Men loving women, women loving men

[cal val]

This is to all the men on the forum. I'm looking for men's perspectives on loving and being loved by women.

The following is a speech by Sir Robert Chiltern to his wife in the stage play of "An Ideal Husband" by the brilliant playwright, Oscar Wilde. Their marriage is the ideal marriage until... an indiscretion in his youth is exposed and becomes an issue.

<BLOCKQUOTE>There was your mistake. There was your error. The error all women commit. Why can't you women love us, faults and all? Why do you place us on monstrous pedestals? We have all feet of clay, women as well as men; but when we men love women, we love them knowing their weaknesses, their follies, their imperfections, love them all the more, it may be, for that reason. It is not the perfect, but the imperfect, who have need of love. It is when we are wounded by our own hands, or by the hands of others, that love should come to cure us - else what use is love at all? All sins, except a sin against itself, Love should forgive. All lives, save loveless lives, true Love should pardon. A man's love is like that. It is wider, larger, more human than a woman's. Women think that they are making ideals of men. What they are making of us are false idols merely. You made your false idol of me, and I had not the courage to come down, show you my wounds, tell you my weaknesses. I was afraid that I might lose your love, as I have lost it now.</BLOCKQUOTE>
I'd love to get your feelings on this guys.

Thanks!

Love,

Val

 

[candid]

Hi Val,

(one guy's view)

Feelings? What's feelings got to do with it? Men don't have time to waddle long in their feelings. Sir Robert didn't mention his feelings at all, only his thinking. He doesn't say, 'love feels like...' he said, 'love should...'

A man's thinking is broader in that its direction is outward. A woman's feeling operates close to home and close to heart. A woman protects while a man defends. He looks out. She looks in.

In this scene, he spends a lot of time rationalizing what he's pretty clueless about. He can't feel what she feels, and so he either rationalizes or pontificates his inabilities. From his position, if she only understood everything would be righted.

From hers, he really needs to get a clue.

C

 

[candid]

Btw, so that you know I wasn't being presumptuous on my last bit 'from her perspective,' I conferred with my niece, who was sitting next to me while I typed the above message. I looked at her questioningly on the last line and she simply said, makes sense to me, and then laughed. This whole topic is synchronistic to her situation.

 

[candid]

(since no one else is ...)

Alright, so guys do have feelings. Deep, troubled and complex feelings. Always prepondering the great, rarely the small. This is most frustrating: How women preponderate the small so well, so... perfectly. And men? We appreciate this in her as being auspicious, yet it drives us mad when she is intent on stirring a tempest in a teapot over some small detail we?ve forgotten, or forgot to forget... or.....?

But what has this to do with fault or blame? Sir Robert points to the object of his affection as being the blame, but he knows differently. There is no blame. There are big differences. I think the whole objective of a man and woman joining thier lives is to develop not only children, but each other and each one?s self. He learns Yin from her. She learns Yang from him. The two become as one. Its different than co-dependency where each one relies wholly upon the other for what each in themselves does not possess. It?s the exact opposite of that. Each discovers their self in discovering each other.

C

 

[chrislofting]

Candid,

in the following text from a recent post of mine to my IDM list, convert the dichotomies of:

exploit/protect
differentiate/integrate
political/econimical
aristocratic/egalitarian
power / flux
competitive/cooperative
transcending/transforming
replace / coexist

to male/female and see how it reads ;-)

-----------
Hi all,

One of the core elements in IDM is the dynamic between elements of the
dichotomy, the cooperative vs competitive natures and the interactions of
the Transformation function, the function of integrating with a context, and
so a sense of coexistence, vs that of the Transcendence function, the
escaping from a context that can include asserting the context with one?s
own ? replacement. (see the 'lite' essay
http://pages.prodigy.net/lofting/ideal.html or the 'heavier'
http://pages.prodigy.net/lofting/idm001.html)

Focusing our attention from the abstract to the concrete in the form of
identifying dichotomies in reality that reflect the mentioned dynamic in
dichotomies, we find two recent sets of work in the area of sociology, and
so the study of collectives, that demonstrate these patterns.

These two areas of research cover collective development WITHIN collectives
as well as development BETWEEN collectives.
From the work on the dynamics WITHIN collectives the reference is to the
?power/flux? dichotomy devised by Ray Bradley and Karl Pribram:

Bradley, R.T. (1987) "Charisma and Social Structure : A Study of Love and
Power, Wholeness and Transformation" New York : Paragon House
Bradley, R.T., & Pribram, K.(1998) "Communication and Stability in Social
Collectives" IN Journal of Social and Evolutionary Systems 21(1):29-81

From the work on the dynamics BETWEEN collectives the reference is to the
?aristocratic/egalitarian? dichotomy that has emerged from extensive work in
networks analysis and covered in such texts as:

Gladwell, M., (2000)"The Tipping Point" Little Brown
Buchanan, M., (2002)"Small World" Phoenix
Strogatz, S., (2003)"Sync" Allen Lane
Watts, J.D., (2003)"Six Degrees" Heinemann

The last two books reflecting the personal perspectives of each author?s
work when working as a team in analysis of network dynamics from which
emerged the concept of ?egalitarian? networks. This work then influenced by
the research such as that by Albert Laszlo Barabasi and Reka Albert
(?aristocratic? networks) where a dynamic was identified as working BETWEEN
these two types of networks.

Given this recognition of a definite development path of ?aristocratic?
/differentiating followed by ?egalitarian?/integrating, where once the
PARTICULAR egalitarian content ?joins? the aristocratic, so that content
?swaps? the context, we can reflect further on the internalisation of ?out
there? onto ?in here?.

As a summary of his dynamic, we note that the aristocratic develops from
symmetry, from balance, and reflects the establishment of ?universals? in
the form of high energy ?hubs? that in the brain are ?universals? in the
form of words, numbers, labels that have a great number of associations in
different contexts and so are ?universals? ? or appear to be until the
?egalitarian? element shows up and ?deconstruction? can take place due to
the focus on balance. ( for a local example, we see this occuring in the
development of the internet. For a historic example consider the dynamic
between the English aristocracy of the 1600s and the more 'egalitarian'
Parliament. For very local politics see this in two-party political systems)

Thus the act of differentiating makes a 'point', a 'new perspective', a new
'order', that is a pioneer of sorts, or opportunist, and also a leader etc -
there is as such a sense of 'revolution' involved, be it political,
economic, or philosophic, and so an exaggeration out of the 'symmetry' of
the species in general. This development will work 'over time' but the
forces of balance have also been unleashed and over time they to develop and
'catch up'.

The ?hard coding? of the template of the relationship of the networks means
that content cannot escape that coding other than ?transcending? into the
?opposite? context and in doing so ?shape shifting? (transforming) to
accommodate that context - aristocratic becomes egalitarian, egalitarian
aristocratic WITHIN the core ordering of 'differentiating FROM
integrating' - escape FROM a context that can be overly 'smothering' - this
hard coding of 'left from right' means that a 'zig-zag' pattern of
development takes place thus:

exploit(transcending format) : protect(transforming format)
protect(transcending format) : exploit(transforming format)
etc
etc

Thus the template of the columns is constant (transcend, left ; transform,
right) but the particular elements must 'oscillate' over time OR try and
stay fixed (oscillate within their bounds). The latter is harder to do in
that each element has within it the seeds of the other - thus the
transforming element, when it gets to the precise focus on neutralising the
excesses of the transcendence element, enters a position where it can cross
the border and think it can 'take over' but still retain its core modus
operandi - this is delusion in that the rigid nature of the core context
(differentiate to the left, integrate to the right) will FORCE any passage
across the border to bring out the seeds of that context in the element (as
we see in that context PUSHES us and so sets off instincts. Change context
and that context will set off behaviours not experienced in the other
context! - the 'protectors' get their buttons pushed and thoughts of
'grandure' take over!)

In this dynamic, here the exploited are forced to 'shift' their expression
once the protect focus 'takes over'. To maintain balance the protect cannot
go 'beyond' the border (

but does so and in doing so switches from an
agent of protection to one of exploitation! Thus the aristocratic may grab
the power to start with but will experience 'diminished returns' over time
due to excess as well as the 'dampening' hand of protection, the
egalitarians. Eventually the aristocratic have to come to terms with the
agents of protection, of balance, and in that activity both parties can
cross the border and in doing so MUST change themselves due to the influence
of the 'hard coded' context.

To avoid the switches, the agents of both sides cannot 'go beyond' their
station, IOW the agents of balance are there to balance and no more. The
agents of exaggeration will be brough down to a position where they practice
'harmonising' but in doing so can be interpreted as 'surrendering' to the
agents of balance who can be tempted to 'go on'. the realm in the middle of
the relationships, the border area, is a realm of mediation where that
ensures (a) the exaggerators dont get too carried away, and (b) the
balancers dont wish to 'cross over' to get high.

That said, we note that in considering a MIXED dichotomy of
POLITICAL/ECONOMICAL, so an aristocratic political expression functions
WITHIN an egalitarian economic expression as an aristocratic economic
expression (capitalism) operates within an egalitarian political expression
(democracy). This is an area for continued research.

To go a little further in our reflections:

The function of the brain is that of information processing and as such it
reflects this in its manner of manipulating the bandwidth/time relationship
where the dichotomy maps to the dimension of precision in energy levels,
where each position along the dimension maps to a particular bandwidth
usable to process data and as a consequence of the differences in energy
levels so comes different experiences of time. (as covered in the discussion
on the dimension of precision, where each point comes with a pattern that is
considered ?universal? and so of importance in interpretations. See

http://pages.prodigy.net/lofting/idm006.html

As we move along the dimension of precision so we shift temporal focus from
the thermodynamic, past-present-future, integrating nature of time, to its
impoverished form that includes time?s ?disappearance? at the level of
extreme bandwidth usage ? all is NOW and past/future melt into one and from
that experience comes the sense of the eternal.

With the use of memory, so developing perspectives can inherit the time
distortions such that perspectives can be developed from the distortion of
time, thus such concepts as the past-present-future being ?illusions? and
all is ?now?.

Thus we have choices in detection of information in that we can use time or
bandwidth and there is a reciprocal relationship involved ? reflecting what
we find in relativity theory and so opening the door as to ?deep thinking?
elicits distortions in US that we then project onto ?out there?. However,
the analysis of social dynamics indicates that the dynamic is expressed over
centuries as well as seconds and as such is a core component of our
relational being, we have ?internalised? basic dynamics of the universe and
use those dynamics in mapping the universe and interacting with each other.

The implication here is that there is a minimum bandwidth that correlates
with the longest of time duration as there is a maximum bandwidth that
correlates with minimum time ? as in the experience of ?none?. From a
universal perspective, we can, in principle, REMOVE bandwidth entirely to
there being as maximum time to gather information.

In the context of the differences of our bandwidth-hungry consciousness vs
our ?slower?, more time-dependent speciesness, where instincts are created
over generations as compared to what our consciousness can do with
imagination ? we can create new instincts in the form of habits within our
lifetimes. (we here see the relationship of XOR to AND being one of
differentiation ? in AND states, the bias to integration blocks
differentiation in that all is reduced to no less than a pair , coordinates
link ?objects? into a relationship that the bandwidth cannot resolve. In our
brains our high energy side, the ?blue? nature of ?differentiations? can
extract details, resolve the image but in doing so operates as a PARTS focus
that is FELT to a degree we label the exercise as ?paradoxical?.

Oscillations across the brain reflect oscillations across the dimension of
precision to find the best signal-to-noise ratio, we can conserve energy but
assigning ?importance? to a stimulus where we minimise bandwidth expenditure
relying on time to allow for ?emergence?. The faster things become so the
less time we have to gather information so we push for more bandwidth to
acquire the information ASAP.

The consequences of this is an overall ?skew? in perceptions, and in the
learning of information processing skills, that favours the over-use of high
bandwidth methods. IOW we can learn to get off on the ?buzz? of ?clarity? in
experiences but in doing so can increase the chances of ?disorders? of
precision increasing in our collectives (autism, schizophrenia, ADHD, ADD
etc seem to have a common source in differentiations etc whereas depression
is more common in the realm of issues of integration)

Of special note here is that the spoken/written word is a source of
UNIVERSALS and as such high energy focus that we enforce as part of our
education. As such we do not cover ?full spectrum thinking? and in doing so
impoverish our understanding about our consciousness AND our speciesness ?
where once differentiated we can now start to re-integrate.

The dynamic of that integration is already known, it reflects the dynamic of
transcendence(aristrocratic/power) vs transformation(egalitarian/flux)
expressed in the form of such dichotomies as consciousness/speciesness;
individual/collective. Can we describe all of this in a coherant, reasonably
clear way? yes - in that what is important to note here is that IDM already
has access to the qualities useable to describe the PATHS of development in
some reasonable detail in that its generic categories of
differentiate/integrate make-up the qualities expressed in the above
dichotomies. Furthermore, these abstract, blend, bond, bound, bind qualities
are grounded in the specialisations IDM focuses upon ? The I Ching, the
MBTI, human emotions, and core qualities in Mathematics.

Addendum:

Note that in dichotomies of the same overall focus, as in
POLITICAL/POLITICAL so the focus is on characteristics WITHIN the general
concept and as such a more competitive form of dynamics. OTOH dichotomies of
a DIFFERENT overall focus, as in POLITICAL/ECONOMICAL focus on
characteristics BETWEEN general concepts and as such more cooperative in
form.

 

[candid]

Chris, I noted it in your other post, and yes, I see the application here.

"bandwidth-hungry consciousness" I like that.

 

[cal val]

Candid...

Thank you for your thoughts.

Chris...

Thank you too... I think... *grin*

What I was hoping to see here is how men feel about women's expectations of them. Do women really put men on pedestals... expect exemplary conduct and perfection and stoicism? Do men want to be able to reveal their weaknesses to women they love? Do they feel they are unable to?

Or is this simply a Victorian phenomenon... or even something that only a few men then such as Oscar Wilde had to deal with?

Love,

Val

 

[candid]

Hi Val,

I don't speak for the male species, but I can speak for my own speciesness (thanks Chris). I'll try and answer your questions from my view. Remember these are only generalizations, making stereotyping the model.

I think women often do place their men on a pedastile. But more importantly, I think men assert themselves to that status, and then become annoyed that they can't live up to either his or her expectations of it.

No, most men do not want to reveal their weakness, not even a little, not once, not ever *cough cough*. Oddly, there are also those who thrive on their weakness and see their gender as the weaker sex. Then there are those who are tossed between presenting their strength, but who are dieing from their hidden weakness (see: pedastile). These are the most difficult of all for a woman to predict or understand.

It doesn't matter whether or not men want to reveal their weak side. What matters is that its a trap for them to do so. At least that's how men see it. Yes, they are able to reveal it, but it means that at some later time they will be called to task on it, have it used against them. That's why boys cry but men never do. Right.

No, its much more than a Victorian phenomenon. Its very real, very ingrained, largely from the models we've had growing up.

This, as I've said, is entierly stereotypical. There are exceptional men, just as there are exceptional women to understand them.

C

 

[gene]

Yes, both sexes put the other in traps. Unwittingly of course, and unplanned, but they do it nevertheless. And a lot of it comes from both sexes thinking they are powerless in the light of the natural "godgiven" advantages that the other sex has. A "beautiful body" has tremendous power over men, and a large wallet makes for tremendous power over women. Yet, a lot of that is simply because we make it so. Nevertheless, it is a very strong power. Homely women and financially challenged men both know what it is like to "not" have any power.

So often what we are attracted to in the opposite sex is exactly what disturbs us later on when the relationship wears on. Women say they want men with confidence, but it seems to me so often they mistake arrogance for confidence which is a coverup for feelings of weakness. Of course men are not going to reveal their weaker side when women tell us they want confident men. However, that arrogance will eventually be turned against women when the relationship has dragged on long enough that neither side cares any longer to put their best foot forward. The emotional caring and feeling that initially attracts a man and endears her to him can later on be a trap as a constant barrage of feeling that is not based on anything that is apparent, and often based on misinterpretations of someone's behavior can become very old. And another thing. How many men stand a chance when a woman stands in front of a mirror and says, "does this dress make me look fat?" There is no answer a man can give that will keep him out of trouble. The safest thing to do, and it doesn't always work either, is to say something like, does this hat make me look bald?

Life is a gem, unfortunately, it doesn't come with an owners manual, and 99.999999999% of us don't have a clue how to deal with anything.

Gene

 

[chrislofting]

be wary here.

male/female reflect whats inbetween our legs. Consciousness can be 're-educated' and so the focus is on whats inbetween our ears or more so a mix such that a normal distribution curve emerges for BOTH male/female in psyche and in soma such that they can mix.

In our cultures the mental takes over from the physical, especially in educated collectives.

That said, the biology continues such that the more 'male' females have issues with being 'prisoners of their biology'.

Both males and females have hormone cycles but the males dont have to experience menstruation and its accompanying mental states and that includes emotional highs and lows that consciousness can have problems with - especially in a highly demanding, assertive, precision-oriented culture like the West.

The context of that culture puts on a bias to single context, competitive, high energy identifications etc and so exaggerates expressions that can impoverish the more cooperative focus on things.

(as an example of that impoverishment - see http://pages.prodigy.net/lofting/price.html)

Chris.