Living in the Western World Part 4

Another important dynamic is our requirement for affiliation, being liked, appreciated, acknowledged, and admired, receiving affection, sex and love. It appears that these pursuits are associated with happiness and if not received the result is anxiety and unhappiness. Don’t forget that within relationships, we have competition, and within competition, we have hostility and aggression along with passive aggressiveness.

We believe that happiness is the fulfillment of our childhood wishes and that money doesn’t make us happy, since it’s not usually among our childhood wishes. Also, to be loved does not always make for happiness and can lead to unhappiness, if not reciprocated. Some believe that we learn how to love only when we are loved.

Statistics on marriage are not terrific, which suggests that perhaps there’s a problem with the idea or notion of love. For instance, it appears that a strong or constant affection for a person diminishes over time, and that results, in part, in the dissolution of the union. Poets, authors, song lyrics, biblical references, movies, etc. have expressions of love that do not always fit the Merriam-Webster definition. Perhaps, the word love is misused, not understood, and simply overused, with the result that it is just a non-relevant word choice.

Perhaps, the word affiliation is a better fit, more realistic and more meaningful for Homo sapiens. Affiliation can mean “cooperation, a reciprocation with an allied other; to please and win affection; and to adhere and remain loyal to a friend.” Maybe more people can tolerate being affiliated with another and that would not result in the trauma of a divorce nor an assault to one’s self-esteem.

As one can see, the dynamics of anxiety, competition, hostility, fear of failure, self-esteem, and affiliation are like a kaleidoscope. It’s difficult to tell when one begins or ends as they are like cake batter. You take the ingredients or dynamics and subject them to the environment and outcomes Homo sapiens.

Adding a few ideas from existentialism seems pertinent. First, there is a brevity of the lifecycle. Second, our values, political ideas and scientific achievements become meaningless when we pass. Third, in order for man’s nature and dynamics to change, man must confront and recognize the illusions of religion, politics and science. Only then, if achieved, can man began to deal with anxiety or dread of living in an irrational world.

Coopersmith, S. The Antecedents of Self-Esteem. W.H. Freeman and Company

Hall, C and Lindzey, G. Theories of Personality. John Wiley & Sons Incorporated

Horney, K. The Neurotic Personality of Our Time. W. W. Norton and company, Incorporated

Reik, T. The Need to Be Loved. Bantam Book