First, to simplify, we will build from examples and hope to imagine what we have not yet imagined.
Parent to child- faculty of giving
When a child is born- the infant- it is a bag of needs. It needs to be fed. Burped. Kept warm. Slept. Kept from falling or hurting itself. It needs to be watched when awake and when asleep- observed that it keeps breathing and doesn't die from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). You need to wake up in the middle of the night to feed it. And it gives back nothing in return. It doesn't say, "Thank you". It doesn't even smile. Spontaneous smiles don't happen until about 3 months. In the beginning, after birth, the infant isn't even cute. It is a pruned up alien looking thing. So it doesn't even give, initially, in that way. It does cry and those cries are the demands of a distressed infant in immediate need. You have no choice but to drop everything and attend to the baby.
All the parents are doing is giving to this baby. And they become attached. It seems that love follows giving.
Chemistry
Oxytocin. This hormone is the one associated with love. It is released in the milk let down response in the mother that allows for breast feeding. Oxytocin also forms an immediate emotional connection. It is also released in males and in females with hugs. When hugging or receiving a hug, there is release of oxytocin and feeling the generation of love (hugging) and the feeling of being loved (hugged back).
This mechanism explains the feeling of love and connection that a breast feeding mother has towards the infant. But I would suggest that oxytocin may also be released when the simple act of giving itself occurs. Mothers who do not breast feed and fathers experience a deep sense of love for the infant. To tell them that they do not is silly.
So, it seems that love and giving are connected. Furthermore it seems that the order of operations is that love follows giving. If this is the case, then does love stop when giving stops?
Separations
In the Holocaust, many atrocities occurred. One that comes to mind that is "mild" in comparison to so many others was an example of a family that was taken to the concentration camps. They were a mother, father and young boy.
Measuring love
The boy and his mother were strongly attached in a normal, typical and healthy way, prior to being taken to the camp. When they arrived to the camp, they were forced to be separated. The boy went with the father and the mother went with the other females. I do not recall the details or the source of this story so please bear with me. After some significant period of time, by a miracle, all 3 survived. When the mother was re-united with her child and husband she became aware that she did not have the feeling of love that she had had previously. This was not the case for the father who, during the war, had continued having a close relationship with their son because they were together the whole time. It may be that in an effort to protect herself from the pain of loss of her son she built up an emotional wall. But that didn't happen in her love for her husband (who she did not give to in the same way and has a different component to it as we will explore). It can be speculated that there is a possibility that the mother's feeling of love for their son became less because she was unable to give to their son during those years of incarceration in contrast to the father who was able to continue to be able to give to their son and had a strong or even stronger relationship as a result.
So, it seems that love follows giving.
Hebrew:
Love = AHAVA
(apologies for all caps- Hebrew doesn't have capital/ lower case so I just left it as all caps as a way to recognize the code more easily)
The root word- the root is the part that the word is based on- is HAV. HAV = to give.
AHAVA = Love
HAV = To Give
Love is the feeling and giving is the action- the manifestation of the feeling IRL. And Actions are more powerful than thoughts or feelings in a way because they are tangible.
This kind of love isn't "Romantic". It may be more basic and powerful than romantic love. We will explore romantic love, of course.
Question
Order of operations. Does love follow giving or does giving follow love? And is there a virtuous circle where one then facilitates the other?
Romantic example.
First date.
The young man sees a picture of a woman, has a conversation, feels very good about it- elated, in fact, and on the way he picks up a dozen roses to give to her. If you ask him about the order of operations, he will probably tell you that giving follows love. Even if he wouldn't call it, "love at first sight", he would still tell you that first he had a feeling, if not love, something he considered to be love, and bought her the flowers as a result of the feeling.
2 thoughts.
1. That is conditional "love". Whereas the love for the baby is unconditional, the giving of the flowers was conditional upon the feeling of love. If her appearance deteriorates or she is mean that may impact the man in the relationship where he no longer feels love for her. He stops giving to the woman/ relationship in the various ways one gives and then she immediately starts to feel unloved. This forms an un-virtuous circle whose end point is dissolution of the relationship.
2. Love at first sight is illusory. If someone feels love and a sense of optimism and excitement for the future which is the way I can think to explain that feeling at this moment, it seems that as quickly as it came it can go. The only way for it to survive would be to quickly come into the scenario with giving. If you love her and you start giving to her in the form that works for both of you, i.e. time, attention, effort, then that is a good start. However, after awhile, if she doesn't give back to you, the relationship is also doomed to failure. You cannot have love without giving (and you cannot have giving without love). The romantic feeling, including the feeling of attraction to beauty or sexual attraction, (although sexual attraction requires another chapter unto itself)- that kind of love is also dependent, ultimately on giving. If there is no mutual giving, there may be some kind of addictive relationship going on- a so called, "use-use" relationship, which is more dopamine dependent than oxytocin dependent, but that won't last as long or be as happiness inducing as relationship based on giving. In fact, a relationship of convenience is not characterized by the word, "love". That feeling is conspicuously absent. Furthermore, to the extent that a user relationship is true to its definition, it isn't based on the faculty of giving but rather it is based on the faculty of taking. "What's in it for me?" Although we all do come to the table with some needs, if that is the main or only focus, the relationship will not have legs. Furthermore, in order to have a relationship with a foundation that will support a family, each party must be devoted to the faculty of giving. The idea of 50-50, meaning that you come into the arrangement with the idea of "fairness" where you are responsible for giving half the time and that entitles you to take half the time, the math won't work. Because when the babies come and they need an amazing amount of giving, both parents must be capable of that. If love at first sight then leads to both people dedicating themselves fully and over the long haul, then it can certainly work. If, however, the initial feeling is not followed quickly with giving in its various forms, the feeling will pass as feelings often do, like another cloud passing in the sky. On the other hand, if there is no initial feeling of love but, most importantly, there is no negative feeling- repulsion- and both parties are motivated to dedicate themselves, each to the other, then the feeling of love will inevitably occur. And the feeling of love that would follow giving could be expected to be as strong as the giving that went into it, and continues to go into it, without stopping until now.
This form of love- based on giving- is what we can call "mature" love. In opposition, there is a form of love, very strong and immediate- and may be experienced as stronger in fact, than what I have defined as "mature love". This is "infantile love".
Infantile love is the feeling that we can speculate an infant experiences towards its caregivers. It is not based on giving but on having its needs met on the spot. Distress --> Satisfaction. Suffering --> Pleasure. This works well for an infant but would be pathological in an adult's approach to love and relationships. Over the course of childhood, as the child acquires abilities to self-soothe and then, to help others, he/she will be able to develop into a giver and love in a mature love way.
Infantile love is based on actual dependency. Infantile love some time after infancy is based on the FEELING of dependency, which is different from ACTUAL dependency. Infantile love after infancy can be called, "immature love".
Many people's happiness is conditional- it is dependent on something, an expectation. When we create an expectation then that puts us into a state of dependency. For example, if in order for me to be happy I must get a 100% on the test, a 99% will ruin my day or, in certain situations, ruin my life.
Immature love is similar. In the case of immature love one must satisfy the other's needs, which are extensive, time consuming and draining. The one that comes to the table with needs galore is "high maintenance" or "needy" and bodes poorly for most relationships where both parties must be strong givers most of the time.
One can speculate that a young child who did not get all of his/her actual needs met will not be able to be a giver his/herself as an adult. For example, if a mother and father did not get along and the mother took over/had the role of sole caregiver, the young child will know that he/she did not have a father and that hole will be real and palpable, despite anyone's protestations that it doesn't matter. This young child will develop pathology as has been studied extensively. Young men without fathers have an enormously disproportionate representation in prisons and young women without fathers have a much higher likelihood to engage in sex and pregnancy at significantly earlier ages. It can be speculated that the girls are looking for love and safety from a male to substitute the hole in their relationship with their fathers and the males may benefit from having their needs met by a provider in the form of "three hots and a cot", as awful a solution as that seems. There is a lot more nuance to this as well.
Role Fluidity in a loving relationship
The way loving relationships work among 2 adults isn't that each person does 50% of everything all the time. That would be what we can call a sibling-sibling model.
Rather, there is a rotation that occurs. That is, in one instance, one parents the other and then there is reciprocity. When I use the term parent, I do not mean that one tells the other what to do. I mean that one takes care of the other.
Example. (These are traditional and need not be- but I chose these as it is most simple and expedient).
Day 1. The husband takes his wife out to dinner. They enjoy the experience and the man pays the bill. In this example, the man has taken care of the woman. He has been the provider, the daddy, and she, the child.
Day 2. The wife cooks dinner for the husband at home. They enjoy the experience together. In this example the woman has been the provider, the mommy, and the man, the child.
The point- each had the opportunity to parent the other. This was not based on demands. If the man demanded the woman make him dinner, then he was "king baby" where he forces her to serve him like an infant needs to be attended to. On the other hand, if she demands that he take her out for dinner or anything else for that matter, then she is "queen baby" as well.
One particular example that comes to mind is the diamond commercial I remember as a child, "Isn't she worth it?" was the tagline. This stayed on TV for years, presumably because it worked. Presumably, this appealed to many women who wanted a ring and had that exact feeling. Again, this is based on the faculty of taking, "Queen baby".
And if the relationship is overly one way, where one party is the uber-giver and one is the uber-taker, eventually, eventually, the giver will become exhausted because eventually the uber-giver will wake up and realize how it feels to not be loved. It is quite painful and sad.
Need based adult relationships
There are these kinds of relationships that tend to be more dramatic. They may make for good movies but they can be painful to participate in as a parent and emotionally torturous for the child.
Need based relationships will also often be referred to as, "dependence" or "codependence". When you need the other, you are high maintenance. They must drop everything for you, regardless of what good they may be doing for the world, for themselves or for your and your relationship, ironically. People stay in a need based relationship not because they are better or happier overall. They are willing to trade off some basic necessity for their happiness in order to get something else that they need in the moment. For example, foundational characteristics like truth and basic respect might be traded away for immediate attention or breadcrumb offered to your ego. When one or both parties are loving the other in the "immature love" model, we see one party forcing the other to give to them. Giving of free will choice, voluntary giving is the manifestation of mature love. Being forced to give doesn't lead to love in the giver but rather it leads to a feeling of resentment. The feeling of love, to the extent that it is felt, is experienced in the receiver of the giving only. Immature love model. Furthermore, the feeling of love experienced by the king or queen baby is evanescent whereas the feeling of love experienced by the voluntary giver in the mature love model- that feeling has long tails.
Relationship vs. Situationship
I asked someone 2 days ago if he was in a relationship. He said, "Well, not really. I'm in a situationship."
A "situationship" is when there is a situation. If there isn't one, there is no relationship. So, a situation will always be manufactured. If you cannot have a relationship based on foundational mechanisms that work, then, if one party wants it, nonetheless, he/she will force it by manufacturing a crisis that then compels you/forces you to stay and fix it. As soon as that is resolved you will then be pulled in, ad infinitum to the next problem. Often/generally these have to do with threats to you in some way that you simply cannot ignore.
Or, to be prost- (prost means vulgar)
"If she can't f*ck you, she'll f*ck you."
Someone said this to me recently. He was trying to get out of a relationship. He was saying that if she can't get what she perceives as love and attention and sexual gratification from him, she will do her best to take whatever else he has, his money, his reputation, anything, to destroy him in the process.
Need vs. no need
It is said that no man is an island. (Source seems to be biblical- Christian- thank you to my Christian neighbors).
So, we understand that none of us are able to be need free.
That said, the more we can reduce our wants if possible, the happier (and healthier) we will be.
A relatively non-need based relationship generally has a simple arc of pleasure. Generally we go from neutral to a certain level above neutral. You can go from neutral to good or neutral to great. And that's a great deal of distance to traverse- from neutral to great.
However, when it is a need based relationship, you go from crisis to resolution. You can go from intense emotional pain/ distress to neutral. If that distance traversed is equal to going from neutral to great, just the relief of the crisis averted is more pleasurable than going from neutral to great.
But wait, there's more.
What often happens in a need based relationship is that you not only go from the depths of awfulness to neutral but you go from the depths of the lowest low to Great. The relief that occurs can result in a rubber band effect where you then become closer than you could have ever imagined just a few minutes ago. Yelling and screaming can be foreplay to passionate sex. So therein lies the payoff. The intensity of those relationships can be confused for the feeling of love and can be more powerful. This keeps these kinds of relationships based on a series of situationships going forward. However, eventually this burns up people's bandwidth. And, going back to the idea of the fight being preamble to connection (or foreplay to sex), what if ultimately it is the reverse? What if sex is the foreplay to the fight? Some people get more pleasure out of winning a fight than out of a loving sexual connection. Those that do are the ones that do not have the emotional bandwidth to love another in a mature way. These personality types are often referred to as narcissistic, borderline or antisocial, the cluster B personality disorders. They are confined to the territory of love as it is experienced selfishly.
Sentence Structure
"I want you."
"I need you."
In the first sentence, "I want you", the object is the item that is wanted. Want is specific to "you".
In the second sentence, "I need you", the item of focus is the subject, "I". It reflexive. I need is not about you, it is about me. Although need is more intense than want, it also means that you, yourself, are not worth anything, except for what you can provide to me. And as soon as you can't, either I'll make you or I'll just find somebody else.
This reminds me of a sentence, "I'm going to get pregnant, and if it's not with you, it will be with somebody else!"
Hearing that wouldn't make you feel loved, or special, in my estimation.
I think that we all function on a continuum of selfish-selflessness. However, I think that we all start out as selfish. Even before we have an identity as an infant the only identity is, "I'm hungry!". It isn't, "I have hunger" like in Spanish. It is exactly as it sounds in English. But as we mature we become more selfless. I think it is more likely that we can go from selfish to selfless, not so much the other way around. The question is whether we are becoming more selfish societally than in previous generations. And, if so, why?
Chapter 2- the legal system and its impact on families and our culture.
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