostly like everyone I meet".

The bad news is that several of us are realizing that there are a good deal of people in our lives who we do not actually consider to be our friends, we've just been friendly with them. The good news is that now the mask has been peeled back a bit and we have the opportunity to move forward. The best news is that it'll hurt and it will likely be worthwhile.

Intimacy cannot exist without pain, and there is a lot of pain going around. In my not-so-humble experience, the only time I have become friends with my enemies is when we are able to recognize the pain in each other. To see each other as two people who are hurt and hurting. I wish I could say some positive psychology statement here and say that I've been drawn to people by seeing their strength, and yes that is attractive, but strength does not beget vulnerability. Sharing in suffering does.

This is why I need to listen to my church when it tells me both to love my enemies, to rejoice with those who rejoice, and mourn with those who mourn. These are intrinsically connected. I cannot love, rejoice, and mourn with people different from me if I try to silence them or assume that they are just like me. I need to understand them, and I need to understand how they see me. And, yes, that hurts.

To be fair, it's also two-ways. The complaint of "They aren't trying to understand me though!" is a valid rephrasing of a concern that love will not be reciprocated. It might not be, and, tragically, often isn't reciprocated in the ways we want to receive it.

So ask yourself (and I'll ask myself), do you want to be friends again, or just friendly? Time, patience, and good socialization will give you the latter, but pain, intimacy, and vulnerability will give you the former. Good luck deciding, and pray for me, a sinner.

Ignorance or Saddness? Bliss or Love?

Ignorance is bliss. Solomon and Socrates were miserable.

I mean this seriously. No one thinks that the path to wisdom is easy, and even when someone achieves it, why do they continue to try and get more? Surely wise people are introspective and observant enough to see that it's not making them happy. So why continue?

I have this theory (what else is new?). Ignorance and bliss both avoid pain. Balance seeks to maintain an equilibrium. You can maintain bliss so long as nothing bad comes up. Stable job, stable routine, stable relationships, and you have a comfortable life. It's people who lament grown up responsibility and miss the "glory days" and "honeymoon phase".

Let me be clear, infatuation is just another form of ignorant bliss. And maybe that's enough, right? Maybe that is the best part of a relationship, and it is just downhill from there. Maybe there is merit to avoiding things ever becoming too serious. I just know that to me, personally, that feels confining.

I've been cursed to be created as a serious person. It's not like I don't enjoy fun things, it's just not where I spend most of my time or energy. Sure, I can be entertaining easily enough, and I'm a master of dark, cynical humor, but it's only those who I love who have ever seen me be "goofy". Plenty people see "weird", few have seen me laugh so hard at my own jokes that I cry.

At any rate, I don't have an easy time relating to people unless I can be serious. To me, the serious parts of a relationship are blessings, because then I can relax my overtaxed entertaining persona. I can talk about more than just the random exciting TV show I've seen, but also share my fears, griefs, and frustrations.

When I don't have a solid based relationship with someone, it's usually at this point that people do not know how to respond. What I've found, however, is that these people also do not know how to respond to when I am "overjoyed". Those who cannot sit with me in my grief can also not sit with me in my joy. Because joy is powerful and wrecks equilibrium.

So why not just have this joy all the time? Well, from a biological perspective, people who have their dopamine receptors firing this intensely for so long have them burn out. Scientifically, we call them "addicts".

It might be the cynical part of me that enjoys this, but I look forward to when I get a "healthy dose of reality". It might be, because I think it is possible (and dangerous) to get enjoyment from cruelty. However, since I think people are more complicated than just one emotional state, I also think that we can only relate to each other when we experience, accept, and understand one another in more than just one emotional state.

I'll try and tie this together now.

Bliss is one emotional state which we relate to others. Several relationships start there and just want to stay there (and maybe that's ok, with like work relationships and extended family). The longer you stay with someone, the less ignorant you become, and the further you move from bliss. So you can either limit how you know them, find new things to constantly be interested in together, or figure out how to deal with other emotions together. When you and someone else sit in a range of emotions together, you've begun to validate and accept each other. Bliss and equilibrium are gone, but those were always just training wheels that would stunt your growth if they stayed any longer.

Solomon may have written Ecclesiastes, but he definitely wrote Song of Solomon. Socrates was killed for seeking wisdom, but he faced death unafraid. How many people have ever been as deep as these two men? How many have felt grief as strongly?

You can avoid sadness by being blissfully ignorant, but you cannot love and not seek knowledge. Happiness without other emotions is also self-destructive. Ignorance may be bliss, but misery at least gets to enjoy company.

Machiavellian Social Power

When it comes to maintaining power and influence over people, it is better to be loved than feared, but if you cannot swing being loved, go for fear. This was the advice Machiavelli gave to the budding Medici Family to encourage their burgeoning rule, but it is not what we think of when we think of people being Machiavellian or powerful. After all, common knowledge is that people will lie and manipulate to get power, and any love that powerful people appear to have for their subordinates is simply a façade.

His opinion remains though: it is best for power to be loved.

I don't think this is too far off from the truth. When I look around me (not at politicians, but just in my day-to-day work place and social circles), it is the caring people who become the center of attention and garner respect. Granted, their will always be bullies, whiners, codependent blowhards, and histrionics that will force themselves into the limelight, but these people are not tolerated or liked for long and the caring, genuine, socially interesting person is almost brought right back into the center.

And of course you like to put them there. They never think they deserve it, blush when you point it out, because it can't possibly be right. But their modesty somehow makes them even more appealing, and they're given more and more power. They get busier and busier as you have to fight off all those suck ups who just like them because they're head of the group (unlike you, you OG you). Soon, they are the deciding vote, theirs is the opinion that matters the most, because they have everyone's need at heart.

I sometimes worry I'm just a big cynic. Surely these are the people we want to have power though, right? Those who love others first should be the ones we trust with power.

Here's another opinion: power corrupts.

In a fascinating study by Dacher Keltner, it's found that those who are put in a position power due to social influence begin to operate like every other "corrupted leader" out there. The argument could be made that any who finds themselves in a position of power just played the game and eventually their "true colors" show. I think it's far more likely that their are certain temptations that can overpower people on a throne.

I find this frightening. Empathy can give a person power, yet power will eventually destroy that empathy. When power and kindness are tied together, kindness will be the thing that gives way. It leaves me asking the question, "Is it even possible to have power and keep your soul?"

Seriously. Stop and think. It's not an easy answer, and I doubt you're an exception to it. Hell, I know I'm not. I get completely egotistical and self-aggrandizing when I get asked to lead a group project, let alone what'd happen to the poor souls under me if I was given a promotion.

I think awareness of this difficulty is one defense a person can have against letting power ruin empathy. Self-effacement keeps you blind to your behavior, and it's easy to take advantage of people when you don't think yourself capable of it.

Perhaps I'm being a bit harsh here. Bullies in power are far worse than those who get there through social kindness. I suppose I just get sad, because bullies seem to me less tragic than the fall of someone who is good (so good that we put them in power because of their goodness). But maybe I have hope that if you can catch a good person early enough they may not be corrupted.

And I think it's important for a curmudgeon like myself to hold onto hope when I can find it.

The Valley of Humiliation

Back in elementary school, at some point I think everyone had the teacher who thought it would be good to give the class a practical lesson on peer pressure. This wise, learned, puffed up recent college graduate would ask an unsuspecting student to go to the office to perform some menial task. While the student was out, the lesson would be put in motion as the remaining students were told that when little Billy (or Susan) returned, everyone needed to just stare at them without saying anything. Just stare.

Particularly bold educators would tell the students to laugh but with no explanation.

The Billy (or Susan) would return, deeply perturbed by this sudden interest in him (or her), and try to play it off in some way, and the teacher would wisely let them sit in their discomfort until the lesson was sufficiently portrayed. They would explain to Billy/Susan that this was an exercise meant to show the strength of feedback and the class would resume, the lesson continued, and everyone having learned a cool new party trick to try out on another unsuspecting person.

There are certain experiments that had been conducted that produced foundations to the social psychology field that, accordingly to APA ethics, cannot be replicated today. They produced too much psychological harm on the participants of the study and had to be scrapped. After all, what good is it to find better ways to treat trauma if you traumatize unsuspecting volunteers in the process.

I know this lesson is supposed to (in a powerful way) first-hand show students the power of bullying. I know that when I was the kid sent out of the room, the teachers explanation did little to help me actually feel better. What I learned was that my whole class was alright with making me feel horrible if the teacher gave them permission. What I learned was to laugh something off even when I felt deeply embarrassed. What I learned was how quickly my mind could run through every single potential flaw people might see and judge. What I learned was that I am easily exposed.

I also learned that every other person who was that kid has a bond between them. They remember what it is to be the butt of the joke. Everyone remembers the joke, the kids remember what it feels to be a butt.

(As a side note, my teacher did not tell me to leave the room. I had to use the restroom, and he used that as an advantage. Shit-and/or-pee remains was one of the first things that came into my mind)

I don't know if I have a lesson or easy saying at the end of this. Sometimes we feel exposed, and all people have built defenses and rules to get this within our control. I think we need to feel like we're in control of what people think and feel about us, but that seems arbitrary to me. It also limits the times we can be surprised.

I think even if we were completely at ease with ourselves we would want to limit the ways in which we feel exposed. It's dangerous to be humble without prudence and discretion.

I think it's necessary to be humble though, at least for intimacy. Probably for other things too. But, for me, even taking time to write this is to invite criticism and an opportunity for humiliation.

That's all I've got right now.