The problem with having entire days filled with doing things like cleaning my room is that I think a lot, and come up with a lot of things I want to write about. A sampling of today's thoughts:
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I saw a commercial today for a device that's supposed to help people who have trouble hearing...and proceeded to be really creeped out by the commercial mentioning that the device would help people listen in on conversations from across the room / across the street. Maybe this is on par with hypocricial whining about Facebook's news feed, but I was kind of freaked out that a product would advertise itself on the basis of its ability to make it easier to invade pricvacy. Then again, the commercial was on the Military channel where I was watching a documentary about Hitler and the secret Nazi Occult, so...
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I heard an interesting theory today about relationships. It was kind of complicated, and I'm still digesting, but here's my best attempt at a precis:
Most people end up being attracted unconsciously to someone who reminds them of one of their parents, and usually it's the parent that they had the most trouble with growing up. This is because they've put so much energy into thinking about and dealing with that parent, that someone with similar characteristics actually feels comfortable and familiar. Not only that, but meeting such a person gives one a chance to actually resolve things from childhood that never actually got resolved - a chance to make communication better, or be validated, for example.
So, that's one part. Another part is that people tend to be annoyed by traits in others based on traits that their own parents stifled in them. This makes sense, from a more practical perspective than the book's authors were willing to admit - we're taught from an early age that things like lying and stealing are wrong. It's reasonable that most parents have an additional worldview that assigns taboos to certain thoughts and behaviors. The problems arise when these thoughts and behaviors are actually normal or even healthy, but for whatever reason have been squashed by the parents. This could be anything from a choice in career ("My parents wouldn't let me study art!") to certain ways of expressing themselves ("My parents never cared about what I actualy thought or felt so I had to make sure always to be stoic around them").
The point here is that we have reactions to, and make assumptions about, our partners based purely on instincts created by our parents. Specifically, we find faults in our significant others that acually reflect pieces of our own selves that we'd still like to know and be in touch with solely because we were taught from an early age that such characteristics were undesirable. This combined with that tendency to be attracted to a personality type that once caused us a lot of problem actually seems like it might be a reasonable explanation for a lot of relationships going sour after the inital "romance" phase.
What's the solution, then? Well, the authors offered a couple, to address the two mostly separate points they brought up. One is to take the familiarity that comes from being with someone you're initially attracted to and use the trust that comes out of that as a basis to actually resolve a lot of the problems that you might have been faced with earlier in life. Perhaps you never felt really accepted by a parent - but now you've found someone to accept you. Another solution is to realize that you're probably so annoyed by that person's habits (assuming that they aren't blatantly immoral or unhealthy) becuase you're projecting traits that you're uncomfortable with in yourself onto them - and then to start loving those traits in the other person. Apparently this has the subconscious effect of making you accept those traits in yourself - making you at once more reconciled with yourself and more loving and open to your partner (blah blah blah touchy feely blah lol).
It all makes sense from a really convoluted perspective, I guess. Honestly it seems like a lot of back and forth for something that could actually be a lot more straightforward...I guess it's also true though that anything that's a part of our actual subconscious isn't going to be a part of our normal, rational, thought and so maybe there are extra steps for reconciling things in our subconscious.
Finally, I was kind of surprised that the authors didn't acknowlege that some people do have a perfectly normal, healthy childhood. I guess the answer for those people is that they find someone similar to people they relate to on a healthy level and don't really run into those resentments or tensions? Or is everyone supposed to have at least one or two schisms between self and self-as-influenced-by-parents?
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Finally, I'm once again realizing the limitations of modern medicine. It's so, so, so, incredibly scary to realize that there just aren't any easy or straightforward answers for some things. It's absolutely heartbreaking to watch someone you love be poked and prodded and medicated, but not really have their symptoms or condition well understood enough to be medicated and counselled helpfully. I mean, hopefully I'm being overly cynical here - right now I am just really frustrated and kind of upset after watching things unfold - it's just that sometimes it seems like for all our progress we really haven't gotten any closer to addressing the root problems of a lot of disorders...
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