My main point still stands- people can be alone their whole life and be comfortable with who they are and miss out on any meaningful romantic relationship. Further, truly authentic love can be unequally distributed, rare, and can possibly lead to more frustration down the line. The avenues to obtain authentic love are also frustrating, clunky, non-harmonious, and often drama-filled. — schopenhauer1

I am not disagreeing with your point, it is more a discussion not intended to undermine yours but to explain mine ("putting yourself out there") and I am particularly interested in the idea you say here regarding the avenues to obtain authentic love as I see authenticity as a state of mind just as much as I view love to be moral consciousness and thus a practice. If we play with the words a bit, it is the capacity to reason and therefore live with honesty and thus the non-harmonious frustrations is really some failure of communication either subjectively within yourself due to social constructs that delude your perceptions of reality, or the oft drama-filled miscommunication between one another.

With the latter, if you are having trouble communicating, I would call that a sure sign that you are not right for one another and why I was suggesting happiness to be that natural 'click' or compatibility where you both seem to understand and admire one another comfortably and contentedly.That quiet desperation is really a failure to make this connection and yet still attempting - despite the lack of harmony - to make things work.

We haven't figured out the key to our own happiness in this seemingly important matter and so we fall into overanalysis, tropes, and other vague guidelines that simply make things worse. This story illustrated some of this. Overall, it is a tragedy and more proof of the negative character of human life (the basis for philosophy of pessimism). — schopenhauer1

To see the story as a tragedy has shifted my understanding of it and of your points as I personally felt more disturbed by the experience rather than sympathetic to the underlying motivations, except for when she continued to have sex with him despite realising that she no longer wanted to that perhaps - afterwards - made me feel sorry for her. I don't see what happened as a negative though as though no hope exists, on the contrary her oscillation between the authentic and inauthentic illustrates cognitive possibilities, a type of coming of age or bildungsroman that will enable her to understand what honesty actually is. As I mentioned earlier, it is a terrible experience having a person that you like or are attracted to intentionally hurting you, but despite the hurt, you contrast and learn and in the process this social dynamism helps you to improve and develop that consciousness.

I'm seeing themes of the (very often) futile nature of love/relationships/dating. I have agreed with your point that authenticity is part of truly loving someone for who they are and having them love you for who you are, but you have not addressed my main point which is the tragedy at the heart of this phenomenon. — schopenhauer1

This, I see, as an error and not a tragedy, that error where you select the wrong person and try and make it work, and all other aspects that lead you to make that decision - whether it be social constructs or some underlying loneliness and desperation - and the tragedy is when your entire life passes practising in-authenticity. It is really sad when people cannot see you for who you are, but it is a tragedy when you cannot see you for who you are. I don't see being alone as tragic unless there is an absence of authenticity (like the end of Brave New World)

It seems rather severe given the quality of the story in question, but I'm sure your comment, though stern, was well-intentioned and, like the story itself, meant to enlighten. "The Eternal Woman (or Feminine) draws us upward" (sorry, since we have Google we may as well use the original German--Das ewig Weibliche zieht uns hinan). — Ciceronianus the White

Indeed, the eternal feminine of a pure and submissive woman who functions as a gateway to sexual ecstasy must align herself according to the socially constructed ideals that her own identity and responses are shaped by what men expect her to be. Nevertheless, by keeping it real, it was not the best way to joke about women being socially conditioned to behave sexually in ways that men do not understand and those members who don't know me or are not my friend may intentionally misinterpret the meaning, so either way I apologised and apologise again. As for aligning the phallic with some gastronomic Eucharism, well, that's your soul and problem. :halo:

You'd have to explain the term "tragedy of consciousness" for me to comment on that. Are we compelled to act to find mates? I think it is not a matter of compelled but a matter of necessity. You cannot find a partner sitting by yourself, or not socializing in some way, so I see no other choice. But I could be misinterpreting what you mean by compelled to act. — schopenhauer1

I think that consciousness is that additional layer that functions almost in contrast to this biological landscape and our brains have the tools that contradict our own nature. We recognise ourselves or have capacity for self-awareness and thus the activities of our bodies and our thoughts and opinions. This shapes how we treat the system by forming favourable cultural behaviours - monogamy, polygamy, asexuality = maximum diversity - and while our underlying motivations are always compelled by the primitive need for sexual contact, the epistemic features challenges how we approach that system.

This is why some cultures - particularly paternalistic ones - contain systemic women's rights abuses that eliminate any capacity for these women to voice consciousness or self-awareness and thus removes that reproductive barrier. Women who possess such empowerment and control over their own bodies make choices because there is that subjective authenticity and as a consequence - since authenticity is a state of mind - are capable of wanting that love that I mentioned earlier to a point that they would prefer to be single and if they want children, are empowered enough to voice what they want. While women have that maternal instinct, there is a clear difference between contemporary western women and those paternalistic cultures where women end up have +5 children.

That right there is part of the tragedy. — schopenhauer1

:ok:

That is it uncommon for two people who are authentic to actually meet.

I agree with you about being authentic, but I think we must really emphasize the time and effort it takes to find a person and maintain a relationship with them. The fact that this is unequally distributed and rare, is a signal that something off about the phenomena of dating and relationships itself. — schopenhauer1

Perhaps I am being ungenerous; it took several solid months before I realised that I was attracted to that guy I mentioned earlier and I must make it clear that I am not talking about the love at first sight scenario, which is just Disney at best. No two people are perfect for each other, which returns to my earlier statement about that inability to genuinely connect, but two people who know themselves and their self-esteem is solid, who have the courage to transcend the opinion of others, they are able to share and enjoy one another authentically.

Okay, but again this is still not addressing the main point (which doesn't really have to do acting or being inauthentic) the point is:
You can be yourself all you want, and fail at finding a companion, love, and all the rest. People can be alone their whole life and be comfortable with who they are and miss out on any meaningful romantic relationship. You seem to be overlooking that main point. And there is yet another part of the tragedy. That is really the crux of my argument. We agree- authenticity in relationships is essential. — schopenhauer1

Hmm, I cannot help but think that is the tragedy of consciousness that may substantiate the reasons for why people to delude themselves in the first place (are we compelled to act because evolution dictates this, since without it we find it way too difficult to form bonds with others?

Being brutally honest, I am not unattractive and I was recently approached by a man who was attractive, had a stable job and was generally a nice person, but I didn't feel anything for him at all and for a brief moment in my mind I heard this he'll do. It was brief and I was shocked at myself, but it was there, the idea that we could build a life together, white picket fence, dog, children, but no love. I wonder how many people see there partners in that way, rather than actually feel something for them?

When women found independence, they also began to have less children. The more conscious and honest we are, the more incapable we are of bullshitting to ourselves that being alone is inevitably a choice.

I honestly cannot make out some of what you are trying to convey here. I think you are saying something along the lines that people play some sort of game to live up to an ideal and are not authentically themselves when dating. I guess, when first meeting another person, people usually tend to hide their most radical beliefs and most unique traits, because there is a notion that people expect some sort of "normalcy" standard- perhaps one a society has signaled through various cues as "socially acceptable". Sometimes, this leads to two people falsely living up to social standards but never being themselves. — schopenhauer1

More like acting, People pretend to be likeable, they are motivated to perform because being socially accepted produces feelings of pleasure and since society has shaped our understanding of what is likeable, attractive, popular, our self-esteem depends on these social reactions that compels us to perform in a way that we think will enable the best response from others; the more positive the response, the more secure we feel. In contrast to this is the risk of negative, anxious feelings which develop when one is alone or ostracised since the opinion of the majority implies verification that you are unworthy in some way. It is this paradigm that causes us to feel alienated from ourselves.

Have you seen those relationships between people, despite not being able to sustain a decent conversation with one another and where they are completely unhappy, deliberately create events with the unrealistic hope that things will improve? What - other than the congratulations socially for adhering to the "normalcy"- would compel two people to remain together despite lacking compatibility? What would make the two in our short story remain together?

That's great, but again, most things don't work like in movies or fairy tales as "instantly compatible". — schopenhauer1

I actually think it can. I am not saying it is common, neither am I saying that it is not without some effort or work on both parts, but two people can be perfectly compatible, they just 'click' and my friend is proof of that to me although it took a really unhappy relationship to finally make him find the courage to be himself. He is incredibly attractive (according to society) whereas his current partner is not, but they are genuinely happy together. He just doesn't give a shit what anyone thinks anymore and for that reason he was able to see her for what she was and not for what society would see him to be if he was with her. Does that make sense? So yes, you do put yourself out there, that things take time and you still need to make an effort and make things work, but the motivations are different. This is the dichotomy between authenticity and unauthentic.

Vulnerability. Showing interest in another in a vulnerable way, often repeatedly. Again, this dating process is where the anxiety, drama, and much of the painful part of the process occurs. It is not just instant, and it is not just fate, and it is not just kismet. It is a process that often leads to failure- failure to gain traction, failure to communicate, failure to be oneself, failure to fully find interest or have someone else find interest in someone, etc. No amount of self-actualization will bypass the actual process. You can be yourself all you want, and fail at finding a companion, love, and all the rest. People can be alone their whole life and be comfortable with who they are and miss out on any meaningful romantic relationship. You seem to be overlooking that main point. — schopenhauer1

I may be overlooking this because the line is very close to that former 'acting' that I initially stated, since one could merely be practising this faux behaviour to reach that intended success. I believe what you are trying to say, however, is that it takes practice to overcome that vulnerability to be yourself and indeed, this is exactly right. My experiences liking someone who did not like me back and all the grief that came from that strengthened me to finally reach that self-actualisation that my confidence is now really solid. In saying that, however, I cannot admire contrived behaviour and I have met men who are wonderful and where we do actually 'click' but, I believe you make your own luck or kismet. If you really love someone, you would make an effort.

I think you are being a bit flippant with how relationships form. People aren't just self-actualized totally autonomous beings rolling around until they magically meet a significant other by way of pure attraction or kismet by way of their awesome self-actualized nature. Rather, people have to put themselves out there and work at trying to be with someone. — schopenhauer1

I kept my feelings for a guy I liked secret because he had a partner and everyday - I mean every, single fucking day - he would say something that would tear me apart because he had no idea how to treat a person that liked him nicely. I would spend my nights stitching up the wounds until finally I could no longer keep myself together. I knew we were very similar people, I knew we could have been great friends, but I kept on feeding him things about me that were not true because it hurt so much that I just needed him gone. I am a very strong woman, for instance, and I know he likes that, so I portrayed weakness to put him off and a number of other things where finally I got really sick because I hated myself mostly because I couldn't be myself. I have never in my life felt so vulnerable then when I liked him and I still find myself wishing - like our protagonist - we could just sit and talk this through where I am honest about who I am. We have every right to want to protect ourselves - by whatever means necessary - from that hurt and the best way of achieving that is through lies.

Socially constructed ideals work in similar vein and is our way of communicating with the external world, where morality forms that contrast that articulates a structure in how we respond to others. We can never really know another person, we are always two magnets that repel from ever uniting authentically and so this "work" or "putting yourself out there" is really that attempt to explain yourself. The problem and what the story conveys is that most people don't actually know themselves, their attitude or decisions are aligned with socially conditioned ideals and they are motivated to quiet who they are that most of their activities are not shared but rather subjective, in secret.

This is the whole point, how can we "put ourselves out there" if our self-esteem is vulnerable to criticism where we fear projecting that inner life because it betrays socially streamlined notions of happiness? People read books and think that there is somehow a way to behave - "play the game" - in order to reach some end and therefore act without ever sharing a bond; it becomes dependence whether emotionally or economically and they are fine keeping things going despite their unhappiness because it is the lesser of two evils, the other evil being loneliness.

But, there are people who are instantly compatible, they actually work well with one another and when the barriers of society are shattered like what my friend did and where we can openly be ourselves, that sharing is authentic, it is "real love" because she is herself and she admires the other person who is also himself and where they both - as independent people - share a bond with one another.

As I said earlier, meaningful relationships don't just happen automatically because one is in some "self-actualized" state. — schopenhauer1

No, one must first learn to love themselves because only then can they ever "put themselves out there" authentically and see others for who they are as well. I needed to go through all those struggles that I faced with him to realise that I lacked the confidence or self-esteem and I learnt more about who I was because of it. People who are stuck in unhappy relationships, for me, is way worse than being alone.

But romantic love also has something to do with attraction. It also has to do with signaling that attraction, and pursuing that attraction. It also has to do with luck (is the person available). It also has to do with social cues (don't look like a fool, seem charming, don't be too nervous, etc.). — schopenhauer1

Some people often call their experience "love" but it is actually a type of dependence, or their attraction is motivated by a preceding loneliness, or because their partner perfectly epitomises the socially constructed ideal. It is why they say that one cannot love until they experience being alone and accepting or overcoming loneliness. They are no longer prompted to make these attachments, where social cues and signalling attraction becomes natural. You don't need to do any of what you say because you are comfortable with yourself. It is that deeper lack of self esteem that impairs our capacity to hear our own voice and what compels us to blindly pursue relationships with people that we prolong and maintain for the sake of it, despite there being no feelings or genuine connection.

People who doubt themselves form such bonds where motivations are superficially conditioned by society and they do this because they lack the self-esteem and the courage, relying on the opinions and the congratulations from others as though such positive reception parallels meaning to their own identity. Conversely, those who are narcissistic and who cannot get over themselves are just as vulnerable to the above mentioned conditions and lack the same self-esteem but enhances that image by exploiting others, just like how cowards attack weaker people. It is rooted in the same superficiality but overcompensated by delusions of grandeur.

In this world, it's easier to find oneself alone and unloved than to find oneself with someone and truly loved (perhaps eventually in the way you describe: authentic, prompting us to respond against the grain of social cliches and to see people for what and who they are. It produces real happiness.). Hence, I put in the category of the tragic. — schopenhauer1

Love is the only thing worth living for but as I said earlier, you cannot give love until you learn to love yourself, which is basically overcoming that deeper lack of self-esteem and feeling comfortable with being alone and unloved. That sounds easy, but it is probably the most difficult thing we could ever do and the tragedy here is that many people never do. They live in quiet desperation tolerating their partner and creating new and innovative ways to prolong the relationship and "make it work". That idea for me is daunting, of sitting next to someone on the couch as they talk about things you hate, watching them as they pretend to be something you know they are not, basically suffering only to keep things going. That is the real tragedy. Imagine what the protagonist went through but instead spending years and years having sex with someone you don't love. :vomit:

A friend of mine recently broke up with his girlfriend of four years and everyone was in chaos, total meltdown as though he committed this huge crime. They were the perfect, iconic couple. She was a mindless drone but very attractive and popular and he was a borderline genius that dumbed himself down for her. He was losing his mind, but they looked good and everyone celebrated this image, keeping them going for years and years because he doubted himself. She was nice. Everyone liked her. Everything looks good. The underlying misery was that he felt trapped and obliged to do something he didn't want to do and in the end he finally snapped. It was like he needed to destroy it all in order to break up with her, completely smash down that social coercion forcing him to continue to do something he didn't want.

He is profoundly happy with his girlfriend now, a small, chubby unattractive and unknown nerd who is genuinely one of the most beautiful people I have ever met. She does not parade around pretending to be nice. She actually is. There is real love out there, but it first starts with you.

The problem is people usually want significant others. This is where humans are utterly hopeless with poorly designed social systems to solve the problem of finding, signaling interest, and maintaining a relationship with significant other to have sex and other experiences with. With no set rules, the system gets bogged down with meta-analysis and confusion. Then you people simply falling back into tropes as the prisoner's dilemma sets in. Anyways, as we both agree this creates much unhappiness. Writers use this unhappiness and confusion to write mediocre short stories and soap operas. They seem to be the only ones benefiting. — schopenhauer1

I have had women copy the way that I dress, the colour of my hair, professionally and personally in a way of trying to morph themselves into the person they think that men would be attracted to. Whether this is based on some inner vulnerability or not, it exemplifies the superficiality of their inner life or being. I believe Erich Fromm states it perfectly:

Most people are not even aware of their need to conform. They live under the illusion that they follow their own ideas and inclinations, that they are individualists, that they have arrived at their opinion as the result of their own thinking - and that it just happens that their ideas are the same as this of the majority.

When you suggest it is about wanting significant others, what this does is produce standards or a set of expectations about what you look like, how you dress, your pleasant mannerisms and thus femininity and masculinity is streamlined into a social system that defines qualities worthy of these 'significant others' and why I suggested watching Black Mirror's episode Nosedive, the series itself like a selection of short stories and as you say, all those soap operas and social media force-feed these perceptions that people are conditioned to believe is reality. Our motivations are prompted to adhere because the rewards - the congratulations by society - reflect positively on you, despite it not actually being you at all. Your happiness is superficial. You form bonds with people that are not real; that is why I often say that those who are feeling depression or anxiety are really feeling their authentic self trying to communicate through emotional responses about the unpleasantness of their circumstances, they just don't understand it consciously.

I mentioned love because love and moral consciousness for me is the motivation which is authentic, prompting us to respond against the grain of social cliches and to see people for what and who they are. It produces real happiness.

Is she a sociopath? Or is there some important difference between this ^ and the original story? — csalisbury

I see what you mean about the vulnerability that appears more visible in the woman in your story, whereas in the reverse the man - according to her story - appears to be sociopathtic, but you must understand that when I said the latter it is to imply this alienation from any empathy or understanding of the other person, so I still hold that Robert has some pathology. I was interpreting the story from a single lens though and it is difficult to ascertain otherwise other than through the examples given, namely that of missing cats and the final messages as well as his sexual behaviour. It is nevertheless food for thought, however, that my initial reaction to his emotional disposition was indeed harsher than it would have been had the roles been reversed, which iterates that social conditioning and our understanding of our feminine and masculine roles.

In saying that, however, how did you interpret the main protagonist? Was she a heartless tramp?

I don't really care about what you said about me, but I do care about the homophobic-type vulgarisms aimed at BC and then you lecturing us all on how we undermined you without even acknowledging your bad behaviour in the discussion. Nobody else engaged in ad-homs except you and pretending you are the victim here is not going to fly. — Baden

I know you don't really care about what I said to you, clearly you have not read a word of what I was saying. And who is all? Don't use this notion of being so-called homophobic as an excuse for your anger towards me, because there is nothing about what I said that was.

This is really disturbing behaviour and I want to end our conversation right now.

When gay men (who are created by and raised in a heterosexual milieu) step into the envelope of gay culture, a different set of values, behaviors, expectations, and so forth comes into effect. Because it is not mediated by broad, long-standing cultural norms gay cruising tends to serve the fulfillment of basic urges. (But it isn't entirely chaotic. Norms are established.) — Bitter Crank

Norms are starting to be created because the gay community are slowly becoming socially accepted, but nevertheless the intended idea here is the suggestion that these norms can penetrate the psyche in such a way that the conditioning prompts behavioural responses that stand outside of our own motivations. The dynamic between the two characters epitomises these reactions and the acquisition of these learned manners leads to these superficial motivations.

Bandura explained these stages of cognitive development (coming of age) where these layers of cognition - consciousness, unconscious, imagination - plays with our responses based on these socially learned expectations, and so our motivations are filtered and controlled by probable reactions and rewards that we will receive from others. It prompts me to remember how a grown man in his late twenties felt like he needed to lie and responded defensively because he learnt that if he did something wrong, punishment soon would follow and despite his age, his motivations remained child-like. Heidegger concludes at this point that conditioning is causally rooted to such fear, like when our protagonist continued to have sex despite realising she actually did not want to.

This is what Schops and Kant and many others discussed as transcending or rising above these socially conditioned behaviours to find that personal voice and our protagonist was oscillating between the interactions of the two with the stimuli being the sexual experience or dynamic..Authenticity is perhaps to a degree a type of cognitive training or applied approach where we prompt ourselves with reminders during those moments of acute awareness that we matter. There is that 'I' in there and how this forms for me is still somewhat obscure. This is the part of the story that I found interesting.

The characters in Cat Person were both operating within an envelope where vague rules are mixed in with vague romantic notions common in our culture. When things don't work out well, (as they often do not) individuals tend to interpret the poor outcomes in terms imported from the main culture. — Bitter Crank

This is exactly what I meant when I said that she imagined him to be something he was not, despite clear examples of their sexual incompatibility and yet she felt obliged - as though society conditions women to respond submissively - and in some ways aroused herself in order to proceed with what was inevitably going to be a bad experience and she knew it. We are prompted to fear punishment or ridicule that makes us submit and I highly recommend watching an episode of Black Mirror Nosedive that explains these social pressures, which I found to be a better comparative then most of the stories placed in here.

Being fed ideas of white picket fence, happy home where people create the lifestyle they are fed to believe will bring them happiness (reinforced by the positive social outcomes that come from performing this adequately) and in my opinion, it is not a gender issue. Men and Women are pressured in the same way that ultimately shapes these superficial behaviours and leaves people alienated from themselves.

So, two people fumbling in the dark (literally and figuratively) who fail to have a good time may seize upon interpretations from the culture at large which aren't suitable within the envelope. The author, in this case, applied exterior standards, the way many people do, and arrived at a yet more unsatisfactory resolution. — Bitter Crank

I am interested in how you concluded this because I cannot see how the author did apply exterior standards, unless I am misreading you. Can you explain further?

I also recommend the short story “Some Other, Better Otto” by Deborah Eisenberg.

And responding by suggesing the reasons other posters disagree with you is due to some personal deficiency on their part effectively ends the conversation as a productive exchange of ideas. — Baden

Indeed, but it is the other way around. I disagreed with your argument and spoke of a deficiency in your opinions and you responded in kind defensively by undermining my argument, but hey, this is not the first time you have done this. Oops, did I say you. My bad.

Women are deluded about all sorts of things. For example, women are deluded about what men think they owe women. (Hint: Not-too-much to as-little-as-possible.) — Bitter Crank

This is really an unwarranted generalisation used rationally to distribute gender bias and clearly lacks any solid understanding of women. I am unsure of where your suggestions that we actually do think you owe us have come from, perhaps you would care to elucidate?

When gay men have sex, their biologically inherited small male investment in reproduction, enables them to have casual sex without the expectation of further involvement. Gay Liberationists thought that was a good thing -- casual (and quite possibly splendid) sex enjoyed with no expectation of further involvement, unless desired. — Bitter Crank

My closest friend is a giant Samoan gay man and he refuses to have casual sex. I have met his family and can understand why; they all accept him for being gay, love him and treat him with respect and they are all heavily involved in their Polynesian culture. If most of what we are is conditioned behaviour, given that gay men have long experienced oppression, ridicule and a number of other risks, they have been alienated from this conditioning. There are no rules. You are again generalising as though it were biological, but it is social psychology.

Women experience conditioning that attempts to articulate a responsibility to be sexually attractive and this includes popularity, innocence, and purity. It is everywhere, in everything that we do. This very conditioning about women is additionally and delusionally understood by men. Women who undertake casual sex works in contrast to these socially entrenched notions of the feminine, which is why Robert asked our protagonist whether she has had sex previously. The harmful representations of what a female is supposed to be like and how they should behave forms that dichotomy between the inner, authentic individuality and this conditioning.

Straight men who desire an on-going relationship with a woman and perhaps with their children, adapt an approach like unto that of women: Sex is combined with an assessment of on-going sex supply, potential for amusement, child-bearing, and child rearing.

Gay men assess on-going sex supply and potential for amusement, in either order. Faster, cheaper, simpler, better. — Bitter Crank

Love stands outside of this because it is one person' genuine self loving someone for who they are and they want to be with them only because they want to be near them. If men and women choose to play house with one another, it does not validate authenticity in such behaviour. Your almost clinical approach is still devoid of more depth to identity formation vis-a-vis authenticity.

So, you don't really believe that Bitter Crank "probably lacks an understanding of what the story means", then? You were just being provocative? — Janus

Apologies, I may have misunderstood you as this is actually a good question. No. I don't and his comments on women clarified it for me. I will be responding to him now to explain my opinion on the subject.

The specifics were the questions I asked that you didn't answer (such as regarding what symbolism you were referring to). — Baden

You were asking me to reiterate what I already said to undermine what I said. I assumed you understood my meaning, but this is perhaps a good start

You don't need to keep looking for personal reasons outside the text for why people disagree with you on the text. — Baden

You are not disagreeing with me on the text. You are disagreeing about the form. Two very different things.

(And recently I've been spending most of my time doing photography not editing anyway. So, there's another off-topic sentence you made me do.) — Baden

Tell me how I can make you actually perform a decent response and I will be glad to oblige.

.

No. It was intended to provoke what is now an interesting discussion; and I am sure Bitterlips can defend himself.

In your extensive self-lauded experiences, professional and otherwise, you might have perhaps, possibly, noticed that men and women are different. — Bitter Crank

I have noticed a reciprocal dynamic, men and women explaining what they want, producing vulnerabilities. Did you ever stop and think that perhaps women's approach to casual sex is a product of what men want? Like how our protagonist soothed the ego of vulnerable, disgusting Robert when she pretended that she was nervous?

I am about to get picked up by a friend to go on a hike, but I have much more to say on this subject.

Declaring? So women are more deluded in their approach to casual sex?

No, because the problem of establishing relationships is the same among gay people as it is among straight people. Gay men may have a more casual attitude toward sex (being men) but in the search for more complex relationships, we, like straights, entertain delusions. — Bitter Crank

This is the first time you have actually provided a decent parallel vis-a-vis the narrative rather than attempting to explain the commercial relevance and indeed, what do you mean being men and exercising casual sex? Are you suggesting gender differences?

You haven't addressed my questions on specifics. Anyhow, if it helps to clarify... — Baden

What exactly is your specifics? If we keep this real, you edit written content for a living so I feel that you are more defensive then actually ready to have a discussion about what it is I am attempting to convey.

You could have got just as much out of it on the level you are getting something out of it. Ergo, the form is superfluous to the commentary. But, the story qua short story can't be analyzed without reference to the short story form by definition. That doesn't mean it has to follow a standard form just that the form is necessarily relevant as a reference point. — Baden

I am not sure what you are saying here.

Nevertheless, it would not have had the same impact if the style were written as a diary, on the contrary, fictional narrative as a literary device offers a broader link that enables one to re-imagine symbolic and psychological significance and if the writing - however it is written - is capable of doing this, in this case Cat Person was successful, then the author has been successful in reinforcing that symbolic relationship.

No, because I've consistently emphasized the importance of the interplay between form and content. And form is never irrelevant to a work of art qua art (As for "this structuralism", I don't know what you mean by that or how it relates to my general contention re form). Have you read my Von Trier example? Any comment? — Baden

I am not (for heaven's sake) saying that it is not relevant, I am saying that it is purposive and if it is successful in explaining the content and thus capable of expressing that representation and therefore cultivating "the mental powers for sociable communication" then it has succeeded and no longer relevant to analyse. What is so hard about understanding that?

I have not read your Von Trier example admittingly, I am about to go on a hike so I'll read it when I return tonight (is it on here?)

What I'm saying is that this means the story fails as a short story because it offers nothing more than a straight diary account would while seemingly trying to follow the standard short story structure and failing to do so effectively, for example, in terms of the beginning and ending (which most here seem to agree with, so I'm not sure how anyone could can continue to contend it succeeds as a short story). But I don't want to be sound overly pedantic. I don't want to deny the work may have some value. That's a different question. Considering its effect on some people here, it seems that it does. — Baden

You are still making the same mistake, talking about short story structure because the value of the work is not a different question, that is what this discussion is entirely about. I have always wondered whether Doctor's enjoy the human form after seeing so many.

Ok, that is the crux of our disagreement then. I'm saying form is always relevant along with content in assessing any text in terms of its artistic merit. — Baden

You seem to be confusing art with aesthetics here, because this structuralism is irrelevant in this particular story - as I have already iterated in our initial discussions - since there is a triptych here that overall explains one narrative account that draws attention to realising a psychological and social reality, namely that of authenticity in our sexual relationships. The devices used to reach that explanation are irrelevant once it is reached and that is why I said that I was able to overlook those initial reactions because I began to understand what that idea was that the author was attempting to convey.

I thought that the form in The English Patient was awful and intended to promote an air of literary sophistication by making you read and re-read paragraphs as you try to figure out what he is attempting to convey, but is that literary snobbishness what made it win all those awards? If writing something that goes over my head and forces me to second-guess myself or try to interpret and read into what you are saying, is it verification of some supreme quality to be admired simply because it goes over my head?

Edward Said perfectly articulates how writing with the intention to complicate our understanding of the broader subject or theme is intentional and that explaining the content sympathetic to the variety in our audience is a skill worth recognising. I loved the story in the English Patient, by the way, so I am going to ask you again, if you suggested the author used a diary instead, how would that improve the content?

But how could this not be used as a defense of any kind of any badly written and/or kitschy story that just happened to be topical? If we're going to disagree about whether something is art or not, its features and the context in which they are set are all we've got beyond the bare plot. Besides, which "particular" features are you referring to. Which features do you think I'm missing in my analysis? — Baden

That is why I mentioned my initial reaction and how that changed as I continued because there are a plethora of badly written narratives deprived of underlying structures or ideas that would thus cultivate fragmentary opinions; your criticism is evidence of the contrary. There is no exclusivity that demonstrates quality in literature because you are imposing yourself by directly expressing boundaries, claiming there to be right and wrong properties in literary representation according to some framework that consists of aesthetic standards. We know this is a work of fiction and yet still felt shock, revulsion, anger, and even fear because the meta-narrative contains psychological and cultural themes that broadly explains shared experiences and the very "features" that are missing in your analysis. Art does not impose anything other than making you feel as though revealing a mirror that enables a discourse with your own psyche and clearly - by this thread and socially - it has cultivated this broader communication; if you felt little, it is likely because the story did not resonate and you were left with nothing other than critiquing the skeleton.

But you seem to be focusing on the content, the plot, and its relevance again. If that's all there is to it, then anybody can make socially important art. I contend that the form is a major failing with this piece, and you don't seem to be addressing that.. — Baden

I am saying that the form is irrelevant. You content that form is a failure in this piece and yet suggested a diary, which to me explains your limitations that are governed by definitions of credibility in literary form. Why not stop for a moment and listen to me; it made me think about how vulnerable to self-deception I can be. You are telling me that it was a terrible story that undermines my - and clearly a number of other people' - experience with this particular piece. You are forcing an ideology by failing to analyse this and the subject matter overall, the psychological experiences of young people and thus failing to appreciate the interconnection between a triptych.

Ansari is a terrible comparative that you selected and have likely done so based on base similarities - sexual experiences and text messages - but that is biography and fails to elicit a similar effect fictional literature can in similar vein to the symbolic power of parables to moral reasoning. It is these symbols within the fiction - and indeed in the case of Cat Person - that effects emotional responses.

Of late I've been unable to feel pain or any negative emotion like anger, jealousy, sorrow. I don't miss these emotions very much but I'm afraid to lose empathy.

I don't think I totally un-empathetic but the physical reactions to it like the heart beating a little faster or that drop of tear in the eye are all gone.

But if it were up to me I'd say that it's not good. To me emotions are like the phosphorescent dots on an old TV. They bring color to life and there's, I feel, magic in that. Let's say it makes life worthwhile in my view. The tears of shared pain and the laughter of shared joy are important to me. — TheMadFool

I think you have misunderstood empathy. For me, it is predominantly the motivational structure that enables us to act with righteousness or that quality of applying moral action with the intent of helping others. How is crying or feeling intense emotion going to help anyone other than satiate your imagined archetype of goodness?

I have always loved the saying, beware of false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. A sociopath can cry in order to manipulate and control her subjects as well as avoid responsibility, just as much as she can pretend to feel sorry for people in order to fulfil the positive image programmed by society, but it is all talk and no action. A Kardashian who wears tonnes of make-up and is some pawn for popularity may have those "nice" qualities, but what exactly do they do?

You are what you do. I work with disadvantaged children and some of these girls have told me stories that made me physically ill, here is an example, true story and one of many.

One young girl aged 16 who arrived as a refugee from Africa was extremely introverted and very unhappy. She was not enrolled in school and seemed all but ready to give up. I knew I needed to make her speak, she would not look up at me and would give one worded responses. So, I decided to write her life story and for eight months she would come and see me every week and tell me a little piece of her past, a past where she experienced near starvation, where several of her siblings died, where she was raped, fled a war-torn country, spend years in a refugee camp in the middle of the desert, before sitting with me. What the fuck was I complaining about with my first-world problems?

In the process, I enrolled her in school, tutored her with her homework, helped her make friends with other girls that I was working with, took them out to the movies, brought them some trendy clothes to help them fit in, and finally - upon passing - helping her to get into the course she wanted. I also started a facebook account for her so that she would start one and get herself involved in social networking to enable her to feel connected. I then printed her life-story into a book (just for her) and gave it to her as a gift. Not only is she open and talkative now, but because I believed in her, she believed in her and now wants to make a difference in the world. She see's my happiness and wants to create that for herself and she calls me her big sister.

She is one of so many and I hope to continue building on that, because that is what empathy is. I feel the need to do good, I feel that people don't deserve to be unhappy or sad and I want to improve that to the best of my ability that motivates me to take action. Then comes the shared joy when the result is positive.

Having the courage to take that responsibility is key. If you are not feeling anything and are not doing anything either, I would call that a type of disillusionment or detachment that stems from an underlying misery or unhappiness. You need to find the source of that unhappiness and counter it.

There you go. That's just some stuff that happened. It's not art. So, other than the fact that it's worth discussing sexual relations in our tech-commodified modern world, as they are complicated and confusing, the story itself qua short story is a big yawn. — Baden

I see it more aligned to Salinger' Catcher in the Rye because it attempts to ameliorate the inner subjectivity of a young person' mind that references those ugly qualities that we are each threatened to have, whereas the biographical account of the Ansari debacle is outside of us, something we will ever know. I feel you are taking some conventional approach to the meaning of art - as well as Bitter - that is indicative to the adapted tastes of the literary scene as though quality writing were contained within the limitations of particular features, and this only illustrates to me your dependence on definitions. Kant called this: "[a] kind of representation that is purposive in itself and, though without an end, nevertheless promotes the cultivation of the mental powers for sociable communication,” which is exactly what this story did. It is not aesthetics, but art.

I think you and Bitter may not have found any interest in the piece because there is no alignment or identification to the experiences and that severance to the nuances the author attempts to convey - i.e. authenticity and how we fool ourselves - is a shame, really.

How's you cats?

Do you think, Bitette, that you probably lack an understanding of what the story means given you've enjoyed penis for supper for these long years?

It fails aesthetically because it's poorly—if competently—written. It would be impressive as an actual diary scribbled down by a relatively well-educated young person similar in age and experience to the main character herself. But artistic renditions of the real thing are supposed to be aesthetic distillations not faithful copies. And I haven't heard a lot of argument in support of the writing anyway, so I'll take it as not particularly controversial at least that we're not dealing with the top-level here. — Baden

A diary would have been as worse as naming short story characters Billy or Jack, a typical template that is almost expected for such a narrative. If the author wrote this story intentionally, then she did a brilliant job in articulating the mind and subjective monologue of a twenty year old as though I were actually there as it was occurring in her mind. This oscillating imagery particularly with her feelings of repulsion when he took his clothes off actually made me feel as uncomfortable as she depicted to a point that I felt sorry for her almost naive inability to summon the courage to say no to him. I felt ashamed - despite never having experienced what she did - because the recognition emerged that even I am in danger for being as potentially vulnerable and guilty - again not to the level she did - of imagining some men to be something that they are not.

It has a very stale and unengaging opening. — Baden

This, I agree with. The first thing that came to mind when I started reading had nothing to do with the narrative but thoughts of how good Dostoevsky is and how contemporary writers lack that depth and skill. It went away soon enough as I trusted in @csalisbury' initial commentary that the plot may have some possibilities beyond the skills of the author. So, I kept reading. I came to see that any critical analysis of the style or skills of the writing was irrelevant because the story is some sort of a gateway into the psyche and experiences of many people, commentaries about her and about him seem to project the experiences as though there is a personal familiarity with the content.

I especially find it interesting when we overlook the first person narrative and somehow claim that Robert is thinking 'such and such' when no one can ever really know, as though verifying their own subjectivity in their analysis. Even a critique of the story is in itself a projection that validates guilt or sympathy or anger. It isn't a story anymore. It is an experience we are all having. We are angry for her for thinking he is ugly and fat. We are angry at him for his sexual failures. It is him. It is her. That is what a short story is supposed to do.

I think it's telling that these thoughts pop-up in the text, in each situation, in context in which she put herself willingly and was actually looking forward to up until something made her uncomfortable. Basically she was fine as long as her expectations were met. — Akanthinos

I think the point is that her expectations were imagined and we have behavioural roles that articulate correct responses and reactions that is devoid of any authenticity and almost at the expense of ourselves. She realised that she did not want to have sex with him and yet she still did (it is unfathomable to me the idea of having sex with someone under such circumstances) and a kiss communicates sexual compatibility. She should have known (she did know) and yet time and again she allowed those feelings to be overlooked.

He behaved in the right way. For him - and judging from what men are saying in this thread - he did not do a thing wrong, he followed the system every step of the way, from asking for her number up until the actual date, he obediently and strategically did what he was supposed to do and his final and aggravated response in the end was almost a declaration of his confusion. Why the fuck don't you want me? I did everything right, but was it? As @StreetlightX said so perfectly, he seems to be alienated from himself. He had no admiration or value for her, he was terrible sexually and he mistreated her. I literally felt repulsed that moment he called her sweetie, like hang on, why would you be saying that? That's what old married couples say to each other. He thinks he should and she thinks she should like it, yet they didn't even know how old the other was.

You are right that this is telling of the authenticity of her motivations, but not that this display some form of fear on her end. It just shows that she was no more authentic in her willingness to open herself and engage another in a relationship. Her retreat to safety was this move to "maybe his a murderer - lol - not really", which saved her from having to realize that she's as guilty of playing games as he is. — Akanthinos

Only for me the difference was she was playing games with herself whereas he was just playing the game and why after he had that horrifying sex with her felt like everything was dandy. She subjectively felt that something was wrong with him and that became visible when she was in the car, as though she momentarily awakened from some flirtatious slumber only to realise that cat person may not actually have any cats. And that made me think well hang on, what girl doesn't like a man who likes cats? It is an attractive quality for a man as it shows sensitivity and affection, and for me this aspect to the story highlighted that something was wrong with him and she felt it.

What I want to emphasise is that we all have the capacity to be Robert, we can all see ourselves doing the Right Thing, playing the Correct Role ('she asked me to come home with her!), without still knowing what it is we are doing. — StreetlightX

See, this is really interesting because I was having so much trouble understanding him and it compelled me to continue reading until the ending almost confirmed that he was the anomaly and isolated from most men (or at least the men she experienced previously), because I could genuinely sense that same revulsion and fear that she described. Was his reaction at the end merely evidence of feeling emasculated from the experience - like when she laughed or when he received the text message from Tamara - or was it because he is one-sided in the experience and could not understand at all how his behaviour was wrong. It was like he was not present and as you say, a complete absence of romance where their motivations are rooted in something that lacks passion or that reciprocal compatibility that would make the sexual experience exciting rather than humiliating. Putting on the music in the room was an example of this "correct role" and he had absolutely no idea of how to treat her so surely he must have the problem?

As the story is written in first-person, I can only go by what the protagonist explains and I think that since she is consistently unsure about what he is thinking, that underlying intuitive response telling her that 'he could be a murderer' or that he has no cats etc, is telling of the authenticity of her actual motivations, that she really is afraid. The idea that he is vulnerable for me is something she projected onto him in order to maintain a continuity of that evening. She liked that he softened at the idea of her being naive and young and that was what empowered her and ultimately aroused her, being viewed as a princess where he kisses her forehead and calls her 'darling' and this is where the "correct" status of gender roles in our sexual behaviour becomes somewhat disturbing.

Both are consistently unsure about what the other is thinking, and you consistently have this weird retroactive confirmation of motivation where each acts decisively only ever based on some expression of vulnerability in the other (with the vulnerability evoked by the other to begin with). — StreetlightX

This is an excellent interpretation of what was happening. I need to think about this one because I am terribly sleepy.

No, we're not on the same page at all. We are radically at odds, which might explain why you find me cryptic. — unenlightened

It really is hard to tell, particularly when you said this previously:

n this way, self-consciousness is always necessarily a fragmented condition - and in saying that, I am taking the third position of analyst, or God. What I think people feel the loss of, is what I have called authenticity, which is a whole-hearted, un-reflective condition which does not name itself, and does not perform itself in the sense of conforming itself to an ideal — unenlightened

If we are radically at odds, how exactly does the above-mentioned differentiate from my saying that authenticity is thus a type of ideal, including my position on God and moral consciousness as that ultimate ideal toward moral perfection. In addition, I assume with your Thrasymachian quote on politicians that ideals are merely a painting of an actual reality and therefore a likeness, which I also stated, but this likeness is inevitable as there is no possibility of divorcing our cognitive states into something mind-independent, where one can be entirely conscious of the contents of your thoughts; these are the epistemological barriers that we can never escape.

As a consequence, authenticity - as a state of mind - may not ever know herself, but she can see a reflection of herself in the mirror. That reflection may not be real, but it is there - just like nations and communities and religions - and love or moral consciousness is the mirror itself that reflects back intentions, motives, the subjective replies that enables self-awareness and self-reflective practice. Authenticity, like love, is a practice.

I don't think there's alot more 'going on' with either Margot or Robert than what's described in the story; or at least, what's going on is that neither has any idea of why they do what they do beyond the fact that they 'know what they feel'. — StreetlightX

There is an honesty that is very rarely expressed in literature of this nature, namely the protagonist was aroused by this idea that he desired her or her perfection and the idea that she is all that he would ever want and that egotistical arousal enabled the erotic encounter; that stunned look and stupid pleasure despite their clear sexual incompatibility. Her imaginary partner - the ideal boyfriend - yet again paints an interesting picture of how we can create this imagined person that we project outward into experiences with others in an almost delusional manner, until suddenly we realise who that actual person is and what we wanted them to be. She had the feelings that something was wrong with him and with the situation she found herself in but she excused it with imagined ideas, even later when she pretended to tell him about a gay high school boyfriend was clarity of her fear of him. She knew how to please him, clear when she reflexively stated that she was nervous as she became aware previously that he found her naivety or youth pleasing. It is all the lies we tell ourselves when the reality is plain and manifest.

He clearly had no understanding of her, for him it was all about him, he was a terrible kisser, terrible at foreplay and terrible at sex and yet he happily talked about his pleasure and happiness without realising at all how she felt. He was a sociopath.

If your reason for deference is because you seek approval, then it's a bad decision and an abandonment of your right to decide. It's possible also that you have noticed a rather poor ability to decide, like if you seek out the same crazy every time and thereby experience the same predictable results, then maybe you should listen to others. Isn't that the purpose for a therapist to some degree, to gain some perspective and objective feedback to try to avoid the same mistakes or limitations? — Hanover

"Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence." In the case of love between two people, I would say never listen to others.

If you want to spend a rampant weekend with some relatively unknown woman of obscure origins and your friend tells you that is a mistake because she might have an STD or the moral dimensions are problematic because you have a family, then yes, listen to your friends. The purpose of love - namely that of moral consciousness - as I have iterated earlier is that it works as a tool that enables authenticity, so if you doubt yourself and are insecure to such a degree that you follow others and do what you are told, you are automaton and no longer exist and often such people end up spending rampant weekends in secret to try and escape from their own misery. There is no authenticity in their behaviour.

When a person experiences an inner anxiety or subjective discomfort, that is the inner 'I' telling them that something is wrong, an intuitive awareness explaining that they are conforming to their social environment but they are not consciously aware that their choices in life is really them seeking approval and as such live in this quiet desperation.

When you follow your own feelings - even if it is a colossal mistake - you actually learn from it and so it is yours rather than given to you. That is what shapes your capacity to understand the world, forming that contrast and prompting the mind to start thinking for itself.

Aren't the prisons filled with people who made bad mistakes that really did matter? It might be better that I not ride a motorcycle without a helmet at 100 miles per hour, even though the rush I get from having my pony tail flowing in wind is so freeing. — Hanover

Yeah, you are clearly having some trouble understanding the purpose of this thread. I am attempting to explain it using sophomoric language but perhaps epistemology is a bit beyond your scope?

Yeah, so unless Noble is suddenly a woman, I stand by my initial remark. :brow:

I don't think I'm being particularly cryptic, so probably, I don't know what I'm talking about. — unenlightened

So you don't, but you do, don't, maybe?

Nevertheless, I am fairly clear that authenticity is a state of congruence between state of mind and behaviour. And this aligns with the authenticity of a work of art, if it actually created by the person it is purported to be by, rather than a forger. So my smile is authentic if it is an expression of my happiness or amusement and inauthentic if it is a cover for my anxiety or anger, or whatever. Thus the inauthentic state is a divided state between what is portrayed and what is felt, whereas the authentic state is wholehearted. — unenlightened

So we're on the same page but you are using coloured crayons. Memories are not static, but are continuously changing because as we further understand and develop, our interpretations of those experiences also evolve. Authenticity is thus a type of ideal or interpretative tool used to explain how we relate to others and language becomes the aesthetics that transforms our capacity to articulate reality and make sense of our emotions forged by our early experiences. The latter for me is a type of unconscious language, that triptych you initially spoke of that while distinct interacts as a regulator that communicates between the inner self and the mind along with our experiences with the external world. It is us, our identity, the 'real' us and authenticity is a name that explains our ability to decipher this 'I' within these external influences.

The problem is that an ideal itself is a painting of something not exactly real, as mentioned ideology or nationalism, religion and communities, all these are imagined, concepts that we have created. It does not imply that they are unreal, in fact it produces a Foucaultian dynamism that activates these dormant cognitive features, but I am skeptical of consciousness ever forming as something that is independent of psychology or the mind itself. So, how does this 'I' form if indeed it even exists? It is not about what the world gives you and because language is socially developed, how we interpret and articulate the world is based on these shared experiences. The point of transcending is to use our brain and language as a tool since we have the capacity to give rather than receive, unlike when we are children.

This is why love or moral consciousness stands as that medium that initiates this process of awareness of our mental states. It is not about receiving love or the accolades of others as one would when the blindly follow the masses, but about giving love to all things - God - and thus forming that perfect love. What is felt is often this 'I' speaking through what we are told or taught to believe is true.

Perfect love - well it sounds like a 'solution,' in the sense I'm talking about. Of course your quote is about religious love. I think that's a good thing to hold onto on a personal, spiritual level. The ideal of an absolute unconditional love is, imo, a crucial ingredient for getting you through the really hard times. But locating this sort of love in something (or someone) worldly can make things worse, I think. For the simple reason that there's basically no such thing as perfect love on earth. — csalisbury

There is no such thing as religion, it is socially constructed and as there is something static in beliefs, the only belief one should hold is the somewhat Cartesian dualism; in your own existence and God, the latter being a representation of our goal toward moral perfection, that is, to be loving. Love itself to me is merely moral consciousness, you become conscious of yourself, of your responses and begin to feel empathy through this shared experience.

Love is a choice, an application, a way of thinking and not some spontaneous given. In my opinion, is authenticity, motivating us to be honest and since our will is what drives everything about us, the mechanics of our cognitive states driven by moral consciousness teaches us to rethink our decisions and mirror values and ideas, to think twice. We can then contrast ourselves with something that enables us to self reflective practice.

Could be that you're wrong and they're right but you're drunk off the emotions of love. — Hanover

That's the point. It doesn't matter, you follow that gut instinct especially if it stands in contrast to what people would like or approve because then you know it is your decision. Many people follow, they have their token partner and approval from their parents, environment, culture, religion etc and thus live in that quiet desperation. As long as it is your choice, it doesn't matter if it is a mistake or not.

Or maybe your confidence is reckless and you've got a great big helping of misery on the horizon. A lot of time friends don't tell you they think your significant other sucks because they don't want to alienate you, and then when it all falls apart they say "yeah, I knew she was a train wreck," and you're like, "why didn't you tell me," and they're like "because you wouldn't have listened" and you're like "true." So what I'm saying is that there is a degree of maturity in listening to others and hearing them out. Other people can bring a perspective you don't have, and it's not an abandonment of individuality to listen to them. — Hanover

There is a lot of maybe this and maybe that and of course there is nothing wrong with listening to friends, but ultimately you know more, you have experienced an intimacy that far outweighs what anyone else could offer and it is your life that you put at risk. Sometimes rationally you could think a thousand things of why someone is wrong, but your gut still tells you otherwise, that gut feeling is yours. It is not yours when that person is perfect and your life perfect, but you are deeply miserable. There are always risks in experiencing life, but at least you experience.

Perhaps we are talking about different things. I mean something close to real as opposed fake. More of an on-off thing. — unenlightened

I am saying that authenticity is a state of mind, only you are writing in your usual cryptic way that forces me to try and decipher what your point is. Sometimes I wonder whether that is just a rhetorical tool to covert that you probably don't know what you're talking about.

But it is a mere observation that quite often people do feel inauthentic, that they do feel trapped in a role, if not in a hall of mirrors where their sense of their own unreality is disquieting. — unenlightened

On the contrary, that parallel exists because of authenticity, our ability to become conscious of the inauthentic through our experience of the world. When we fall in love, suddenly we become conscious of our behaviour, of our body and appearance because we begin to see ourselves through the eyes of another and start to value affection and kindness or the suffering one feels when they are hurt by the people that they love, thus inspiring empathy and compassion. Friendship takes those emotions and makes it more separate and objective, thus loving-kindness is formed. It is not disquieting, it is beautiful.

But we have automaton responses that prompt us to avoid feelings of anxiety and the unknown can make us feel anxious - that we have the ability to form our own thoughts and are responsible for our own lives - but our avoidance is against something we already know but that we have yet to learn how to articulate. We just don't know how to think for ourselves, to separate ourselves or cut the umbilical cord; we don't know because we have never done it before. It simply takes time.

The saddest thing for me is when people give up and absorb themselves and it is easier and easier within our capitalist society to get carried away with the things of this world, Kardashians and physical appearances, being an ass or drinking yourself away. We shut it off and thus shut ourselves off.

So my theory, such as it is, is that there is a process of identification whereby one separates oneself from one's condition in order to name it, describe it, analyse it. So when I identify myself as frightened, I have split into a frightened self and an identifying self who is not frightened but critical. In this way, self-consciousness is always necessarily a fragmented condition - and in saying that, I am taking the third position of analyst, or God. What I think people feel the loss of, is what I have called authenticity, which is a whole-hearted, un-reflective condition which does not name itself, and does not perform itself in the sense of conforming itself to an idea. — unenlightened

There are clear limitations in authenticity because there are clear limitations in our autonomy; but it is not about a complete separation but rather embracing a togetherness between individuals, a kind of amalgam between Kant and Schopenhauer. Can we call something sincere when our desires have no longer stained the result? If you fall in love with a girl that has all the wrong qualities and that everyone you know thinks is wrong for you and appears to be an all round wrong person, but yet you feel she is right, you trust that above all else. We move up and away from thinking what we are told to think to appreciate our personal feelings and responses. Otherwise you are safe, but miserable.

This is how can we differentiate between a person who blindly follows the masses but pretends to individuality with a person who honestly attempts self-reflective practice. I see our actions in our lives as representations of our state of mind, that we become alienated from ourselves because of society but that psychologically we have the capacity for self-awareness.

Here is some wisdom for you: You can never defeat an ignorant man in argument.

Again, I'm an idiot. Ask TimeLine or @StreetlightX for evidence. — Noble Dust

Don't get me involved.

Nevertheless! I think the word wisdom is merely an old word that attempts to describe emotional intelligence but has since become victim to a quality narcissists like to add to their repertoire to give an air of legitimacy in their judgements of others. It is to have common sense - which as Voltaire perfectly said is not so common - and an ability to regulate the inner self along with an outer life (professional, interpersonal) and to transcend societal constructs to be capable of studying the world objectively.

You are still that same child trying to impress the pastor and be better than the other kids, but now in the big, bad world you realise that you are not better than the other kids and you be like, shit. That is called growing up.