The Importance of Being Social
Overview
Most human beings underestimate the depths of their connections with other human beings.
What is the one thing that causes the most happiness to human beings?
If I were to ask myself what is the one thing that causes the most happiness to human beings, the answer would be relationships, and if I were to ask what would be the single most thing that causes the most suffering to human beings it would still be relationships.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty, a French philosopher, described our relationships with other human beings as the connection between our hands and our heart. Most human beings underestimate the depths of their connections with other human beings. Any difficulty in the relationship, they want to break it off. Not realizing that the relationships run much deeper than any difficulties one sees in them and failing to put in adequate efforts to repair them. They find it quite easy to break off but difficult to remain indifferent to the person who was close to them.
Sigmund Freud thought people seek relationships for pleasure and to forget their pain. According to him, relationships were a means to achieve pleasure or freedom from pain. Just as religion was viewed by Carl Marx and Sigmund Freud as the opium of the masses, some philosophers have seen relationships in that light.
However, Object relations theorists take a different view of relationships all together. For object relations theorists, our relationships are not a means to an end (pleasure or escaping pain) but an end in itself. People can sacrifice their pleasures and confront pain for the sake of their relationships. Ronald Fairbairn, a Scottish psychiatrist, and a psychoanalyst gave the example of a girl who was very badly abused, both physically and emotionally, by her mother and the social worker told her, in trying to prepare her for a foster placement, “tomorrow we will find a good mother for you as your mother has caused so much pain to you.” To which she said, “I don’t want another mother, I want my mother, she is not bad at all, I am bad, and that’s why she is abusing me.”
Michael Balint, another psychoanalyst, described the basic fault as breaking off the union between the mother and the newborn at birth, and all their life the child, and growing into an adult, feels incomplete looking for completion which is impossible. In the spiritual realm, they say you will feel complete only when you connect with the infinite.
Relating to other human beings is not only desirable but essential for complete growth in the outer world.
Coming back to the main topic, being social. Relating to other human beings is not only desirable but essential for complete growth in the outer world. I remember one of my professors in psychology. He was truly knowledgeable and would read newspapers and watch the news on television and radio every day. But his wife who did not bother with newspapers and radio knew more about what was going on in the outer world by chatting with her friends and neighbors next door.
Sometimes what you can learn by spending hours with books and the internet can be obtained in five minutes by chatting with someone. Here is a recent example – I wanted to change my car as the lease term was ending, I do not use my car much these days and wanted to downsize. You may spend hours going through the rules and regulations on government websites and still not get the right information that a professional advisor can tell you in five minutes. You may spend hours trying to figure out the right medication for your problems, but a few minutes spent over the phone with your doctor can answer all your questions.
A close friend had said to me about 25 years ago, “Kishore all the business deals are not done in board rooms but at dinner parties and social clubs, boardrooms are only the places where the deals are given final touches and dictated to secretaries for the minutes.” He is not a party type of person but makes it a point to attend parties. He was right, when I met him recently his business had grown by leaps and bounds. I have seen professors who wanted to contest elections to become the president or dean of professional bodies make it a point to attend all the annual national and international conferences.
However, there is another way of looking at relationships as well, which is slightly different from the above understanding. I normally discuss the default setting of relationships with my clients. I explain to them that there are two types of default settings – separateness and togetherness. Which one do you think is the norm in relationships?
Togetherness means that this is the feeling which would normally be there in relationships, and if it is missing it is not normal. Separateness would mean that it is normal to feel separate from another human being. Generally, people go for togetherness, and I explain to them the problem with that.
If you see togetherness as the norm then any show of love and affection and intimacy will be taken for granted thinking that is the normal thing, and it should be there. But if it is missing, it will be seen as abnormal and will cause enormous unhappiness.
However, if you want to see separateness as the norm, that we were born alone, we will die alone, nobody will go with us, every relationship has its boundaries and beyond those boundaries, we are all alone, nobody can understand us a hundred percent no matter how hard they try, we can’t understand others a hundred percent no matter how hard we try, the gap is unbridgeable. It does not mean true love does not exist, but true love also has its boundaries and outside those boundaries, one is alone if we adopt his understanding, the selfishness of people you love and feeling separate from them on occasion will not hurt you. But any show of love and affection and true love will make you happy.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty, a French philosopher, described our relationships with other human beings as the connection between our hands and our heart. Most human beings underestimate the depths of their connections with other human beings. Any difficulty in the relationship, they want to break it off. Not realizing that the relationships run much deeper than any difficulties one sees in them and failing to put in adequate efforts to repair them. They find it quite easy to break off but difficult to remain indifferent to the person who was close to them.
Sigmund Freud thought people seek relationships for pleasure and to forget their pain. According to him, relationships were a means to achieve pleasure or freedom from pain. Just as religion was viewed by Carl Marx and Sigmund Freud as the opium of the masses, some philosophers have seen relationships in that light.
However, Object relations theorists take a different view of relationships all together. For object relations theorists, our relationships are not a means to an end (pleasure or escaping pain) but an end in itself. People can sacrifice their pleasures and confront pain for the sake of their relationships. Ronald Fairbairn, a Scottish psychiatrist, and a psychoanalyst gave the example of a girl who was very badly abused, both physically and emotionally, by her mother and the social worker told her, in trying to prepare her for a foster placement, “tomorrow we will find a good mother for you as your mother has caused so much pain to you.” To which she said, “I don’t want another mother, I want my mother, she is not bad at all, I am bad, and that’s why she is abusing me.”
Michael Balint, another psychoanalyst, described the basic fault as breaking off the union between the mother and the newborn at birth, and all their life the child, and growing into an adult, feels incomplete looking for completion which is impossible. In the spiritual realm, they say you will feel complete only when you connect with the infinite.
Relating to other human beings is not only desirable but essential for complete growth in the outer world.
Coming back to the main topic, being social. Relating to other human beings is not only desirable but essential for complete growth in the outer world. I remember one of my professors in psychology. He was truly knowledgeable and would read newspapers and watch the news on television and radio every day. But his wife who did not bother with newspapers and radio knew more about what was going on in the outer world by chatting with her friends and neighbors next door.
Sometimes what you can learn by spending hours with books and the internet can be obtained in five minutes by chatting with someone. Here is a recent example – I wanted to change my car as the lease term was ending, I do not use my car much these days and wanted to downsize. You may spend hours going through the rules and regulations on government websites and still not get the right information that a professional advisor can tell you in five minutes. You may spend hours trying to figure out the right medication for your problems, but a few minutes spent over the phone with your doctor can answer all your questions.
A close friend had said to me about 25 years ago, “Kishore all the business deals are not done in board rooms but at dinner parties and social clubs, boardrooms are only the places where the deals are given final touches and dictated to secretaries for the minutes.” He is not a party type of person but makes it a point to attend parties. He was right, when I met him recently his business had grown by leaps and bounds. I have seen professors who wanted to contest elections to become the president or dean of professional bodies make it a point to attend all the annual national and international conferences.
However, there is another way of looking at relationships as well, which is slightly different from the above understanding. I normally discuss the default setting of relationships with my clients. I explain to them that there are two types of default settings – separateness and togetherness. Which one do you think is the norm in relationships?
Togetherness means that this is the feeling which would normally be there in relationships, and if it is missing it is not normal. Separateness would mean that it is normal to feel separate from another human being. Generally, people go for togetherness, and I explain to them the problem with that.
If you see togetherness as the norm then any show of love and affection and intimacy will be taken for granted thinking that is the normal thing, and it should be there. But if it is missing, it will be seen as abnormal and will cause enormous unhappiness.
However, if you want to see separateness as the norm, that we were born alone, we will die alone, nobody will go with us, every relationship has its boundaries and beyond those boundaries, we are all alone, nobody can understand us a hundred percent no matter how hard they try, we can’t understand others a hundred percent no matter how hard we try, the gap is unbridgeable. It does not mean true love does not exist, but true love also has its boundaries and outside those boundaries, one is alone if we adopt his understanding, the selfishness of people you love and feeling separate from them on occasion will not hurt you. But any show of love and affection and true love will make you happy.
