THE LOVE LAB

Dealing with rejection in a healthy way is a sizable mental feat. It takes years for people to master this and find positivity in rejection. Ultimately, the goal is to see failure as feedback in order to improve your strategies or to understand yourself and others. Rejection can catapult people into depression and make them nonfunctional and self-destructive. So it is important to learn how to buffer yourself against rejection and to have a healthy outlook which will make you resilient in life and love.

NOT ATTACHING YOURSELF TO AN OUTCOME FROM THE BEGINNING

This is a very powerful concept. This does not mean that you are indifferent to the impact a person has on you nor does it mean that you are closed off from love or from the risks associated when allowing yourself to be vulnerable with another. It means that you are open to love in general and not focusing on creating that with someone who is not open to love or is not open to loving YOU. It is a libertarian concept at heart (see post on Libertarian Love) since it means that you are not wishing an outcome for a person that they may not want for themselves. It is about going into relationships, courtship, and dating situations with the knowledge that the person may not feel about you the same way you feel about them and respecting this and not taking it personally. If you have this mindset from the beginning, you will be able to accept and understand that rejection is sometimes a blessing because on some level that person was honest enough with themselves and you to address some sort of incompatibility.

[Quote: "It is the mark of an educated man to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." - Aristotle, Greek philosopher]

I have mentioned from time to time that open-mindedness is a trait that I value very highly. I wanted to elaborate on the meaning of open-mindedness and how being open-minded can increase the quality of your interactions with others. In particular, I want to show how this trait impacts romantic relationships.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE OPEN-MINDED

Simply put, open-mindedness is the willingness to entertain an idea or thought, regardless of whether you will eventually decide to accept it. Ideally, this means that you will accept new information without bias and subject it to critical analysis. If it proves to be reasonable, it will then follow that you will be willing to integrate it into your schema of the world.

PRACTICING OPEN-MINDEDNESS

In practice, open-mindedness often involves having the patience to hear out the other person’s point of view before jumping to conclusions. After indulging yourself with this new information, it means allowing yourself to view it objectively without preconceived biases and see if it is logical and rational. It also sometimes means that you can agree to disagree. There are arguments out there that cannot necessarily be proven valid or invalid. Being open minded can involve having the ability to understand how another person may have a different viewpoint and accepting that it is different from yours. This does not mean you have to accept their viewpoint, but merely that you have to accept that not everyone experiences the world in the same way you do.

ABUNDANCE vs RARITY

Our emotions and behaviors stem partly from physiological factors and partly from our view of the world (perhaps obtained via the interaction of those physiological factors combined with experience). Although we can’t change our genetic repertoire, we can still impact our physiology with what we think due to the incredible plasticity of the brain.

Our view of the world is critical in our daily functioning and ‘frames’ everything that we do and feel. For example:

You BELIEVE that you are capable of achieving something great if you put in the right effort.

If you fail at a particular goal (not getting the job you wanted), how will you FRAME this event?

-outlook: Although I did not get this job, I have had enough successes to know that I am capable of achieving something great

-attribution of failure: Perhaps I failed because I did not put in enough effort or perhaps because there is a greater reality out there for me

What EMOTIONS and BEHAVIORS would result?

-initial sadness at rejection, but swift resilience due to the positive outlook

-implement a goal where more effort can be devoted

-assess whether previous goal was well aligned with future goals

As you can see, framing can be very powerful. The example above is one where a person operates from an ABUNDANCE MINDSET, one in which the possibilities are plentiful and the limitations are only those which you impose on yourself.

So in this sense, open mindedness can be a seen as a state of mind that not only applies to how you deal with information that is thrown at you in an argument, but also how you deal with the constant flow of information that entails daily life. Being open minded allows one to respond in a way that expands and not limits your world. When interacting with others, this fosters understanding and the ability to respond to a person without trying to control them or impose on their mental space.

The rule of thumb is to avoid both religion and politics on the very first date. First, I will go a little into why you should tread with caution and then, I will explain why there are instances why it is a necessary evil. Why avoid religion and politics? These topics don’t simply involve having an opinion, they often encompass a person’s entire world view.

For example, as written in a previous post (Aporia and the Liberal Mind), research has shown that liberals tend to be better than conservatives at accepting new information and adjusting their schemas accordingly. I would go as far as to say that this could translate into an overall less judgmental and more observant predisposition. Some people prefer this in a partner, while others say they want a person who sticks to their guns. To each his own, right?

Religion is another sticky topic. Some people are generally apathetic even if they say they follow a particular set of rules/beliefs, but even those can be offended. For example, even a person who hasn’t had time to think things through about their alleged viewpoint can be put off by extreme views and opinions. If you are the person with the extreme views and opinions, what are the chances a person you just met will change your entire world view with a cogent argument? Probably slim to none.

Sometimes it takes people constant exposure to a viewpoint or a major event in their life to allow for a different opinion on topics such as religion and politics.

However, there are times when this may be important to get out of the way. Personally, I am opinionated on both these topics and I have views that may be considered marginal by some. For this reason, I like to express these views from the outset. This way, if they are deal breakers, then we don’t have to continue wasting each other’s time. Also, it is a way for me to gage some qualities of the person: open mindedness, logic, the ability to understand abstract concepts, and the ability to listen reflectively.

So, here are some useful reasons to bring up politics:

a) If you are very passionate about your political views and it is a part of your life in a significant way – you will likely want your future partner to at least understand your perspective and perhaps even share it.

b)If you have very extreme and marginal views – even if politics is not a big part of your life you will want to know if your partner is open minded enough to accept your views and respect you for the difference in opinion (if there is some)

Here are some useful reasons to being up religion:

a) If you are considerably religious – not everyone will be comfortable with this and there are implications for lifestyle that a perspective partner should be aware of (food restrictions, rituals, etc). It is better to consider whether the difference is something both people are willing to live with than try to change people later on. Some people may think it isn’t a big deal for their partner to cut out pork from their diet, but expecting someone to change to fit your belief system is, in fact, a very big deal in principle.

b) If you are an atheist – for some people the belief in God or a higher being is central to their entire concept of the world. It is a way for them to make sense and order of the universe, it gives them hope, and it fills in the gaps of uncertainty to some extent. Most people are very uncomfortable with uncertainty and they may have a hard time understanding the atheist mentality. This will also be culturally sensitive; Americans are largely theist whereas countries like Japan are mostly atheist (if you count Buddhism as an atheist belief).

DO NOT discuss religion or politics if you are:

a) Hoping to convince the other person of your perspective

b) Not willing to listen to the reasons for their beliefs and at least try to understand

c) Not interested in these topics whatsoever. If the other person is still pushing the subject, that means it is important to them and you should consider whether this is something you can handle in a relationship.

d) If it is clear the other person is much better versed in politics. As far as religion is concerned, I don’t think you need to be well versed in anything to have a viewpoint, but you should understand the major tenants of other viewpoints if you are planning to criticize them at all. It helps to have good logic for both.

If none of these exceptions apply to you, the first date should be used to establish a physical comfort and the conversation should be light, stimulating, and playful. Religious and political debates often turn heated and sometimes do not bring out the best qualities in people; more importantly they may prevent physical contact on a first date.

WHAT IS IT

It is an attitude by which to engage in high quality relationships where the two individuals freely enter a social agreement in which they choose to promote the physical and mental well being of the other. If both individuals choose to participate in a relationship of their own free will they are, in a sense, making a tacit social contract. They have weighed the costs against the benefits and they are willing to live with the consequences of that choice.

WHAT OF FIDELITY

However, this only works if both people obey the terms of the contract. For instance, if I agree to enter a monogamous relationship and my partner cheats – this is not libertarian love. Even though both people in this instance are free to do as they please (cheat if you want, leave if you want), this is not a form of libertarian love since the cheater has entered into a contract whereby they have agreed to disengage from extra-pair affairs of their own free will. It is also not libertarian love if I never find out about my partner’s affair. If I enter into a social contract with a partner, based on some perception which he has presented to me, then I am being cheated out of my opportunity to make the right choice for myself when that image is an illusion. This is an indirect way of hindering someone’s liberty – by way of misinformation and deception (a.k.a. FRAUD).

HOW WOULD A LIBERTARIAN LOVE RELATIONSHIP END

In Libertarian love both individuals promote the well being of the other and allow them to develop in ways that they wish. Preferably, the goals of both idividuals are not in conflict. A libertarian love relationship would end if the goals of each person are in conflict to a degree that either is not willing to compromise in order to reduce the conflict of interest. In this sense, the love itself would not end since it was not given based on any expected return, but the relationship would dissolve.

“Windmill windmill for the land Turn forever hand in hand Take it all there on your stride It is TICKIN’, fallin’ down Love forever love is free Let’s turn forever you and me Windmill windmill for the land Is everybody In?”-Gorillaz, “Feel Good, Inc”

I first learned about “aporia” in my ‘Hermeneutics and Deconstruction’ class. It is a Greek terminology denoting an impasse or a state of doubt, but it was resurrected by the late Jacques Derrida and left an impression on me since it came up at a time when Democratic candidate John Kerry was running against George Bush in 2004. Many people praised Bush for his decisiveness and John Kerry’s critics used this to their advantage by dubbing Kerry the wishy-washy candidate.

In the context of what I was learning about aporia in my philosophy class, as well as my other critical thinking and logic classes, I was perplexed how having skepticism about such a complex issue as declaring war was seen as a weakness. Even the scientific method praised the search for disconfirming evidence.

The reason I find aporia to be so important is that I believe it to be a staple of a thoughtful mind. The youtube clip below illustrates my point:

“In Plato’s Meno (84), Socrates describes the purgative effect of reducing someone to aporia: it shows someone who merely thought he knew something that he does not in fact know it and instills in him a desire to investigate it.”

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aporia

This is not to say that Bill O’Reilly will go and investigate this matter further; the aporia is exhibited only by Dave Letterman of the two debaters. This brings me to my next point.

The reason that doubting oneself is important, as I mentioned earlier, is that it is a crucial part of the critical thinking process. If you are open minded to the possibility of contrary evidence to your present schemas, then you will thoroughly examine this evidence and give it the weight it deserves. This further allows a person to actually modify their set beliefs in order to accept the incoming contrary evidence. Jean Piaget called this accommodation, which combined with assimilation to form the adaptation process (in other words – learning).

However, it sure seems some people are better at this than others. I consider the political equivalent of this to be liberalism. The word has become somewhat perverted in our time due to constant political propaganda of equating this viewpoint with big government, loose morals, and the recent weakness of the Democratic party. It is no such thing.

Interestingly enough, Nature Neuroscience just came out with an article which correlates liberalism and conservatism with neuronal activity in the brain. An area called the anterior cingulate shows differences in liberals vs conservatives.

“Political scientists and psychologists have noted that, on average, conservatives show more structured and persistent cognitive styles, whereas liberals are more responsive to informational complexity, ambiguity and novelty. We tested the hypothesis that these profiles relate to differences in general neurocognitive functioning using event-related potentials, and found that greater liberalism was associated with stronger conflict-related anterior cingulate activity, suggesting greater neurocognitive sensitivity to cues for altering a habitual response pattern.”

source: http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/nn1979.html

In other words, liberals are better at the accommodation part of learning than conservatives. When faced with evidence that is contrary to their established beliefs they are more likely, due to genetic differences, to modify their representations of reality in order to accept the new data.

It is no wonder why conservatives, more than liberals, represent the religious viewpoint. It seems to me that religion relies on adherence to dogma, sometimes contrary to new information which disproves the very principles on which these beliefs are based. It is also no wonder that liberals are known for their social perspective of egalitarianism (gay, minority, and women’s rights movements) despite a history which is dominated by suppression of these ideas.

I should add that I am not trying to disparage the conservative political viewpoint. I have made it known in my previous posts that I ardently support Ron Paul for presidency, who considers himself a libertarian conservative. I understand people’s qualms with abortion (although I do not agree with them pushing this opinion to be expressed in legislation); I also think some other conservative perspectives, like on immigration and welfare, warrant consideration.

I am simply denouncing “the conservative mind”, which does not allow itself to adapt.