Everyone's in pain: is it the biggest human's secret (The Daily Laws)
I quote from "The Daily Laws" as I more than once thought the same:
After much deep thinking about these experiences and my own experiences with people I knew, I came to the following conclusion:
We humans have a dirty little secret. It’s a secret that has nothing to do with sex lives or fantasies or anything as exciting as that. Rather, the secret is that all of us, to some degree, are in pain. It’s a pain that we don’t discuss or even understand.
Green says the source is other people (albeit I think the reason is larger, other people are indeed often a big part of it):
The source of this pain is other people.
Specifically, from shallow relationships:
What I mean is our often disappointing, superficial, unsatisfactory relationships with people. This comes in the form of relationships and connections that aren’t very deep between us and those whom we consider our friends, leading to a lot of loneliness.
On top of shallow relationships, Greene says it's also bad relationships:
It comes in the form of bad choices for associates and partners—leading to all this struggle and messy breakups. It comes from letting some toxic narcissist into our life—leading to all kinds of emotional trauma that can take years to get over, if we even ever do.
And from failure to be effective with people:
And it also comes from our inability to persuade, to move people, to influence them, to get them interested in our ideas—generating feelings of frustration and anger.
As social animals we need good relationships:
We are deeply social animals and having dysfunctional social relationships leads to all kinds of problems. It leads to depression. It leads to recurring obsessive thoughts, to the inability to focus on our work, to eating disorders, to even physical diseases such as heart disease. We only see the surface phenomenon—the loneliness or the depression or physical ailment. We don’t see the underlying source. And sometimes we’re not even aware that we suffer from loneliness.
I often had the same thoughts.
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Deep stuff!
It’s the first time I encounter this idea that shallow relationship produce pain. However I think it’s true. At least in my case.
Because you cannot share yourself entirely. You can only share selected part of yourself. So there is no free flow but more of a clunky connection. It’s not as satisfying.
This is interesting, makes me feel not that “special” for thinking and feeling that way since I can remember myself. I do wonder, from your experience, if is it more related to western societies or that's a fundamental experience to human existence? Would love to hear your thoughts.
Quote from John Freeman on July 22, 2022, 5:05 pmDeep stuff!
It’s the first time I encounter this idea that shallow relationship produce pain. However I think it’s true. At least in my case.
Because you cannot share yourself entirely. You can only share selected part of yourself. So there is no free flow but more of a clunky connection. It’s not as satisfying.
Yeah, I also think the same -at least if one has only shallow relationships-.
Otherwise, a few good relationships and many shallow ones is good -or even ideal, since it's difficult to meet only great people, so a few great ones and many various degrees of shallower ones may be the best way to maximize social strategy-.
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Quote from TheDucas on July 22, 2022, 7:51 pmThis is interesting, makes me feel not that “special” for thinking and feeling that way since I can remember myself. I do wonder, from your experience, if is it more related to western societies or that's a fundamental experience to human existence? Would love to hear your thoughts.
Well, it's a company of you, me, and Robert Greene who felt the same: still quite a good and special group of folks :D.
As for the question, that's a really good one, and I'd also be glad to get more ideas or data on that -albeit there probably isn't any data on it-.
If I had to guess though, I'd say that there most likely are cultural effects -including how likely different cultures make it to grow close to someone, how important they make it to be, or how much they value "detachment and stoicism"-, but that almost all empathic humans, independently of culture, gain with closer connections and suffer with the lack of them.
And I'd also guess that the people who have those types of close connections plus the ability to develop them, are probably a minority.
Incidentally, probably one of the reasons why many people, and especially men, complain the quality of life drop after high school and college is because those environments facilitate bonds, connections and human relationships while outside of it is all on you to make it happen.
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It makes sense. Not a new idea "all men lead lives of quiet desperation" the existential pain of being etc. I think it becomes a vicious cycle. Pain makes people close in. Then they are harder to connect with.
Quote from Transitioned on July 23, 2022, 6:17 amIt makes sense. Not a new idea "all men lead lives of quiet desperation" the existential pain of being etc. I think it becomes a vicious cycle. Pain makes people close in. Then they are harder to connect with.
Yeah, great point, nothing new with the general idea.
It's attributing it to shallow and/or not very successful relationships that make it somewhat more "novel" -or, at least, I hadn't seen it very often if at all-.
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