047 never more certain

.

Perhaps by now you deem it true
but never am I more certain than
whenever I am far from you
(or upon reflection closest too)
the place that I am meant to stand

is by your side no matter how,
doting, adoring as best I may,
to love and feed your fire obey
so much more than any vow,
so much more than times allow.

.

Power & Passion: Partner/Dynamic Balance

This is the fourth of five in this series on relationship balance:
1. Symbol Distance
2. Metaphor Direction
3. Self/Other Diametric
4. Power/Passion Dynamic

~

As Richard John Neuhaus puts it [in 'American Babylon'], ‘libido dominandi’ is “the lust for power, advantage, and glory.” It shouts, “My way or no way!”

This lust for domination doesn’t just characterize politics in the City of Man, it characterizes each of us. The libido dominandi is that within each of us that plots and strives to have our own way and force others do as we say.
~ James Tonkowich, Libido Dominandi: St. Augustine and the Lust for Domination (emphasis mine)

Of course power and passion are close cousins in human experience, we can see how close by looking closely at the word ‘ambition’:

Ambition:
an earnest desire for some type of achievement or distinction, as power, honor, fame, or wealth, and the willingness to strive for its attainment

Synonyms:
appetite, ardor, aspiration, avidity, craving, desire, drive, eagerness, earnestness, emulation, energy, enterprise, enthusiasm, hope, hunger, initiative, itch, keenness, longing, love, lust, passion, pretension, push, spirit, striving, thirst, vigor, yearning, zeal

I might like to think of myself as a passionate ‘sensitive guy’ but it is no secret men often have their interior experiential want and desire for things egotistically attached to their sex drive as if their will-to-power‘s force of self were the very fist of their phallus.

It’s why St. Augustine called it ‘libido dominandi‘, “the lust [to dominate and] for power, advantage, and glory”. So it is I wonder if my interior “desire for” is comparatively merely more attached to ‘emotional requite-ment’ of passionate (romantic) love, rather than to lustful (orgiastic?) climax of powerful domination. In a way this topic could easily be about ‘sorts of uxory’ and the difference between uxory and submission, however rather than compare kinds of relationships I think this issue more educational about negotiating a functional power-passion dynamic within a single relationship.

For I don’t think libido dominandi is always bad (certainly not always “sinful”) in and of itself; the libido dominandi by another name might be Nietzsche’s ’will-to-power’, something neither moral nor immoral but merely essential about life and living. And if some women like a sensitive man, I can also see how some women find the sensitive man “too (emotionally) needy” and instead prefer a man with more ambition, drive and will-to-power. In fact such grit, moxie and determination is sometimes thought courageous, independent, self-reliant and oft idolized in ‘the rugged individual’. And of course, not only is there going to be a range of behaviors among men and expectations among women (or vice versa) along this spectrum, but there’s certainly also variance within any particular individual character from time to time – and such variance of personalities and expectations  within a relationship dynamic means (re)negotiation, adjustment and coping.

And if some men like a sensitive woman, I can also see how some men instead prefer a woman with more ambition, drive and will-to-power. I think my wife manages to minimally define any other person when she says “I want” – rather than forcing another to do it “my way or no way” she more often simply says ”I just want what I want – and you can do what you want”. But if I happen to like ”her will to power” more than “her power over me”, I can surely see how other people might prefer something further down the spectrum and may even experience a more dominating dynamic as something more intimate, loving and functional – for them.

Moreover what I might label my “passionate, emotional sensitivity” (or ‘emotional requite-ment’ of passionate romantic love) my wife sometimes labels with a simple “emotionally needy”. This mismatch doesn’t happen often enough to be a serious issue for us (though it can in some relationships) and when it does we adjust and negotiate: I find a balance of self and other that’s right for me (as does she) and each of us (with our partner in mind) try (re)negotiating our love symbols in order to attain a balance that is functional for both of us. And of course we don’t get everything we want right away and we often end up coping with whatever unmet desire (for ‘more of the other’ or for ‘more space’) as best we can. I always try to remember that she doesn’t always get everything what she wants either, when she doesn’t get all the relationship ‘space’ (or the immaculately clean home) that she wants (from me) she has to cope with possibly having more guilt and less freedom than she wanted.

Finding the balance and dynamic of power and passion that works for both people in the relationship is a process probably best approached with patience – and also with some recognition of the interconnectivity of these four different relationship balances. In a very real sense each of these balances are merely different perspectives, each highlighting slightly different aspects and nuances, of the intersection between two individuals in an intimate relationship.

Hard Choice

One common theme I’m often thinking about is the interior/exterior point of “letting go”: “accepting one’s passionate uxorious self” in relationship dynamic with progressive “surrendering” or “submitting” to one’s partner as a matter of priority and freedom.

For me the hardest thing was an ‘interior surrender’ – though I hesitate to say ‘of control’. What I had to let go of was the idea that I had to or ought to do anything in a relationship any specific way. To some extent this was letting go of some stereotypic egoistic macho gender role ideas, you know: I as a man should do “men things”, she as a woman should do “woman things”.

Realizing and accepting that I didn’t really want to do just only those prescribed “men things” (however ill conceived and poorly defined) was hard because I would then need to commit to going against the accepted social grain – defining myself in a way and an area I didn’t originally expect to and wasn’t originally prepared to.

But far and away more difficult – before I could allow my self to commit to just doing whatever my wife wanted, I had to accept the reality that I loved her enough, that I actually loved her so much, that I really would do anything for her that I could. Well, anything I could do while still remaining me of course – but I also realized at the time the difficulty this was going to present because that self definition was going to be under significantly more self revision than I originally expected.

It is surprisingly hard to explain that interior point but – before I could pursue her the way I realized I wanted to (and needed to if I were ever ‘have’ her), before I could follow after her (that is follow my love for her and allow my love for her to lead me after her) I had accept the reality that (by outwardly following through on my choice to follow my interior love and passion for her) I had to commit myself to a lifetime of such a choice. I had to accept that I was committing to forever choosing to allow how my love for her was going to always put her first – her happiness, her wants, her desire, her passions, yes even her choices and decisions.

I know this sounds an awful lot like normal ‘vanilla’ ‘commitment issues’ regarding one’s interior choice, intention and plan for harmonizing and balancing one’s self with one’s partner, and perhaps that all my uxory stems from such a vanilla interior point speaks volumes. But I think there is a little twist of control and self determination issues in here too, and once I made my choice on this interior point… Well, then my exterior actions lined up with my (apparently naturally) uxorious interior and everything after has only been increasingly easier. And it’s only ever been easier perhaps because I’ve ever since then I’ve been the happiest I’ve ever been and I’ve never regretted making this choice, that day or every day since.

The Biological Experience

Apropos of the addiction experience (though quite aside from lumping “uncommited sex” and “one-night stands” in with ‘transgressive infidelity’), this report about a specific variant of the DRD4 dopamine receptor biochemically links addictive behaviors with ‘sexual thrills’.

“What we found was that individuals with a certain variant of the DRD4 gene were more likely to have a history of uncommitted sex, including one-night stands and acts of infidelity.

The motivation seems to stem from a system of pleasure and reward, which is where the release of dopamine comes in. In cases of uncommitted sex, the risks are high, the rewards substantial and the motivation variable — all elements that ensure a dopamine ‘rush.’” (Original Research Report)

People with the thrill-seeking gene variant were about twice as likely to report a history of one-night stands as those without the gene variant. Half of those with a love of risk imprinted in their DNA reported committing infidelity in the past, compared with 22 percent of those without the variant.

It also states fairly well why (fascinating though they are) these sorts of biochemical science bits have never had much experiential explanatory power with me:

“The study doesn’t let transgressors off the hook. These relationships are associative, which means that not everyone with this genotype will have one-night stands or commit infidelity. Indeed, many people without this genotype still have one-night stands and commit infidelity. The study merely suggests that a much higher proportion of those with this genetic type are likely to engage in these behaviors.”

The interesting aspect to me (whether one is submissive, uxorious, prudish, promiscuous or anything else)  is that there are so many ways in which we are ‘predispositionally programmed’ (for lack of a better phrase) –even biochemically– to look for ‘the good things’ in life (‘feeling alive’: fire, zest) yet there are no guarantees about our path choices for getting there (meaning, significance). It’s all part of why I think of life and living life as a “game” we “play” within a “biological meaning matrix“.

~ ~ ~

When consequences overwhelm,
when futility looms ‘neath the edge
of inevitable end of all,

I remember:
We want things, make choices.
(And whether we get what we want or not,)
Life, consequences, continue, happen.
(And whether we cope well or not at all,)
Life always goes on (until it doesn’t).

We’re always who (biologically ‘what’)
we are; the experiences (and too
the symbolizations) of fate, free will,
decision, destiny, choice, desire,
love, drive, want, passion, the will to power,
ambition, transcendence, significance,
meaning, numinous, sacred and mundane –

all, each and every one, remain, persist,
and often, confusingly, coexist.

The Addictive Experience

PLEASE GET HELP    if you or someone you know needs it:
Porn | Drugs | Alcohol | Gambling | Suicide

~

I think there’s an interesting intersection of

addiction – food, sex, porn… any behavior conceivable
biology – the chemistry of addiction
evolution – we’re optimized for fewer resources
psychology –  as in ‘psychology of addiction’
frameworks, symbols – addiction to experiencing /thinking in only one way
passion desire – when is a passion an addiction?
relationships – relationship (inter)dependence –> addictive/codependent
submission/uxory – when (and to what) is one addicted?

In reading from the following articles and many others, the most interesting realization for me was that our brains can’t handle, that we can’t handle constant pleasure. We have to have the down side, the ‘reset’ period, a balance for pleasure. We need restorative cons for our dopamine pros—-> we actually need an ‘imperfect world’ and an imperfect world is actually perfect for us (whether we were designed by the world, or world for us, or both, or something else).

~

Submissive men often liken submission to an addiction – and how they feel the need to keep “upping the ante”, “upping the dose” – but what if they’re desensitizing themselves to the flood of dopamine and really need to ‘reset’ themselves and their chemistry?

They may want to have the submission high more and more but at some point they simply MUST learn to deal, cope, live, love, and be happy without the resolution of desire, (despite the anxiety of their passion) even if only for long enough to return to normal baseline brain activity.

While everyone’s brain, life, chemistry, partners, relationships and whatever else can and will be different (not to mention their coping tactics), I wonder if there mightn’t be some commonalities on finding/negotiating/discovering/maintaining that normal baseline brain activity.

Clearly there are always going to be ups and downs and a range of experiential pleasure (and effective dopamine), but then also always an average as well; you can spike high but you’ll always come down. One has to wonder if it might be better to find that golden mean, that effective average so as to optimize our overall constant pleasurable experience – and avoid the feeling of being addicted. (I have always identified the feeling of addiction as a negative one though I still use the word “addiction” in a positive manner to adequately and accurately identify, label and point out relationships and dynamics.)

~

A Swedish team found that a stomach hormone called ghrelin could make rats seek sugar the way addicts seek drugs. And a team at the University of California, Santa Barbara found that male rats chose sugar over small amounts of cocaine, while female rats did just the opposite.

Yale researcher, Ralph DiLeone: “There’s an ongoing argument in my field whether food is addictive or not … But whether it’s addictive or not, there’s probably components that are similar to addiction.”
~ NPR, Overeating, Like Drug Use, Rewards And Alters Brain

Really? Biochemical sex differences in the way we seek pleasure? Mmmm perhaps not too surprising, yet…

Still, the concept that “food can cause obesity because it is like a drug” is perplexing. After all, our rather buff ancestors ate a lot, and quite evidently were enthusiastic about sex. Yet becoming dangerously hooked didn’t seem to be much of a risk. Didn’t their brains light up for food and sex? Yes, of course. The difference is that they weren’t surrounded by superstimulating, synthetic versions of food and sex. We are, and it is a relatively recent hazard.
~ Psychology Today, Intoxicating Behaviors

What matters is whether our ancestors’ brains faced similar conditions and evolved to cope well with them. If a stimulus is well beyond the range of “normal,” then there’s a risk that a primitive part of our brain will continue to perceive it as very valuable, even when it causes distress. Judging from the problems many porn users are reporting, porn is indeed a superstimulus with the power to dysregulate dopamine sensitivity in the brain.

…the brain releases dopamine in response to enjoyable experiences such as eating cheesecake, having sex or snorting cocaine. But, too much pleasure skews the brain’s reward pathways by overstimulating the D2 receptor and causing it to shut down. For the rats addicted to junk food, the only way to [continue stimulating] their pleasure centers was to eat [ever] more high-fat, high-calorie food.

[It suggests] heavy users of superstimulating Internet porn may be tampering with their brains’ reward circuitry and altering the way they experience reward (driving them to binge)…
~ Psychology Today, Not All Warnings about Porn Are Moralistic or Unscientific

I often hear men discuss ‘subspace’, this bliss of being female led, as their drug, and well let’s face it, every addict needs a dealer helping them to the next level. Yet a parent, a gatekeeper, a dealer, a god, enjoys a love-hate relationship with even its most loyal and childlike of junkie worshiping subjects, and such rule is only had by the god-maker’s permission. For when parents are only godlike to their children, divinities only monster-like to humans, when symbol confusion leads one to love power exchange instead of loving one’s partner, the resulting relationship becomes philosophically untenable if not functionally untenable as well. … [I] tread with fear and trembling as I differentiate between erotic truth’s self discovery and addiction’s meaningless abyss.
~ OH, Monsters

…we may know our interior need and inside need is for something different than what we find ourselves wanting, but we cannot manage to stop wanting what we desire even if it doesn’t wholly fulfill that ‘hole’. In a way perhaps sometimes our frameworks addict us to certain symbols because it just isn’t flexible enough in some area to accept other symbols; and all frameworks have areas of comparatively more or less flexibility and even the occasional blind spot. Thus a symbol may fulfill our needs just enough to keep us going back for more in a sort of symbol addiction of the mental framework.Yet we all want meaning, need meaning, in symbols we can understand, and in this regard I rather think we’re all symbol addicted, we … all having an interior reference framework telling us we’re missing some semi-specific piece of lived life coherency, some particular experience, value and worth. … yet when a symbol really works for our interior need and desire, it really works and we know it.

… sex by itself does not equal the erotic truth or the desire dynamic I experience. I (now) think of it as a passion addiction… as all people have their framework symbol addictions, the particular form of my framework symbol addiction is to want, desire, and love passionately my wife, and to want to experience the same (or a similar) desire and passion of my wife. (I wonder if this compaction of our simultaneous separate passions is related to, possibly an expression of [?], the sensed unity of partners that we express as ‘being soulmates’, cf. Love’s Fate, Love’s Destiny)

~ OH, Passion Addiction
(A post I’m sorely tempted to reproduce here in it’s entirety for its spot-on relevance)