happy happy joy joy
Dan Gilbert has given a talk at the T.E.D. confrence on the issue of what makes us happy. Its worth a watch on its own, as all T.E.D. lectures are in their profound and scary way, but I will try and sum up his main points in order to get to the issue I want to discuss.
His lab ran a psychology experement by giving out paintings to people and then later asking them what painting they liked the best. He found that a persons happyness toward a painting depends on if that person got it as a gift. As he states in the video, people are prone to claiming ‘The painting I got is great. This other painting that I didnt get, it sucks’. Not suprising.
What is suprizing is the nature of the happyness. We kind of smile to ourselves in a knowing way when someone claims that the item they have is what they like more. That somehow the person is using a Freaudian coping mechinism to justify the painting that they now own. But this isnt the case.
The experement was run with people who have anterograde amnesia. People who can remember the long term past, but cant remember recent events. (Like in the films ‘Memento’ or ‘50 First Dates’) These people were given a painting, then the researches waited untill the amnesia kicked in before asking what painting the paitent liked more. Even when the person didnt know what painting they had, they still claimed to enjoy that paticular painting more.
Summary: Once we have something, we tend to like it more. Not just claim we like it more, but actualy ligitimaly like it more.
The concern I have with all this is when the happyness stems from people instead of paintings. The video touches on this subject very shortly. It points out that if we are dating someone and that person picks their nose, we dump them. When we are maried we justify it. “Hes got a heart of gold. Hes good with the kids. Surly I can overlook the one small defect in his personality of him picking his nose”. We dont make thse kidns od make-ourself-happy justifications when there is the option of backing out. Only when we are fully vested in a person do we do that to ourselves.
The idea of ‘family loyality’ is like this. We may hate our family (I do) but justify behavior anyway that we would otherwise never accept. All in justification of ‘blood is thicker than water’ and saying to yourselves that you have to love your family no matter what. If we had a choice abotu who was our family, we would never pick such a group of theives and hypricits. But since we are stuck with them we justify it ‘The painting I got is great. This other painting that I didnt get, it sucks’.
It would appear that the only nessasary element to this self-created happyness is the amount of time spent together. Nothing else matters. Not shared values. Not common intrests. Not even if you inherently like the person. All that is needed is to spend lots and lots of time together and to not have any other option. Happyness will come.
Stockholm syndrome is always charactized as some kind of psychological fault. If a kidnap victim somehow grows to care for their kidnapper, its because of a freaudian choping mechinish. But maybee their happyness and the joy they find in their kidnaper isnt some kind of psychological justification. Like the joy that comes from a painting that you dont know you own, maybee the joy actualy is real honest joy and not just us talking ourselves into the situation.
I had thought that the key in any good romantic relationship was a shared common intrest. See my rants about the little mermaid and beauty and the beast. Sharing a common taste in music. Boith of us enjoying the same sort of books. Seeing and admiring the spirit of independence in them that I also see in myself. These are the things I have chaced after in my quest for romance. But objectivly speaking this is no batter or no worse a plan of action than to just find someone totaly at random and spend so much time together with her that I eventualy wind up saying ‘The painting I got is great. This other painting that I didnt get, it sucks’.
So what does this have to do with kink? Well, the BDSM scene is plagued with chicken hawks. Self proclaimed ‘trainers’ that go around luring in the newbies with stories abotu how they came from a long and prestigious line of masters. Claiming to be trained in one of the top houses in europe. And the newbbie, tasty little morsel that they are, has managed to capure the attention of this highly regarded master.
The problem is that I dont think anyone is actualy into ‘high protocal’ untill thse chicken hawks latch on to them and ~train~ them into believing that high protocal serve-and-obey is the true way to practice kink. In one class that I teach, I ask people what their first memory or fantist was that thinking back on it now was about kink. Answers range from playing cowboys and indians and tying up the bad guys, to seeing some damsel in distress scene in a movie, to experementing with the neighbor kid and the thrill that came from the fear of being caught. But not once have I ever had someone answer with anything like “Well, I remember when I was like 13 or 14 I woudl lay awake in bed at night, touching myself under the covers, and thinking about folowing protocal! Oh god! And then. And then. And then I woudl show proper respect! Ah yes. That was so hot.’
Nobody starts out wanting high protocal. But get a self proclaimed ~trainer~ latching on to you, and spend enough time emersed in it, and you will creat happyness for yourself.