Essay: Love Expands While Selfishness Contracts
1. Introduction
A dynamic phenomenon can be understood by recognizing the dynamical principles that govern its systemic organization. We can generate complex dynamics using simple selfish rules – crowd behavior, traffic, or the spread of diseases are typical examples. But to generate the dynamics of love – the self-organizing dynamics, say, of a couple when they are in intimate communication – more than altruistic behavior would need selfish love rules; when we love. What, then, would be the dynamics of love, in contrast to the dynamics of selfishness? What we are looking for are the dynamical principles that describe couple love quite generally. Of course, the lessons may also be relevant for establishing more harmonious interpersonal relations in other social subsystems. The project of establishing the dynamics of love is best served by exploring an appropriate toy model. We were skeptical at first when we read Karwowski and Simos’ list of seven core principles of happiness: mutuality, personal freedom, playfulness, cooperation, honesty, respect, and commitment.
Studies of happiness, and by association love, seem strongly influenced by cultural biases, such as the pursuit of western-style liberal freedoms. In our computational toy/example we ignore this list and let the dynamics evolve under the constraint that agents detect mutual love. While this is effectively quite a strong coupling because each agent (pair) feels the same base of shared pleasure, we may remind readers that this process will not evolve to in-phase synchronization unless twin-peak Frenkel-Kontorova potentials are used. Flexibility and diversity of interactions of course may involve various coupling parameters, but all we need for the present discussion is a minimal dynamical device for agents to detect when mutual self-love appears. Note that the model we use includes a fully moral self-regulativity (nobody sanctions the agents), which influences the agents’ free will in compliance with the dynamics of reflected self-love.
1.1. Background and Significance
In this paper, we are exploring the dynamics that revolve around love and selfishness. It is particularly crucial to comprehend these dynamics because very often they make or break an individual and his relationships during his lifetime. Capitalizing on these two tremendous forces in the right direction is the essence of a successful life. This paper is an attempt to understand these dynamics better.
The possibility of the joint existence of the selfless love force and selfish love force in an individual is a burning issue of the moment. This possibility has led many people to investigate these two forces in detail. Although the nature of these forces is not fully understood, pertinent knowledge can be of enormous help to people. Therefore, this paper provides some plausible conjectures about love and selfishness.
Love is generally cherished by people, related to acts of saintliness. It is selfless and a great force that encourages worthwhile activities for the general good of the universe. It is generally well received, sought, and given and is associated with sacrifice, blood, and tears. Love confined to blood relatives initially often becomes generalized. Hostile criticism is often directed at someone who does not love the general society’s poor, inadequate, and deprived classes or the underprivileged outcasts living in outer wilderness reaches of the globe. Love that has spread to human beings is also frequently widened to include nonhuman entities such as the environment and other living beings. A familiar organization working in this direction is the Earth Caring Society. Sometimes universal love knows no limits and exists with God as the focal point. Such love leads to divine experiences or spiritual experiences, as it is often called. Constant attunements with love here lead to significant behavior change as well as fundamental changes in one’s thinking and evaluations. It is related to the experience of internal satyagraha and selfless trust and the peace of the atom as a free inner force. Love is altruistic.
2. Understanding Love
Love is a concept that lies at the core of our experiences as humans. People have dedicated their lifetimes to studying this difficult emotion. Love is a multi-faceted term that is made up of numerous components, one of which is attachment. Affection is not solely determined by the emotional component of such relationships. Attachment and passion, it was discovered, had quite different foundations, were independent of one another, and may therefore grow at very different paces. Romantic love is described as being together with someone and feeling strong, continuous sexual lust, for example. This is commonly referred to as the honeymoon phase.
When someone is in love, they are benevolent towards the object of their affection. In comparison with non-lovers, individuals experiencing love devote on average 5, 10, 15% additional money or other assets to beneficiaries who are close to their hearts. Here, people are thought of as providing different levels of resources to themselves and another individual. The bulk of research on love has used the above broad meaning. It can be subtle or unmistakable, active or passive, restrained or straightforward, self-abnegating or progressively powerful. In contrast, the word love can refer to actions of sexual attraction or need. Family love, in contrast, is also characterized as agape and manifests itself as unconditional attachment to family members. Still, others only afford the biblical example of the deep and unique feeling of caring for a spouse, sometimes known as agape, which is invariably passionate like history.
2.1. Defining Love
What is love? According to the Cambridge Dictionary, one of the definitions of love pertains to strong feelings of deep affection for someone, accompanied by a desire to be with them. Affection for someone is a notoriously difficult thing to measure or quantify, however, so typically the feeling of love refers to a more general affection for another human.
The Greeks originally distinguished and interpreted love in terms of different words for different types of love. The most common four are ‘agape’, ‘philia’, ‘storge’, and ‘eros’. Agape is the universal love for others. Philia is the love that you have for friends. Storge is familial love. Eros is sexual love between two people and is therefore binding to the very fiber of our being. These loves are not necessarily bound to people, but can equally be applied to things/animals as well.
Primarily, love is an emotion. The topic of emotion and what it means exactly is a closely contested field of study both within philosophy and within the sciences. In philosophy, emotions have been viewed as 1) occurring in response to an object or event; 2) a response to an object or event with a feeling tone; 3) a response that occurs when a situation is construed in a certain way; 4) the awareness we have of our dispositional alterations. But there are a large number of other theories, as you may have noticed! The central aspect of these definitions is the fact that love is a response to something going on outside of your head. Love is implicit within the interaction between you, the person you hold a special need for (i.e. Subject X), and the other people and/or objects that Subject X also has affection for.
2.2. Types of Love
We shall explore four different kinds of love: erotic love, universal love, devotion or friendship, and patriotic love. All these forms of love contain both positive and negative elements. This exposition is vastly oversimplified for reasons of space.
We often consider erotic love as “real” love, sometimes because we confuse true love with true happiness. Erotic love is typically self-centered. It is not difficult to see this, since we try to win over the one we love in order to please ourselves. On the other hand, erotic love can make those who engage in it very happy. Moreover, the self-centered nature of erotic love should be seen in a broader light. All of us are to a certain extent self-centered as individuals, yet we do not hesitate to love ourselves. We call those of us who love themselves healthy and creative, while those who only care about themselves and pay no attention to others are termed sick, selfish, etc. If I marry a person whom I love or who loves me, if I center my whole life around her and if I find meaning in sacrificing my freedom for our family, do I commit something wrong? What is wrong with the act of marrying someone one loves and has a good relationship with?
Universal love operates differently. If someone loves humankind, then the object of his love – billions of people – are unknown objects, and little is felt for them. For this reason, we can more easily feel sad when a single child dies in war than seventy people in an airplane accident: in the former, we can more easily discover an individual and perceive suffering; in the latter, we perceive another number of people. There are, however, alternative ways to operate with this kind of universal love. I may consider myself to be part of humanity and, as a due well-being of all, attempt to maximize the pleasure of all within my abilities, and attempting compromise with concordance and well-being of all.
3. Understanding Selfishness
When one observes the world round about and those in it, it is difficult to avoid the question: Is any form of ideal love at all possible in such a world? It is to be hoped that it is, but many psychologically minded people doubt it. This inability to believe is based on the fact that we all are, or at least have been selfish. Selfishness, one of the great vice-motives of human life, is a term that is commonly used and really signifies nothing. Of all our vices and virtues, there is none that can be less understood, more uncandidly attacked, or more unjustly treated. It is an original factor in our development. The fact that selfishness is a vice does not explain or help us to understand it. The explanation of a thing lies in the causes that have produced it.
The term selfishness belongs more to individuality than to personality. It presides at the birth and development of the individual isolated from the rest of the world, caring only for his own welfare, each for himself and none for anybody else. And such is its bondage and depth that no one seems to be capable of throwing off entirely this incubus all at once when he comes to realize its true nature and face its deformity. Self from all the animal cravings of the soul which are developed by the competition of life. The worst kind of selfishness is that of which we are unconscious, for it is an inherent or cultivated part of our mental makeup and rules every conscious motive throughout our lifetime probably without the mind’s or will’s being aware of it.
3.1. Defining Selfishness
What is called selfish? First of all, let us differentiate between what is generally considered wrong, and what is considered undesirable just because of its consequences. For instance, consider the following example. Your colleague makes a substantial contribution to the company’s project and is eager to get a bonus for this. It is natural, as you might agree, especially if the colleagues are rewarded on the basis of the individual contributions to the company’s achievements. What if, to reach one’s objective, a person does something wrong, such as appealing to other people’s emotions? Once more, this is more wrong, but probably you would not call this person selfish just because he is using a mean that you do not like. However, the fact that the principles of normal communication are violated will probably make you not want to cooperate with this person any more. This is why it’s good to appeal to manipulative techniques only when it is really important.
Thus, by ‘selfishness’ I mean one’s will to attain their own objectives, and they can do anything to make others willing to cooperate in the achievement of these goals. This, however, should not involve treating other people in ways that are generally considered wrong, like violating the principle of justice or abusing confidence. If this kind of selfishness is supported only by increasing the size, or making it more important, of rewards that people can obtain, we can call it the ethical form of selfishness. If we admit that it is useful to apply the previously mentioned manipulative techniques in conditions when cooperation is detrimental, we assume a more general, and hence normal, concept of selfishness.
3.2. Causes and Manifestations
Selfishness sets people apart. Despite most humans sharing a common curiosity, pursuit of happiness, and wish for a society in which healthy relationships thrive, not everyone available is worth dating. More is required for personal growth and community than a lifestyle centered on oneself. Long-term self-absorption hinders the ability to develop deep and meaningful partnerships with others. More significant than refusing to dress up or launder your hair for a date is dulling your romantic “sparkle.” Romantic partners engage in a number of activities to help maintain their own personal self-worth. These behaviors are numerous and far-flung, prompting researchers to conceptualize a variety of them in the hopes of gaining a much more in-depth understanding of this critical area of inquiry. They do this by examining the several causes and presentations of self-enhancement and by dismantling healthy self-enhancement of these obstacles.
Although self-enhancement results make it hard to sympathize with the self-centered if it comes off as just acceptable and innocent, bias can take a catastrophically darker direction. Consequently, another aim of this component would be to familiarize you with this more damaging side of self-bias. Consider, for instance, an unhealthy self-serving bias. The inappropriate self increase will result in unstable love significantly reducing a balding male partner’s stock at a singles gathering. Imagine how you would respond if your good friend informed you of all the things that are wrong with you. “Sorry, body odor.” “Physical detachment between individuals.” Personality irregularities.” It provides the impression that some people are good for dating while others are not. The simple interpretation of this hypothesis is that some people fail in the globally recognized game of romance.
4. The Interplay Between Love and Selfishness
There is a potential for tension to develop because the dynamics between love and selfishness are so interconnected. On one hand, love can involve a certain largesse, a sense of outflow or expansion that encompasses another. It can involve self-transcendence. As a result, it contrasts with narrow self-interest. On the other hand, love can also be quite selfish. It demands the emotional support, affection, and attention of the beloved. Without it, love feels like it is being diminished. Love is fundamentally about wanting to rest or feel secure. This suggests that, in its selfish aspect, love is focused on the lover and what the lover gets from love.
On one level, selfishness contrasts with love. Selfishness can be seen as self-absorption, self-serving, and self-interestedness, which distances us from others or relationships. Love involves reaching out, understanding another, and caring for another person. Yet, and this is the crucial point, the dynamics between love and selfishness are so intertwined. Often, relationships are defined by what we get, rather than what we give. A sense of transaction often underpins them. Romantic love, at its most primeval, and even intense love of a child, involves a focus on the “I” and an overwhelming demand for what is needed. Always on about “I need love,” “I need love from you.” More to the tune of “I would die if I didn’t have your love.” In this way, love is paradoxically focused on the needs of the lover rather than the beloved.
4.1. Contrasting Dynamics
As Aristotle said, the bottom line issues of morality are those relating to ascetic love and friendship and the dynamics of complete intention. But, as in Western moral philosophy, Eros and Asceticism submit to a monolithic system of intention, and for this reason, appear to be irrational affects in ethics. We have had to start from value and deal with ascetic intentions as if they were completely indifferent from Eros and the passions, as if not loving had no role to play. But indifference is never a real relation because intention takes all just a bit more; such indifference evinces an intention of happiness which cannot hear anything; which means that this particular way of answering is compatible with all other ways and, in principle, opposed to none. What is clear in the philosophy and the moral selected on this intention is the deep lack of love.
Love reveals to us that the Other can do what he wants, and it can hurt us, but it can also fascinate us in any way. This is why love says to the self: “I also lose when you lose,” that is to say the death of the other, who loves me, is also my very own loss. I cannot but become absorbed by discovering the other’s revelation dimensions, or I do not love enough. “Sempre bella mi apparve la tua faccia,” says Dante with true love. Love is, at its root, identification though many would deny it. I begin to love the one I perceive. “Taking from memory and the imagination my beloved’s features.” Love chooses with the nature of the lover, of himself or herself, and of the beloved. There is a dynamic convergence inside. Always the lover and the beloved would complete each other to find wholeness, to find salvation from themselves, from death, and nothingness. Love does not necessitate perceiving the worth of the beloved. Loving, I might find the worth of the beloved. Love defines the lover. In this sense, it is depersonalization. Love addition. It adds to my existence. Law and belief are efficient causes of our actions. They arrest and protect our dynamic potential. Love and selfishness define the structure, the character of individuals, and they also perform different dynamics of intention between the choice and the fulfillment. Following the Siamese twin of selfish intentions issued out of fear and sadness; Love is born of our most basic need, the one of one’s own infinitized existence, and threatens to make of me its thing. Love always carries the implication of becoming, of a process and progress, while selfishness intends themselves fixity in the new. With selfish regard for the wrong things, with love the value. Premeditation par nature in modest and ascetic people can also not be the simplest egoistic interest.
4.2. Impact on Relationships
The interplay between love and selfishness has a significant impact on relationships. When entirely motivated by their romantic commitment, partners would act only out of love for the other. Such a relationship is free from the striving over preferences, the opposition accompanying it, and above all from any negative regard each may hold for the other either as a separate person or an obstacle in one’s pursuit of happiness. Instead, spending face time together suggests a cooperative spirit, whilst the absence of instrumental behaviors in such domains gives the impression of an absence of selfish strategizing that might interfere with such cooperation or act as an overt insult to one’s status.
This is reflected in the strong connection between subconscious calculus markers and love in the dynamic model, suggesting that the more a couple displays occasional moments of transiently selfish behavior, the less strong their declared desire to spend time with each other is likely to be. Although occasional selfishness may itself be considered as a vice, this result threatens to go too far in suggesting that the more one loves, the more such evil tendencies will be inhibited. Rather, we expect the opposite: Affirming one’s bonds of love with a partner may, in itself, create the trust that allows some friendship time devoted to selfish pursuits. This is important if love and friendship are to be combined in this theory, as occasionally preferring to spend time on purely selfish pursuits may still contribute to balancing the relationship and partner satisfaction; thereby acting as a steady state enforcer and promoting stability in the closed-loop dynamics.
5. Conclusion
What have I learned? The dynamics of love are complex and not easily explained. It is a fluid essence, held together by everything and nothing. Love acts selflessly towards others, genuinely caring for them. Yet we have seen selfishness mimic love, acting to fulfill the self. The result of attempting to balance the two virtues will result in internal and external problems for everyone involved, attracting only hollow heartbreak. Instead, when within a healthy love relationship, we should focus on truly understanding the opposite, loving them from head to toe instead of the illusion of what they could bring us.
As you align with the truths of loving and allowing yourself to be loved, your core will begin to change. By removing the selfishness, you will step towards higher perspectives. You will have more respect for others, more compassion, and more gratitude. You will no longer be encapsulated by small things. Furthermore, by admitting our prejudices and fear of change, we can escape the chains of ignorance. When we do, we can experience a mutual loving relationship or focus on loving without getting. If we align with these dynamics of love and selfishness, we will experience love which is unconditional. We will first find the love within ourselves and then spread it outwards, with no attachment to outcome. The more we open ourselves up, the more we can learn how to love truly.
5.1. Summary of Key Points
We discussed the complex dynamics between love and selfishness. We argued that love may well involve some amount of what might be seen as selfishness. We argued that on the one hand, feelings of pure selflessness are not generally to be seen as part of love, whether it is parental or romantic love. We also maintained that more – perhaps – should we see more selfish attitudes of the misguided sort as part of love. Selfishness, however, must be balanced and mitigated to be healthy. Finally, we discussed how in the end, love and its dynamics should be complex and diverse. Some situations or relationships may have more of the selflessness end of the spectrum. Some of the loving things we do may be rather selfish and ‘surface’ level. It may, in some cases, be well motivational to us, in terms of our self-love, to be helping those we love, in part because their lack would diminish our love.
Motivational – at least in part – for us. This means that, rather bizarrely, help that motivates others’ own self-centered welfare may, in fact, be honest about our feelings. As we have covered in previous chapters, this fact doesn’t have to be an unwelcome fact. For those who spend their lives helping others, then we should want at least some of the times we are helping to be things we want to do. Moreover, we suggested that such relationships, ones in which we were allowed to engage in ways that were at least partially motivational for us, may well benefit us as helpers, since we can hardly be expected to sustain help with those for whom the most prosaic of our selfish motivations is clearly not part of the motivational mix!
5.2. Implications for Personal Growth
Siegel rounds out this set of principles by suggesting that the combination of a loving attitude with one of being someone who can be of help to the other person points generally in a direction that ranges from the comfort of being able to rely on another to the rather different, better stand which seems a worthwhile goal of development. Indeed, it might suggest a third principle of interpersonal love. If these assumptions reflect the basic structure of interpersonal interaction, then we would expect insights into the dynamics of love and selfishness to be of more than academic interest.
It is suggested that understanding the dynamics of these two processes can contribute to personal growth and well-being in several ways. Understanding that one is selfish can reduce the guilt associated with that knowledge because it makes sense – it simply follows from the processes of interpersonal interaction. The alternative assumptions – that one is not selfish or even that selfishness is irrelevant – have implications of which decline to argue. The suggestion for growth that those involve is understanding that love can change. The risk of loving someone is losing the one who is loved. Knowledge of the mechanisms helps one prepare and lets one make more informed choices. Finally, even in relatively happy and secure relationships, understanding of the mechanisms can promote healthier patterns of interaction. And people are very important to many others and the path of what can reasonably be expected in relationships may ease tensions, clarifies doubts which may be the basis of the interpersonal conflict, and improve general emotional stability. With the maturity of an appreciation of the grains of selfishness in love, the widely proclaimed ideal of “unselfishness” might begin to appear as sickly and malnourished and not worth the struggle. Some fruits of self-memorableness examined in the Introduction to this article might be more worthy farm animals for delight and development. The understanding of operational dynamics could let a person underline his or her love rather than concentrate on minimizing aggressive self-regard and thus maintain a tradition of obstetrics that could make a way for optimism regarding the future.
