We covet our individuality, strutting like meticulous birds-of-paradise preening and posing for some unseen constantly watchful potential mate, without realizing that it is the communal aspects of our own being that are both our mate and muse.
We cannot be happy without others, and yet we only want them to come close to us under our own conditions and permissions. From first meeting to groove-n-move to family-status and beyond, all relationships impact individual happiness, which is dependent on relations with and relation to "others" for a fulfilled daily experience.
The need for interaction and the special power of both affection and respect is physics-driven, expressed in our biology and complex systems of behavior, related or tied in some cases to reproductive instincts and in others, mixed with all instincts as part of the whole of the being--a critical self-development process resulting in positive expressions of affection and respect or their negative analogues of violence and contempt.
Interaction changes us, whether great or small, whether we like it or not, time is change and motion is change. We already hurtle millions of miles per hour in multiple dimensions due to the rotation of our planet, the revolution of our solar system and the relative spin and speed of the Milky Way.
So change is constant, and yet the POWER of attention to direct change is astounding. Beyond simple coincidence and into the realm of constructive relational interdependence, modern physics is learning the power of the observer and observed merge in a unified field of something.
Affection is a powerful operator in that unified field, call it whatever you want, e.g. "dark energy" or "consciousness." Negative affection and disrespect, e.g. "violence" are also a powerful operators, but I think the data shows that affection has a stronger multiplier affect, a stronger creation-enabling resonance than the hollow energetic echo created by violence.
Affection and especially intense, passionate affection is perhaps the most powerful, most desired drug known to us as social-bio beings, and yet affection exists along a spectrum and balance among the types of affection seems also to be a multiplier increasing behavior. We can be affectionate in action, but also in word and thought. Affection of thought is in fact the foundation for all true respect.
Closing down any port of giving or receiving affection, from lover to friend to kind stranger mode will damage the individual and effectively infect their self-esteem operating system with constant glitches due to the lacking positive and needed impact of the missing affection in a person's life.
Affection is different in every context, among all beings, and yet it seems to me that one's supply and balance of appropriate affection one's life is directly proportional to the amount and consistency of their respect for others. The more our needs for affection are met, the more respectful of others we can be, and alternatively, the more our needs for contact, giving and receiving, are not met, the more we seem to almost lack conscious bandwidth to "afford" respect of others, or we use disrespect as an excuse or explanation for our unmet needs.
Perhaps this is because lack of affection often manifests itself by diminishing self-respect, and without respect of the Self, no alleged respect of others comes of free choice from an unconditional heart. Affection is vital to our ability to grow, respect is vital to our ability to flow, and both depend on our interaction with others.
We are all in this together.
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