A little bit of comment goes a long way, and after last night's blog entry and subsequent responses I feel like I did after Dr. Closser's classes in college...I walk around oozing love of discussion and dripping embarassedly with debate.
I will once again attack something simple--the friendship, lover, or career that comes from sadness to fight it or from happiness to celebrate it.
Let's look at the sad spawn first. Suppose I were to apply the cusps of what I learned from wise people today, we would first start with the cause of the friendship, romance, or career:
- Did it happen because you hate your F,L, or C and wanted refuge?
- Did it happen because you recently lost your F, L, or C and wanted refuge?
- Did it happen because you are missing something outside an F, L, or C (for example, homesickness)?
In other words, did the decisions to proceed get made out of weakness? Are you simply taking refuge in someone, and is that a friendship?
Now flip it. The other side of the discussion is a Friendship, Lover, or Career spawned from happiness, such as:
- Did it happen because you were doing something you loved?
- Did it happen because you were delighted in surprise by it?
- Did it happen when you were content with your life?
Let's look at sad first, and apply Robin's cost/benefit analysis:
- One of you will grow out of the sadness before the other, unless of course your F, L, or C is part of a Disney movie. - COST
- You can comfort each other. - BENEFIT
- You can be devoted to each other's misery. - BENEFIT
- You get tired of each other's misery and wish one of you would cheer up. - COST
Applying DK's vision of honesty, the lines blur--is it honest to love company solely out of misery? Aren't you holding each other up? What's there when the misery ends? Can you still be honest or will the misery take you back? Will the sadness last longer or pass faster because you had a F, L, or C from it?
Happy beginnings, now:
- Will this F, L, or C last through a sad or stressful period if/when it comes? - COST
- You met happy and are therefore more likely to stay happy. - BENEFIT
- You don't feel a baggage or obligation within the F, L, or C, as everything is absolute freedom. - BENEFIT
- The friendship is taken less seriously. - COST
To apply the honest questions...does the other party just scatter when things get rough or darkly real? What if the happy reason for starting the friendship changes as both parties grow?
*******
If I were to go back in time to the beginnings of each friendship I have had, all but two were initiated by the other party.
If I were to go back in time to the beginnings of each love that I wanted, all attraction started when I was miserable.
If I were to go back in time to the beginnings of my various jobs, all came as a default. Even the teaching.
Not that these approaches and decisions were necessarily bad things. The friendships that I have now are long-distance and yet don't feel apathetic to me. The loves taught me to demand more from my needs, instead of bowing. The careers have taught me I can do anything.
Now I just have to stop blurring what goes where. THAT will come back up again in this blog, mark my words.
Good night, dear reader and friend. I am considering a happy start as I drift off to dream.
4 comments:
I dont disagree that cost/benefit is useful and always in the background of things. But I do believe we can (or at least should try) to rise above it. Sacrifice and love and very good things are often the losers in a pure cost/benefit scenario.
I completely agree that cost/benefit is a cold method of approach...I don't use cost/benefit when looking at my friends until they walk away (because my costs exceeded their benefits, no doubt), and then I feel as though I paid too high of a cost. My costs don't show up until someone has left me. Right up until that minute I just want to spend time with them and be myself. When the other party walks away, then I feel I invested too much.
Since all parties (F, L, and C) inevitably walk away from me and I am never the one to initiate that, perhaps I should start looking at cost/benefit to keep the F,L, or C at arm's length. (Okay, maybe not the L...they can sniff out distance.)
More to come...much thanks for the comments, DK...
Dan and Jo:
Don't overlook the fact that a feeling of virtuousness (or an appearance of virtuousness) brought about by personal sacrifice also counts as a big-time benefit, particularly among the devoutly religious. In a way, I think you may be over-simplifying the cost-benefit model. Do a little more reading on the subject and think about the reality of its application, not just the harsh way it sounds. Or, reflect on how you've applied it unconsciously in your own lives.
Excellent point, Robin, and perhaps I am not thinking this through effectively when I put this into space. (I always warned people that I wasn't the best of writers.) When I was exploring cost/benefit last night I was fresh from reading the work of you and T.T., and was taking in some relief from the distance and objectivity that cost/benefit could lend--it gave me a hope that a different perspective might improve my approach Friendships, Lovers and Careers. A bit heartsick from the hope of sacrifice and love I thought I might try another approach...I presented a limited set of questions that one might pose to herself to weigh pros and cons of taking leaps in F, L, and C. By all means the questions could go beyond and deeper and different than what I asked.
I have found myself obsessed with this debate and am loving where my mind takes me.
I completely acknowledge the benefit of virtuousness, but it doesn't last in my case. I will never stop believing in sacrifice and love...even though I'm mostly alone in it. I get that from my mother. I am exploring the cost/benefit model because I believe it will help me see balance in my life--an all-too-rare trait. I need balance. I tend to swing viciously. I do not see cost/benefit as harsh any more than I would see Zen Buddhism as harsh--one is disciplined to it and not ruled by it. It ain't actually warm and fuzzy, but it may lead me to love in the end if I balance it right.
Stay with me on this...
Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Robin. I am looking for a way to compromise with a world who won't remember me tomorrow. I am looking for a way to deal with apathy that makes me feel strong. If nothing else, this dawns something in me.
I realize that I have applied cost/benefit unconsciously in my life, but in such lop-sided, lost and messy fashions that I don't feel I grew from the experience.
I think what needs to happen with this topic is that I need to break it down even more and plow in. I'm going to write without thinking for a while...probably pushing buttons and looking foolish. I believe that the warm and fuzzy of sacrifice and love can be reconciled to the discipline of cost/benefit.
Won't it be fun to find out?
And I promise to keep reading and thinking, Robin... ;)
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