Beauty and Love

What are True Relationships Built on?

Finally the actual post

What would you sell your soul for? Every day we wake up and ask ourselves that question implicitly or explicitly. We have to allocate time. Balancing what we want to do with what we need to do in order to achieve the life we want. Most people would rather hang out with friends then work 60, 80, or 100 hours a week, but a lot of people make the choice to work. Compromise is at the core of everything we do. One day, hoping to get to the place we’ve picked out on our map marked success. There is absolutely nothing wrong with selling your soul. Everyone committing to selling their soul is key to a functioning society and each person’s long-term happiness. For heaven’s sake though, do not underprice your soul. Do not sell it too cheap.

We can physically only do one thing at a time, so we actively choose to not do the infinite set of all other actions. The Latin word for "decision" is decidere, which is a verb that means "to cut away" or "to cut off". When we make a decision, we are saying no more than we are saying yes. What we’re doing in that moment may not be the best action for one dimension of our lives, but holistically it will drive us closer to the life we want. Making a decision is hard because we are saying no not only to an infinite number of things, but also killing the opioid of hope that creates the fantasies in our mind that come with optionality. Dreams cannot be destroyed in our head, but die when left there. Decisions involve fear and doubt and promise no answers, just paths. We must fight through the fear and poignant reality that we may be murdering our dreams through our action and accept this is preferable to letting them die with inaction. A slow, less viscerally painful death is provided to us through inaction. While action can be both scary and painful, it is our only chance of success. We must decide what we want instead of allowing our decisions to be made for us. The world pushes us through the arrow of time and will of society in a direction.

We live in a comparative world and are told what to want and desire. Your life will be lived for you unless you choose to live through radical independent thinking and bravery. Life is establishing a plan from first principles and deciding for ourselves what is best and living with the consequences. Accepting the tyranny of the accepted easy path instead of charting a course in life is a unique mix of plagiarism and masochism. Often times what society values provides good guide posts to living a reasonably happy life, but never the full picture. We are presented with default a life path, but must do the hard work to discover the one true to us. We are the carpenters constructing the house of our lives. No one else is equip for the task. While this is the task of our lives, we cannot do it alone. We constantly need people to lend a hand. But who? How do we find the right people to help clarify the vision and support the execution.

The value of other’s contributions is immeasurable and vital. Only a fool learns from his own mistakes as von Bismarck said. While we live fully internal lives and should maintain a strong internal locus of control, we cannot nor should not deny the profound influence others have on us. The most important decisions we make are who we are and what life do we want to lead. The second most important and arguably more influential on the outcome of the first is who we surround ourselves with. We all are at the mercy of the norms of the groups we find ourselves in. Peer pressure is a real thing and going against the herd and being a black sheep is not only incredibly hard, but impossible without the support and love the people we surround ourselves with. We need models to show us the way. We need emotional security to blaze a different path. We also need to pass down our knowledge to others not only as a way of helping people, but also understanding ourselves better. Doing hard things is hard as is. Doing them alone is impossible. Further, there is no point of being king in a world if you have to rule alone. The life of the village idiot is more fulfilling and satisfying than that.

Relationships define us. We are shaped by conversations through simple osmosis and purposeful action. Default behavior drives our life more than anyone would like to admit. Knowing that we run to the comfort of defaults means we must be super fucking intentional about who we let into our lives and how close we are with them. Because by choosing to be close with one person, you are rejecting the other 8 billion people on this planet. You have a finite amount of time and can only have a small number of friends relative to the pool of possible applicants. Do not default to the easy route. Put in the work to find the right people. Then develop meaningful relationships with them. This is the only way to live a happy life. Time is what life is made of and time is shaped by the people who we spend it with. Happy people make you happier. Miserable people make you miserable. We’ve all had the feeling of riding a high and then someone comes in to yuck your yum and dampen your achievements. We have all been lifted from the depths of despair by a knight in shining armor when we just wanted to put our head in the sand and die.

This ability to have someone provide everything we’ve ever needed without asking for it or even understanding we need it is vital for friendship and even more important for a life partner. However, when making these decisions we default to vanity over substance. We go all gas no breaks 200 mph down the road of failure when we do this. True love in friendships and relationships is the deepest bond of the soul imaginable. We make the wrong turns too often and get lost down the route of status or beauty or something really fucking stupid that is either not important or is destined to change in a direction not favorable to you. The only life is one where you bond deeply in the souls of the friends, family, and loved ones that mean the most and elevate you to new heights. Getting this stuff is great, but you only get what you deserve. You must do the same. A relationship is a 2 person game. Good relationships are defined by both people thinking they get more out of it than the other person and being desperate to put more in. This leads to magic. Great relationships have an eternal energy to them growing greater by the day. Great relationships transform people taking them to a level neither could’ve achieve on their own. Relationships are force multipliers on our lives. We must not be distracted by the nonsensical aspects of vanity and peer directly into the soul of those we love in order to achieve these amazing benefits.

Looks fade to reveal true beauty over time. There is depth to beauty well beyond the realm of physical and sensory experience. Good teeth are the product of a good dentist, but a magnificent smile takes time to truly appreciate. When you see someone genuinely smile, it’s so much deeper and more meaningful than just nice teeth. Smiles reveal character. A smile’s beauty is in the understanding that it’s the perfect combination of triumphs and trauma leading to this expression that is radiating a more intense feeling of love, belonging, and connection than you ever thought possible. A beautiful smile is the product of a beautiful soul not some dentist’s handy work. A smile is empty without the love it projects into the world. We are all faced with the vacant and vapid stare of someone who tells you to “have a nice day” in a way that can only mean fuck off to the furthest place imaginable or looked through by someone behind the guise of a wry smile. We would take the crooked smile every day of the week. Physical appearance is an iceberg and the subconscious can reveal more beauty in a short conversation than our eyes can perceive in a lifetime.

Physical beauty is one of the most divisive concepts. Popular culture somehow revolts against its existence and through this affirms it deeper than it has been to start. Everyone has a type. Our society has a myriad of sayings that argue against the vanity of beauty. These are lies we want to believe but don’t. People will say looks do not matter. Few martyrs lie dead for this cause and live that mantra. We lie to ourselves. Often the most hedonistic of us claim to be the best people. It turns out the only thing more vain than pure vanity is its rejection because that signals a deeper and unconscious acceptance in the darker recesses of the mind. Absolution comes through self-acceptance of the ugliest truths of human nature. Admitting to ourselves that we are not these perfect creatures we craft in our heads. However, prioritizing physical beauty is toxic. In doing so, people anchor to something that not only will change, but is guaranteed to change in the opposite direction. This is setting yourself up for failure.

So how do we square the circle? Humans value physical beauty and desire it more than it’s worth when deciding on love. Arguing against beauty is arguing against human nature and human nature never changes. We sit stuck and paralyzed between our internal programming as a species and the inevitable march of time. A massive lose, lose situation. We need to reframe and reconsider the nature of true beauty. Beauty, in truth, has always been an evolving concept. Different cultures have different physical features, but all cultures have a beauty scale. People believe there is beauty in symmetry, but true beauty is in scarcity. The hardest physical appearance to cultivate is what is coveted most across societies. When food was scarce and everyone needed to work constantly for it, being out of shape was seen as beautiful. In a world of abundance, it is harder to avoid food than to consume it, so we value being in shape.

The core issue is beauty is subjective and changes with the times. We need to anchor to things that don’t change as much as possible. True human companionship has always revolved around connection. True beauty rooted in deep connection is more sustainable as it is an inside out concept.

Love and attraction is a bond of the soul. A connection that unlocks a deeper and truer love than one thought possible. Love that is rooted in trust, comfort, and support. Not just trust, comfort, and support in the dictionary definition, but in the unique way that each person needs to both express and receive these feelings. We all have different definitions of how we give or get love or trust. A true bond of the soul aligns the giving and getting of these key emotions, which allows everything else to drift effortlessly downstream. We must align internally and work out. We fail to find genuine love in relationships and friendships because we start outside in. We fail when we start by looking and caring about someone’s physical appearance, job, or background. These traits are easy to understand and project forward, but love is not projection. Love is connection. Love is surrender.

True love requires the bravest act of surrender. Surrendering not only to someone else, but first yourself. Connection starts when you open your heart and allow yourself to be seen for who you are with the very real chance that genuine you will get rejected. True pain comes from being rejected for who you are, but the only true happiness can be achieved for the blatant acceptance of every part of the genuine you. As hard as this momentary feeling of intense pain that comes with rejection is, acceptance will grant you absolution. People die slowly every day trying to be someone they are not. Suppressing the person that lays in their soul. Give yourself the gift of being yourself every day after through surrender and allow someone else to see you in the same genuine light. We must demand others accept us not the version of us they want. Love must be built on solid and unshakeable foundations. We cannot trick people into loving a façade. That momentary risk in showing yourself how you truly are sets you up for the best life possible. A life of being yourself. Your life. A life full of genuine bonding of the soul. The deepest human connection available. We all deserve to be loved how we are for who we are as we are. Accept nothing less. Find that person or those people who look inside and don’t want us to change, but want us to be more ourselves than we ever thought we could be. That is the truest and deepest bond of the soul.

This is simple, but not easy. Everyone is born with a certain personality matrix and there are only so many matching pieces across the variety of qualities that you need. There are only so many configurations that provide the missing puzzle piece. When you start with externals, you’re looking at the whole problem backwards. You need to find that closest most inner connection that gives you the strength and holds you together when everything outside is falling apart. Love can be formed at any time, but is revealed in the hardest times. Hard times are when our strongest bonds are pulled to their limits. These bonds either rupture or strengthen under this immense pressure. When love is tested and affirmed, all other emotions are exposed as empty. We realize in that moment love has nothing to do with anything external or even describable. It is a feeling so deeply imbedded in. It lights your heart and has the ability to destroying your soul. Love is killed by an external orientation. Desire is crafted through the vanity of useless comparison. Comparison is the theft of joy, so why prioritize things that can be easily compared. Why anchor to a relationship around anything external or physical. Deep connection is incomparable and irreplicable. Most people can clean up to look decent or find a decent job or say the right things for a day or a week or year or maybe longer, but if you’re constantly comparing your person to everyone else, you’ll never be happy because perfection has no equal. Doubt means you either haven’t found the right person, who’s made you realize that you deserve to be loved for who you are, or you do not have the capacity to love yourself enough to open your heart up and let someone else’s love in you even if it could destroy you.

Love is a 2 player game. You can only care about someone as much as they let you care about them. You can’t force someone to love you. You can open your heart up. You can believe. You can wait, but you can’t make anyone care. You can’t make anyone love you at all, let alone the ways you need to be loved. That is the toughest part about relationships and the most magical part about them. No matter how much both of you try it will only work when it works. You cannot force someone to care about you anymore than you can force someone to grow 6 inches. We think that internal qualities are more malleable than externals because they are more implicit and ambiguous. This creates illusions and false equivalencies. People can and do change. Relationships can deepen or weaken with random chance or thoughtful investment over time. However, people can only change because they want to not because someone else wants them to. Change is an internal transformation that we can only hope to see from others, but we should never expect. Expecting change is fooling yourself. We can only position ourselves to be received how we want to and be honest with ourselves when we find the people who receive us in that way. We change overtime and the world changes around us.

True relationships only arise when you meet the right people at the right time. This does not mean you cannot develop a relationship with someone you have already know. You can develop new relationships within existing ones. Relationships with old friends or even current partners deepen by connecting at a different level than you had been able to before because neither of you were ready or able to make that connection. Keep your heart open. Continue to send and receive bids to and from old friends. You never know when that right place and time is for the both of you. Relationships are as much a time and place as person thing. We must remain open and allow people to deeper our connections when the time is right.

The opposite is also true. Remain content and do not force a relationship that is not there. There is nothing wrong with any of your existing relationships. Trying to change relationships by forcing people to be someone they’re not or expecting someone to do things they can’t will needlessly destroy necessary relationships in your life through the burden of expectations. Expecting too much from a relationship is just as bad as accepting less than you deserve or need. Everyone needs to be loved in a certain way. People can only love you in a certain way. The overlap for most people is very low. This leads to you being closer to some than others. Your life and heart are only big enough to fit so much in it. You cannot have 1,000 best friends and connect at the same level of deepness and authenticity than you can with just 1 person. We all exist in multitudes and having relationships that speak to the different parts of us is vital to our ability to be our true selves. Forcing one person to be everything is destructive to that relationship. Even the strongest bonds will shatter under the pressure of those expectations. We need to have these different tiers of relationships to function. Diverse relationships allow for a diverse set of interactions and new viewpoints. You likely do not want to live with your mom and go out drinking with her every weekend. At work, you do not have to be best friends with your boss and hang out with them every weekend. Some friends are meant to be a shoulder to cry on while others are meant to take your mind off those deep emotions and have fun. Humans are complex organisms and our social relationships mirror our inner complexity. The human ability to coordinate across a hierarchy is what makes us different from all other animals. Put a million chimpanzees in a 2 miles area and you get chaos. A million humans can build a nation. Human coordination is a super power and we must have many types of relationships to coordinate effectively.

Despite the fact that you can only have so many types and tiers of relationships does not mean you cannot deepen the relationships or interaction across all tiers by being a better person. This may be the last time you ever see this specific person because it’s a McDonald’s cashier in a town you’ve never been and never plan on being again. This doesn’t absolve you from not putting your best foot forward and being a great person within that relationship niche. Different relationships expect and demand different things from you, but you always must look at people in a way that acknowledges the shared humanity and sends a sense of love and belonging between you. People look back fondly on the random acts of kindness they receive from people they never met and will never see again. Love is something that radiates through your relationships across every level of connection. When the people closest to you give you immense love, you are able to transfer those to the outer reaches of your interactions. When a random stranger pays you an unexpected kindness, you feel the need to radiate that love inward and across the relationships you have. Love and hate are self-reinforcing. The more you feel of one the more you can radiate of that same emotion. Love begets love and hate begets hate. You can’t force someone to love you or care for you in the way you need to, and you cannot settle for something less than what you need. When you accept something less, these feelings radiate through all relationships. There has never been an easier time to meet the perfect person given the many tools of connection in our global world. We are now faced with the hardest part; finding true love.

Relationships and beauty are complex topics because humans are complex organisms. We will only find happiness and satisfaction in both when we focus on things that are both important and will not change. There will always be a next super model. There will always be a higher status person to meet. That hedonic relationship treadmill ends in misery. True happiness comes through appreciating the depth and genuine character of those closest to you. While it may be a depressing thought that there could always be someone “better” out there, it is a freeing thought that we can find happiness in almost any relationship through opening our heart and embracing the existing love and connection we have. We should never accept less than we deserve, but must realize that testing the depth of our connections can lead to more happiness than anchoring to superficial breath. Put simply, relationships work when you find someone who loves you for who you are in all the right ways and you have the courage to realize that you’re enough to accept that and return it in equal and opposite measure. Then you can exist in a pure happiness and bliss state.