Four Qualities That Set the Destiny of Every Relationship

It may come as a surprise to you that there are four qualities that set the destiny of every relationship -- and only four, but by the time you have finished reading, you will recognize them in yourself and understand why past relationships have gone as they did and why present relationships are going as they are.

Those four qualities are:

1. sincerity
2. availability
3. interest
4. cooperativeness

I'm going to explain each of them, show how they work, together, and how they apply to relationships.

First, the explanations of each.

THE FOUR QUALITIES

Let's start with sincerity.

Sincerity

Sincerity is being true to your word and true to yourself. That means, not only keeping your word, but only giving your word if you feel right with yourself, doing so.

I understand that there are situations where you feel compelled to give your word, on something.

If you feel compelled, you can't be sincere about it.

Sincerity is not, "being really persuasive", or being really emotional about something.

Sincerity is a condition of alignment between thoughts, feelings, and actions -- without internal conflict, misgivings, or second-guessing. It's being true to yourself.

"To thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man."
~~ Shakespeare

Availability

Availability is being present -- not just in some psychological sense, but also physically present. It's being present to being seen, heard, and felt.

Again, I understand that there are situations where you feel compelled to make yourself available.

If you feel compelled to make yourself available, you're not whole-hearted about it -- and if you're not whole-hearted about it, you're not really available.

Being available is not merely being available in some nominal way, like, "Call me, any time."

Being available is an emotional and physical state. It's being capable of listening and being honest. Lying and deception are forms of unavailability. So are breaking ones word -- our first hint at how these qualities work, together.

"Wake up. Clean up. Grow up. Show up."
~~ Ken Wilber

Interest

Interest is attraction to a situation, person, subject, or thing. 

Interest may be feigned, but you know the difference. If it takes effort to "stay interested", you're not really interested.

Again, I understand that there are times when you are not really interested in something, but you force yourself to stay with it. Sometimes, necessity is a factor. Just don't confuse that with interest.

Being interested is a form of, "eros" -- being strangely attracted to something. It's unreasonable. If you're interested for "a reason", there's a should, in there, somewhere, rather than that you simply are interested.

Sometimes, you feel wrong being interested in something or someone. That's too bad, for you -- not because you're interested, but because you feel wrong, about it. Anyway, you're not really in a quandary. If you take into account all four of the qualities, in yourself and in the other, you can be pretty clear about the situation.

Sometimes, you need to dig a little deeper to sift out the should from the "I am."

At the end of this piece, I provide a power-tool for that kind of excavation -- a very powerful power tool.

"Are you interested?"

Cooperativeness

Cooperativeness is "co-" ("with"), "operativeness" ("doing-ness"). If you're doing something with someone, you two are cooperating. If you're on a date, with someone, you're cooperating, at least as far as having gotten together.

If, on the other hand, one of you is not really interested, not really available, or not really sincere -- it's a bad date or, "date over" -- or "marriage over".

Again, I understand that, at times, you have to cooperate under those conditions. Maybe your boss (or partner) has asked you to do something you're not really into, at that moment. You may go through the motions, out of necessity. Just don't confuse that with cooperativeness. It isn't that; it's, "compliance". "Thank you for your cooperation," is something generally said when you did something you didn't really want to do.

Cooperation is whole-hearted; otherwise, conflicting motivations creep in and spoil the experience.

Which kind of cooperation would you want in a relationship?

"Ya gotta wanna."

How They Work Together

By now, you've already started to see that, but I want to be thorough and show you how, for a relationship of any kind to be successful, all four need to be on-line and working synergistically. The word for that is, "integrity" or "authenticity".

I'm going to present pairs of these four, all of them. You may take a moment with each pair and experience, "the light going on", as you suddenly feel them unite (integrate).

There are six '"aligned" pairings:

1. sincerely available
2. sincerely interested
3. sincerely cooperative
4. interested availability
5. interested in cooperating
6. available to cooperate

... and of course, the "truth standards"

• sincerely sincere
• interestedly interested
• cooperatively cooperative
• available to being available

Any resistance to these pairings reveals "where you're at" in relationships. It reveals your character, to yourself.

The Standard of Clarity: Non-Alignment in Relationship

Just to make sure you understand, at the level of feeling, I'm going to contrast each of the pairings with its opposite. (I did this with a couple of examples, earlier.)

1. insincerely available (DISHONESTY) -- or --
   sincerely unavailable (HONESTY) -- or --
   insincerely unavailable (AVOIDANCE)
2. insincerely interested  (DISHONESTY) -- or --
   sincerely uninterested (HONESTY) -- or --
   insincerely uninterested  (HIDING FEELINGS)
3. insincerely cooperative  (SABOTAGE) -- or --
   sincerely uncooperative (ANTAGONISM) -- or --
   insincerely uncooperative (SELF-SABOTAGE)
4. interested but unavailable (PRIOR COMMITMENT) -- or --
   uninterested but available (NONCOMMITAL MEDIOCRITY) -- or --
   uninterested unavailability (DISDAIN)
5. interested but uncooperative (RESERVE) -- or --
   uninterested cooperation (OBLIGATION) -- or --
   uninterested uncooperativeness (NEGLECT)
6. unavailable to cooperate (AVOIDANCE/HIDING) -- or --
   available but uncooperative (CONTRARINESS) -- or --
   unavailable and uncooperative (HONEST REFUSAL)

... and of course, the "standards of deception"

• insincerely sincere
• uninterestedly interested
• uncooperatively cooperative
• unavailable for being available

Applying All This to Relationships You've Been In

We meet in relationship in many areas and ways: work, love, sex, business. You can apply the pairings of the four qualities to any area of life and to any incident or situation.

Casual Relationships

A mix of the various aligned and unaligned combinations produces casual or superficial relationships. Consider Facebook "friends". Consider co-workers and people you encounter in business.

Consider any casual relationship. Look at it in terms of the pairings. Look at them in yourself and in the other. Look at words and look at actions; look at whether the actions are consistent with the words. Look at the activities you share. Revealing.

Close Relationships

Closeness occurs when all of the four qualities are active and integrated (all pairings are present). To the degree that the four qualities are present in their aligned form (first set of six), to that degree, we have closeness and it feels like closeness.

However, when we are close in one area (as in, say, having gone through a growth experience, a disaster or a big success, together), we may or may not actually be close in many areas. If feel close in one area, we may expect that closeness to apply to all areas of life, but what has developed is an untested, superficial trust factor that only potentially leads to deep friendship or intimacy.

Such relationships are "relatively" close and are only "relatively" revealing -- revealing of misalignments-in-relationship. The areas of misalignment are the sense of distance between individuals.

Intimate Relationships and Soulmates

Intimates and soulmates share alignment, not just in many areas, but in fundamental areas, in deep areas of self. We have an integrity that has stood the test of many circumstances.

Intimacy especially reveals our misalignments. The difference between "relative" closeness and intimacy is the willingness to grow and change under the influence of the other person -- and the willingness (and ability) to change, where misalignments exist.

One-Sidedness

Sometimes, the pairings of the four, in ourselves, and in others mismatch in different aspects of our lives, so that it seems that we feel differently about the relationship than they do.

When that happens, check for a mismatch between words and actions -- both in our self and in the other. There's a break.

Overriding and Imbalances

Sometimes, we override our feelings; sometimes, we are in denial.

The overriding of feelings and denial lead to imbalances that may occur in any area of life -- a break of integrity that can lead to a breakup.

What to Do, If . . . 

Let's say you're invested in a relationship, and it's stuck. What can you do?

You've already started the first step: Wake up.

Wake up,  in this case, means bring all of the pairings to the light of day -- that means, in yourself and in your perception of the other person. You can remember the ways in which things are stuck or broken.

The next step is, clean-up.

Ordinarily, the most people can do is "try". They may use affirmations, well-meaning efforts, communication, therapy, visualizations, etc.

From personal experience, you know these approaches are only "relatively" effective.

Allow me to offer a more powerful alternative:  The Gold Key Release.

The Gold Key Release is a way to deprogram yourself from forever-limitations that keep you stuck. It's an internal process that uses ATTENTION, INTENTION, MEMORY, AND IMAGINATION in a single, unified process. Many stuck places can be freed in fifteen to twenty minutes. Others, especially deeply entrenched conditioning, take more -- but there are ways to deal even with those. The result is more spontaneous right action, more free creativity, in the area addressed. Things go better.

Rather than explain The Gold Key Release and all of its steps, here, I'm offering you all of it on this page. My advice: follow the instructions closely, and start with something juicy -- an incident or something that bothers you. Moderately difficult situations are easiest to put through The Gold Key Release because you already feel them, distinctly, while they are not so "crusty" that you need a large number of passes through the Release to get them to dissolve. That way, you get a successful experience, early on, and can recognize the value of The Gold Key Release for many areas of your life.

Click the key, read, and get started. Ya gotta wanna. It's your life.

Wake up. Clean up. Grow up. Show up.

Are you interested?

Humanoid Self-Gratification Laid Naked: The Morlocks and the Eloi

A Window into a View of Life
The Gold Key Release, to Free Yourself from Forever Limitation
This entry may stir things up, in you. To settle those feelings after you've read it and "seen the writing on the wall", use The Gold Key Release. You'll feel better. Click the image, below, and do The Gold Key Release on the "stirred up" feelings, as instructed on the page at which you land.

Click the image.

The Gold Key Release:
to Release You from Forever-Limitation

into the Space of Open Possibility

As a possibility . . . 
it's available in many ways . . .
as an actuality, it requires intelligence and sanity to enjoy it safely:

Self-Gratification

The intention of this writing is to appeal to your imagination
to attract your attention and get you to remember things.

Having done that -- and I mean this to be very important -- to dissolve the substance of it all by means I have provided at the end -- a lifesaver.

Persons and things consist of both form and substance. "Substance" makes "form" substantial.

People confuse "the form" with "the substance."
They may think that it's enough to have "substance" without being equally discerning about the "form" of the substance. People are not that discriminating.

In fact, the word, "discrimination", as been given a bad name -- even though it only means, "discernment". What has been popularized as the meaning of "discrimination" (by the official sources of information) is not true discrimination, but stereotypical discrimination, broad discrimination without attention to details. It is the word, "discrimination", indiscriminately used.

Without discrimination, people are unable to tell what is good for them from what is bad for them. They take too much of "the bad" along with, "the good".

That is the basis of materialism, that is, Consumerism
an attempted solution to the distresses of life.


If that escapes you, listen to this:

Two behaviors that involve self-gratification are the affliction of the world:

immature self-gratification

and

insane self-gratification

These are not the only two behaviors there are, but they are the two major afflictions of the socio-economic world.

IMMATURE SELF-GRATIFICATION

abandons sensibility (intelligence) -- or never had it

Immature Self-Gratification wants things before it has created them or earned them.  It wants more before it feels it has earned it -- but it rationalizes that it deserves it. It wants it, now.  It confuses imagining something in a vague sort of way with imagining it with such completeness and integrity that it can be of value others. It wants the "owning" but hasn't the capacity to sustain having what it wants because it hasn't developed, enough. It hasn't borne its fruit, but it wants the fruit brought forth by others -- already.  It's a Consumer.  Infantile and childish behavior doesn't know it's infantile or childish.

Nonetheless, it wants its gratification  -- and those who aspire to Insane Self-Gratification will give it.

INSANE SELF-GRATIFICATION
abandons conscience (integrity) for self-gratification -- or never had it

Insane Self-Gratification gets gratification from choosing The Unwholesome.

It accepts displeasure as part of its pleasure.

It chooses the things of its own pleasure and takes the pleasure despite the displeasure it afflicts -- and then tries to control the displeasure that comes with it, like taking a drug to counter the side-effects of other drugs.

Knowingly choosing what is unwholesome is the definition of, evil. It's also kind-of stupid.

It is the basis of Consumerism as a paradigm of marketing -- programming people to want things they don't already want, beyond what is beneficial, programming people to acquire meager (even if expensive), temporary (even if modestly fulfilling), or questionable (even if popular) pleasures in exchange for long-term displeasure -- the displeasure of being in debt beyond their means, of owing and not being able to pay, or of the let-down of the thing acquired not fulfilling the dream portrayed in the marketing -- portrayed to lastingly exceed the long-term displeasure of debt -- acquisitions depicted to make the displeasure worth it -- the tacit rationale for war, crime, and predation of all kinds.

One of the attitudes it holds is, " Businesses should be protected from interference simply because they are profit centers" -- a very simple-minded attitude. Don't you agree? 

Insane Self-Gratification is the arrested development or magnification of immature behaviors --  the desire to suckle at the breast more and more, and forever -- Immature Self-Gratification "gone 'Godzilla at Tokyo', 'Dracula in London". Insane Self-Gratification is as Thirsty as Dracula and as Big as Godzilla -- bigger, if the truth be told. It's appetite is more ravenous -- and it can't distinguish between good and evil -- the Legal Insanity Defense -- or simply won't -- the definition of guilty. However, like Immature Self-Gratification, it has a rationalization: because "business" is involved, It deserves it. It rationalizes because it secretly feels otherwise.

Insane Self-Gratification preys upon Immature Self-Gratification. It feeds off of unnecessary Consumerism in its own Super Consumerism. It's "The Consumer of Consumers -- The BIG Consumer" and Immature Self-Gratification is the source of its food. 

Immature Self-Gratification is The Way of life of The Eloi. ("the 99.9%")

Insane Self-Gratification is The Way of Life of The Morlocks. ("the .1%")

in H.G. Welles', The Time Machine

The Metaphor of The Time Machine

H.G. Welles' story, The Time Machine, was set in a future, post-war Earth.

In an early scene, we see the time-traveler in his time machine whirling into the future. The time machine comes to rest in a dark cavern. In moments, humanoid creatures discover the time-traveler and his machine in the cavern. In moments, they attack him. They are hairy, aggressive creatures with large teeth and eyes that glow in the dark. These are the Morlocks. The Morlocks are flesh-eaters -- mutants -- the ones who provide the sustenance of the Eloi. The time-traveler manages to fight them off and escapes in the time machine to a days-later time, still in the cavern.

After his first encounter with the Morlocks, we see the time traveler emerge from the cavern into an idyllic, garden-like setting. Soon, he comes upon The Eloi, a peaceful, aesthetically-refined people reminiscent of the Flower Children of the 60s. The Eloi live lives of leisure and gentle entertainments with their needs provided, mysteriously, on an ongoing basis. They are vegetarians.

In a later scene, we hear what we recognize as air-raid sirens. The Eloi stop their feasting, look up, and then file peacefully into the great mouths of underground shelters with heavy sliding doors that close behind them with a boom. After a time the doors slide open and the Eloi emerge -- but not all of them.  The flesh the Morlocks eat is that of the Eloi who come to the caverns when the sirens sound. They "farm" the Eloi. The sirens are theirs.

The Eloi correspond to those who live lives of Immature Self-Gratification. The Morlocks correspond to those who live lives of Insane Self-Gratification. As the Morlocks feed upon the Eloi, Insane Self-Gratification feeds upon Immature Self-Gratification.

That is the metaphor of the story, The Time Machine, as it applies to today.

What happens to the vampire's host after the orgasm of Blood Feast?

When Civilizations Fall

A Civilization dies, falls, or collapses either because of environmental calamity or, more commonly, because of Immature Self-Gratification wanting more than it earns and because Insane Self-Gratification doesn't care, as long as it can feed on Immature Self-Gratification. Insane Self-Gratification has the system rigged to maintain Immature Self-Gratification as its food source.

But for either, it's not enough.

MORE, MORE

Both want, "MORE" -- one of them, with good reason:

The Eloi are dependent upon the Morlocks, who give enough to sustain them but who keep their power over The Eloi hidden and unrecognized. The Eloi really do need, "more", for their own survival against the predation of the Morlocks -- more information about their situation and control over their own survival. Their dependency is their weakness. They remain oblivious.

The Morlocks are dependent upon the dependency of the Eloi for their sustenance and keep their power over the Eloi by hiding in the caverns, unseen and so unrecognized by the Eloi -- while they provide enough for the Eloi to survive as a food source. They want more Eloi -- for breakfast. They want to maintain control.

The two have the mood of, "MORE", in common.  It's just that one is predator and the other is prey.

The System of, "More"

In Consumerism, the Consumer is Consumed by credit-debt, the money from interest going to those who own the System.

In Consumerism, those who control the wealth skim wealth from the flow of money from the productivity of the producer in virtually all of its channels, while producing nothing but rationalizations. They are involved with getting the Consumer to consume more and different things, unnecessarily or excessively, to exercise power toward the accumulation of wealth, and through wealth, control, for Insane Self-Gratification. That's Never Enough.

The Displeasure of Never Enough triggers the idea in them that "More Would Be Enough" -- and on they go, choosing the pleasures of their undeserving life, oblivious or inured or desensitized or perversely cherishing the displeasures of their actions that make all they have, always, "Not Enough".

It's been said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

I think that's stupidity. It never learns.

I think that insanity is "going for what is, and feels, unwholesome" as if it were wholesome.

That leaves the psychopaths, who override the feelings of people for the sake of their "one-channel mind" results. They, also, choose self-gratification. But just as they don't feel the feelings of other people, they also don't feel their own feelings. Those feelings are overridden by the tenacity of the logic in them, that They Are Doing Things Right. They are selectively perceptive, one-channel (wealth-and-power-and-material-pleasures) minds incapable of or unwilling to take in more criteria than, "Money Excuses Everything". A one channel-mind is another version of, underdeveloped -- a "one-trick pony" mind.

It's not that "money excuses" (although it's well known that the wealthy and powerful get away with murder), but that people excuse them, abandoning their intelligence and integrity for the hope of themselves (Immature Self-Gratification) becoming like the wealthy and powerful (Insane Self-Gratification).

What a stupid game -- both are forms of Humanoid Self-Gratification

How about this:

Immature Self-Gratification: Educate yourself. Mature into becoming more fully human. Develop your interests into abilities. Produce what is valued so that people will be glad to give to you. Get your self-esteem from living up to your own potential, not from others' social or political approval (which isn't self-esteem, but "other esteem" -- which doesn't really suffice, anyway). Exercise truthfulness to self, patience, persistence and creativity. Exercise creativity that embodies and advances well-being. AWAKEN AND DEVELOP YOUR INTENDING, IMAGINING, ATTENDING AND REMEMBERING faculties of intelligence. Get your intelligences on-line and connected.

Earn what you get within your capacity to maintain it. "By not advancing himself, he stays ahead of himself." (Lao Tsuh)

Overcome the indoctrination of Insane Self-Gratification. Deprogram yourself. Exercise your intelligence.

Insane Self-Gratification: You've seen that wealth, power, and consumerism are Never Enough, yet you haven't learned the lesson. In that, you're the personification of stupid -- never learns -- and insane -- going for what is unwholesome. You're smart in a one-channel-mind sort of way, but you create more detriment than you do, benefit, by preying upon Immature Self-Gratification instead of nurturing it because, "being in business, you deserve it," a slick rationalization if I ever heard one -- a rationalization  you have sold to Immature Self-Gratification to excuse directing the fount of wealth in your direction, while allowing a trickle to trickle down.

You think this is a "top-down control" culture, but fail to recognize that the foundation of your wealth are those on whom you prey -- and that their well-being funds your own. Wealth accumulates proportionally to its general circulation. When wealth accumulates in pools and doesn't circulate, stagnation ensues. It's "socio-economic diabetes".

Get your "Enough" from the "Enough" of others who had, "Not Enough". Partake in their relief and well-being, duly earned.

Overcome the indoctrination of "More Will be Enough". Wake up and redirect your lives.

~~~~~~~~~~

But understand -- psychopaths are emotionally underdeveloped and/or emotionally dissociated (albeit cleverly manipulative and intellect-dominant) humanoids with one-channel minds some of whose "incoming information" channels (e.g., moral intelligence, empathy, and sense of integrity) are unawakened or clogged with dysfunctional programming from who-knows-where, and so, distorted and so, only humanoid. There's something humanoid about their brain functioning. Their, "Never Enough" conditioning sucks hard on the "wealth and power" channel, and may suck it with enthusiasm to the point of killing the host -- and harming themselves, in the process -- but that may not seem to matter, to them, because their moral intelligence is limited. Dinosaurs.

There is a way to bring on-line and balance the intelligences -- but you've got to want to. You've got to see bringing your intelligences on-line as an advantage.

"At no time in the world will a man who is sane overreach himself, overspend himself, overrate himself." (Lao Tsuh)

Click the image.

The Gold Key Release: 
to Release You from Forever-Limitation

into the Space of Open Possibility