In this section I'll discuss my philosophies regarding various social issues and aspects of the human condition. Sort of "Gordon the Guru". Like elsewhere in here, I hope you'll return occasionally to see what's new.
There was a fascinating book which appeared a number of years ago, in the late 1960s I think, called "The Peter Principle". The book describes and explains the phenomenon of how large and mature companies seem to have a lot of inept people in middle (especially) levels of management. The book explains that people get promoted out of jobs where their performance is very good, until they eventually reach one where their performance is unimpressive... they eventually are promoted out of a job they do well, to one where they no longer do. I believe that the same principle can be applied to relationships as well, where I call the corollary, "The Peter Principle of Relationships". This corollary principle can be stated as "People push relationships to the point where they no longer work."
Often, instead of enjoying relationships for the benefits they DO have to offer, people apply more and more stress factors onto them, trying to make them more and more their "only" relationship, until the mounting stress usually manages to destroy the relationship. And like people in a corporation, we often are unwilling or unable to take one step backwards and just enjoy the relationship as it was, before we tried to push it too far.
Why do we push relationships like this? I think it's simple... people are lazy by nature, and it seems easier and less time-consuming to maintain one relationship than many. (Another reason is that people don't like the feeling of vulnerability that comes from letting new people within the hard outer "shell" we build around ourselves to protect ourselves from what could be a hostile society. Like a hermit crab changing from one shell to a larger one, we attempt to minimize this period of vulnerability as much as possible, and to keep the number of people with detailed personal knowledge of our foibles and frailities, and thus the ability to hurt us, down to the minimum possible). Therefore, we try to make that one relationship fulfill all our needs, rather than continuing to expend the effort to continue meeting new people and establishing new friendships and relationships.
Of course, this limiting of the number of our relationships has its own nasty trap... we become too dependent on just one other person. Like putting all your eggs in one basket, when that relationship finally comes to an end (as they nearly always do, sooner or later), the hurt is all the more. Not only have you lost your "main [even only!] relationship", but you've simultaneously lost that person who you've become dependent upon to help you through just this kind of personal crisis. Plus, if you've been in that relationship for a long time, you may well have forgotten how to live as a single, how to meet people, how to establish the new relationships that you suddenly find yourself again in need of.
And of course, the fear of losing a relationship which you feel that you have become dependent upon creates as a nearly inevitable result the corresponding (and also destructive) feelings of possessiveness and jealousy. These feelings are destructive to many relationships because they force staying in the relationship to be an "either/or" type of thing: you cannot get the (perhaps few) other things you want, and the relationship in question doesn't have to offer, unless you leave the relationship altogether. Many people find, after they've been in a relationship for a while, that the list of things that "I can't have, as long as I stay in the relationship" starts to get pretty long, and the importance of the things the relationship does provide, in contrast, often starts to look pretty unimportant.
Personally, I think it makes a great deal more sense to surround yourself with a great many people, where you enjoy from each relationship that which each specific one has to offer, without placing so many demands on each one.
So I tend to believe that the ideal kind of interpersonal relationship is what I call "the composite relationship". Instead of looking for one single piece to the jigsaw puzzle which fits all your needs perfectly, I think it makes more sense to find several pieces, each of which has perhaps only a portion of what you're looking for. If there is a significant overlap between those pieces, (unlike a real jigsaw puzzle), so much the better! It just goes to help reduce the dependency aspect I wrote about before.
Theoretically, I sort of like the number "five". I think it would be enough people to keep the relationship fresh and diverse, and to not impose undue demands on the people within the group (for example, if you want to go out and your partner doesn't, you could go out without feeling like you're abandoning them with them unable to do anything else). I think the number of people ought to be odd (it reduces the tendency of people to pair off), and I think three is clearly too small, while seven or nine people start to get unwieldy.
I don't see this as being a commune, by the way. I think people ought to be able to have their own living spaces, their own jobs and incomes, their own savings and finances, their own lifestyles. This makes it easier to drift apart (discussed elsewhere) when and if that's necessary, and avoids them feeling like they're trapped in something when they'd rather not be.
People change as they go through life... change is, paradoxically, the only thing in life which is, in fact, itself constant. People that I knew in school, people where it would have been absolutely unthinkable that I'd ever lose touch with, have in many cases simply drifted away. Not that we've had any big conflagration, in most cases... it's just that people change, their values change, what's important to them changes, and the relationships they surround themselves with need to change to reflect that constantly evolving reality. I think that most of us, had we been able to find at age 19 (say) someone who we would at that time have considered our perfect partner, recognize that today (ten or more years later), that same person would be far from what we would still consider our perfect partner. Our needs, our expectations, our values, have changed.
I think that this kind of simple "drifting apart" is perhaps one of the best possible ways for a relationship to end when it has outlived its usefulness to the people involved. In most cases, you're still friends, and will enjoy running into each other if you ever do at some point in the future. Part of the problem with most relationships is precisely that the intensity of the relationship (and the dependencies that so often result) does not allow for this kind of easy and nontraumatic drifting apart, when it becomes appropriate. Once a person has gotten married, for example, the only real way to dissolve it is divorce, which is usually frought with anxieties and unhappiness on all sides. (In a divorce, only the lawyers involved really come out ahead). If you have a steel chain binding two people together, enough stress on that chain will eventually cause it to break, and probably violently. If the connection is much looser, the eventual drifting apart will be much more painless to all parties involved... in part, because it can happen more easily, and earlier in the process, before the forces pulling the relationship apart have to become catastrophic.
Some friends seem to like to point out that "you have to give and take to make a good relationship." I think that's simply rubbish. I simply don't believe that there is any inherent virtue in sacrifice... I think it's great when you can have everything that you want, without having to put up with a lot of stress-inducing stuff that you don't.
I strongly believe that the best relationships are those in which everybody involved simply thrives on what the other(s) spin off naturally. That's where the true synergy occurs. It's really like business deals: the best ones are those where everybody involved feels like they came out ahead, like they all got a good deal.
I think that sexual exclusivity is a damn poor basis if that's the main founding block for a relationship between two people. Personally, if I were in an important relationship with someone and they wanted something that I wasn't capable or desirous of giving them, I'd much rather them be able to get it elsewhere than to feel like they'd have to end the relationship altogether as a pre-requisite to getting something that important to them.
One reason why I don't really like the concept of marriage is because I feel it tries to deny the reality of change, as have I pointed out elsewhere.
My mother once told me that she thought marriage was a terribly important component of a relationship between two people, because "it shows you're sincere." Frankly, I don't think that people who get divorced weren't sincere when they got married. They were just naive, and didn't recognize the immutable truth of the change that occurs as the virtual defining aspect of all living things.
By the same token, I don't think it's a sign of "failure" to end a marriage that has served its purpose. When a marriage no longer provides the mutual happiness for which it was created, it's simply logical for everyone involved to thank the other(s) for the good times that have been shared together, and to resume that Eternal Search for Happiness.
I've been to fifty-year-wedding-anniversaries where inevitably, one of the couple says something like, "Well, it wasn't easy, but we proved we could do it... we proved we could stay together for fifty years." What did they really prove? That they could waste the last twenty or thirty years of their life in a mediocre relationship, where they might each have been happier with someone else? Who do they think is going to be impressed by such an achievement? Who really cares?
Too often, people waste a lot of their lives trying to conform to what is expected of them, or to what they have been taught to think that they should want. As Oscar Wilde once said, "Third marriages are a triumph of hope over experience."
Why do people make such a big deal about sexuality? I mean, it's not something that we all don't have... there's not a one of us here on the planet that didn't get here the same way. I truly don't understand why so many people feel it necessary to perpetuate all kinds of stupid hangups and inhibitions that prevent them from openly discussing (and sharing) these experiences with each other without embarassment. Why do we cling to this bizarre feeling that somehow sexuality is automatically shameful, exploitative, and nasty?
Some years back, a very good friend of mine, a fellow programmer at Datapoint named Boyd Campbell, was killed in a motorcycle accident. He was a fine programmer, and a cool person too. He and his girlfriend Dana had traveled to visit Mexico City in a group with me and some other friends. The accident wasn't really his fault... a driver in a car turned left in front of him, and Boyd was killed instantly. It took me about two months to get over his death.
I finally realized that people around us in this society die all the time. We don't mourn the death of those who we've not known, even though they might be very wonderful people. Therefore, what we're mourning for is simply because, during their time on earth, we were lucky enough to have known them! But that's not a reason to mourn, that's a reason to be happy! Think of all the wonderful people that are living their lives on this earth (or have lived here before us) who we will never have the opportunity to meet.
I've never seen a great deal of value in trying to be like everybody else. Just like I think it's silly to make the same kind of "me too" products that somebody else is already building. Being different isn't automatically better, but sometimes you HAVE to be different in order to have any prayer of a chance of being better than average.
As you might guess, I'm not terribly worried about being "normal" either. Einstein was not normal. Mother Theresa is not normal. Few things that are really interesting or innovative are "normal". Being "normal" implies a boring kind of mediocrity. There's more than enough of that in the world already.
Out of the billions of people on this planet, there are enough people here for everybody. There are literally hundreds of thousands of people out there who would LOVE to meet you... it would be impossible to exhaust the supply of them. You shouldn't worry about possibly running into someone who is NOT one of them... you will. There's no accounting for taste... just scratch that one that's NOT interested off your (very long!) list and continue your search. The important thing is not to waste too much time on those people who are NOT really interested. It just postpones your finding the ones which are. Hitting your head against a brick wall doesn't feel good to you, and it does nothing of value for the wall, either.
I believe that loneliness is Nature's way of kicking you in the butt and saying, "Get yourself out there and MEET SOME PEOPLE!". Some people think that marriage is the best way to avoid being lonely in old age, but I don't agree: the loneliest people in the whole world are those who have built their entire lives around just one other person, after that other person dies. Often, they find that all their friends were their friends as a couple, and it just doesn't seem the same now that they are single again. And of course, they've long ago forgotten the social skills that help one to establish new friendships and relationships.
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This page and all linked contents originating with me are Copyright (C) 1995 by Gordon E. Peterson II, all rights reserved worldwide. Last revised May 28, 1995.