"We are products of evolution."

Sharing meaningful love as meat-puppets « Random Xpat Rantings: "Our emotions, no matter how authentic and holistic and integrated, are products of evolution. We have emotions for reasons. If you love someone, it’s because your brain has evolved to retain the instinct and programming to do so...

We are meat puppets. Meat machines. I know it sounds harsh and derogatory to talk about real genuine emotions as being manipulative, but that’s because we believe in falsities about what the self is. We identify with our emotions, and take them at face value. And while that’s common, it’s also extremely naive. We have agendas underneath our emotions. Biologically programmed agendas...

It is not an insult to see things clearly. There is only slander when there is untruth. You can have the most sublime and perfect love possible, and underneath that is still agenda. We have instincts. Primal instincts. We have many evolved agendas.  For men the big ones are: 

* the search for a youth and beauty in mates 

* power and wealth 

* social status and influence and networking 

No matter what is on the surface, underneath is agenda. It is no insult to know this...

Women do what they do mostly out of evolved drives also. It is not fair, it is not good, it is not right. It is not unfair, it is not bad, it is not wrong. It just is. That’s the real world we live in. We have selfish agendas, and it is not always win win...

Agenda is below emotion; evolved drives are below and ruling our current emotions. Next time your pupils dilate due to love, know that this is manipulating the person in front of you.  You will be completely unconscious of your pupils dilating, because the evolved processes are agendas BELOW and RULING our conscious emotions.  Your emotion of love DOES manipulate others, and knowing that might feel insulting, but only if you completely misunderstand what your self is..."

Being authentic and honest is only a few onion layers deep. Below that is agenda. « Random Xpat Rantings: "Getting older is a series of transitions of perspective, and I’ve noticed a general trend that age makes people more pragmatic about competing interests. At first it’s painful to even acknowledge them; “Can’t we all just get along? Isn’t there a mutually beneficial solution? Does it have to be zero sum? Let’s find a symbiosis.”

 But there is no perfect symbiosis that lasts between men and women. That’s debatable of course – some old married couples somewhere may have it...

We have competing agendas, plain and simple. We get jealous. Even within our own mind we have competing interests for intimacy and independence. If you get what you ideally want, the girls will not get what they ideally want. You are doing a hell of a great job in getting what you want, which necessitates them being at least satisfied enough, but preferably thrilled and addicted and profoundly and happily attached to you...

Underneath it all is the same thing; agenda. Women do want monogamousnhess out of their mates, no matter what they say or do. Every single act they perform is a spontaneously choreographed movement to elicit monogamoushness. Men want sex and devotion out of women...

You are genuine. But don’t let that genunineness fool you. Kids genuinely cry in front of their parents, because we are biologically programmed to seek attention from care givers when under duress. The emotions are real, but conditional...

But authentic is only the top layer. There is another layer below authentic, and it is agenda. It’s difficult to come to terms with this. Because we want symbiosis. We don’t want to cause suffering. Love is supposed to be about making each other happy. Unfortunately, love is also a battle of competing interests. If you choose to maximize the girls happiness, it can only come at the expense of your own, in some areas of your life. 

These are negotiations people make with themselves, usually unconsciously and explained by our internal press secretary with pretty rationalizations. “It’s not right to cheat” “Marriage takes work and sacrifice”. “I don’t want her to cheat, and so I respect her emotions and won’t cheat also”. These are all very popular and workable strategies. Workable for most people...

I no longer see empathy and intimacy as inextricably intertwined...  Take away the upheavals and the pain, and you also take away the love and the passion and the drive and the bonds. It’s a gestalt, and that’s what you signed up for...

The real situation has evolved biological constraints to our emotional responses... I remember the first time I had your deep insight that you can’t choose what you want. That was a biggie. You can’t. And from that insight, it follows that you can’t choose not to have competing interests. "