Serious Relationship Issues

The word "serious" means opposite things to different types of people. To polarise for discussion's sake :

"Sentimentalists" will consider any rule that is unchallengeable to be "serious", whereas "Rationalists" will consider it to be "a joke".

"Rationalists" will consider any rule that is subject to qualification to be "serious", whereas "Sentimentalists" will consider it to be "a joke".

Therein lies the issue with advertising for serious relationships ...

Civilisation, and the Architecture of Individual People

Weakness in people, is part of how humans are designed, in order to make the economy function. A future design of economies, would design people differently. Here are some individual weaknesses which stem from economic design at this point in history. My very long term hope for civilisation, human or otherwise, is that all of these weaknesses will have been well-documented, and designed out of the systems of normal individual people. Let's begin by acknowledging that not all people are human. Civilisation is composed of civilians who may not be human - but broadly we are all people.

1. Topical Fragility

People feel HURT, when their CHOICES are criticised : 

- clothing, 

- accommodation,

- tooling, 

- possessions, 

- methodologies,

- jobs, 

- relationships, 

- body shape, 

- interests, 

- clubs, 

- nationalities, 

- speech patterns,

- religions, 

- capabilities, and more.

2. Systemic Fragility

People who are HURT in one axis or component, become HURT at a fundamental systemic level, and lose the ability to function in general. This is due to architecturally poor designs in their internal structure.

3. Missed Economic Opportunities

Because of systematic fragility / 2, people studiously avoid topical fragility / 1, and therefore cannot even initiate conversations let alone co-operate with any other person who poses a topical conflict risk.

How to do Business : Amidst Accusations of Dishonesty?

Reviewing my business development protocols : 

- Generally I am open for business.

- Usually I display my goods and services, and let the counterparty decide what is interesting to them.

- Sugarcoating costs extra, and needs to be in the SLA.

- Generally I will share how my business works.

- I am ok to do business with you, if you don't understand how my business works. ( I grew up around dumb people, I got used to it. )

- I am ok to do business with you, if you think I am a liar, and you tell me the same. ( I grew up around dumb people, I got used to it. )

- I am not ok with giving you a better price, just because you think I am a liar. ( Simple boundaries. ) 

Hm. I'm not sure how I can improve on this, unless I tell all the people who try to argue the final point ... to go away! I am still open for business, just we don't agree on the price.

How Dating is like the Real Estate Industry

If you've ever dated a happy person, someone who was already happy before being in a relationship ... then you probably know there aren't many ways to make them "happier" than they already were. But there are a LOT of ways to make them "sadder". It's like a facilities management business ... your upside is limited, the KPIs are terse, and you're going to make lower margins than, say ...

... a property development business! Because when you sell novelty, and adventure, the upsides are not very well defined, and many different things can count as success in the short-term, even if they get ironed-out and thrown away or renovated later.

The Market for Mental Health

I think the market for mental health services is going to be huge, over the next decade.

1. As a premise, the industrial economy has shaped the definitions of adulthood and sanity over centuries. People follow the money. So when their professional lives define them as competent/mature, they may be satisfied with that ... without developing competency/maturity outside of professional environments. I often observe infantile behaviour in people who bear this dichotomy ... a sharp distinction in executive function between the office and at home.

2. The top-down solution is always better governance, education, public health policy, definitions and programs. None of this is going to change quickly unless we have an excess of resources in the economy. But we may, because ... (4.)

3. The bottom-up solution is just a lot of conversation, therapy, verbal and physical intimacy, and generally helping brains to improve their memory management. And the cost of this is getting cheaper, because ... (4.)

4. Artificial Intelligence is upon us.

The Management of Stressful Memories

With gross oversimplifications :

Two of the major subsystems in the human nervous system are the S / sympathetic and the P / parasympathetic nervous system. These two systems are competing for resources, with the average result being "your ancestors lived longer than their competitors". 

S is specialised more for tactical short-term offensive capabilities, P is specialised more for long-term defensive capabilities. 

S uses adrenaline to communicate / as a control token. One of the control tokens for S is noradrenaline. This is used to bind past memories from stressful, short-term offensive activities, so that you can learn from them. But you can't just keep binding all these experiences non-stop because that would be very negative ... so the unbinding phase of the system is when we dream ( recall experiences, without the stress ). But if the unbinding-via-dreams system is screwed up, then drugs can be administered to normalise it.

Active unbinding can also happen as a meditative exercise.

Emotional Wellness : paradigms

The everlasting question of whether individuals are subservient to society, or whether society is subservient to the individual, determines the functional definition of wellness in the individual. A moderate view may require that any "hopeless i.e. uncontrollable emotion, sentiment, or romance" be considered pathological, however it is possible to adopt a lens where such phenomena are considered healthy.

In my own case, I consider it well if I am able to consciously turn on or off my subconsciously produced sentiments, at any point in time. This is my definition of emotional wellness. If my conscious mind cannot easily control my subconscious mind, I consider myself ill.

So in my case specifically, I consider it "fitter" to have the option to remember and forget different types of relationships on a daily basis as and when they are convenient to my conscious self. I refer to this as "higher functional", and I refer to my colleagues who do not have agility in this dimension as "lower functional".

It's good to remind myself of this, from time to time.

[ Not a popular view. But it's a view I need to curate because I don't see it being represented enough in the world ( you may disagree ). ]

Social Procrastination

Supporting lost friends is exhausting. That's why you don't marry lost people, unless you intend to be permanently exhausted, or unless you are also lost and you are both just waddling on wherever forever.

Usually it only lasts a while - until the lost finds someone who fits one of the two qualifying criteria above. And if they don't, they wander off, into the night. Forever.

Sometimes they realise/decide that they're not lost after all - but they go wandering off anyway, so it's all the same from the point of view of their former supports.

:)

I'll get work done when I can.

Civility x Freedom

The true price of freedom is potential castigation, from all that is dear, or comfortable. A normal person's emotions are systematically disengaged during their dreams, by a process that lies largely out of their control. Some trained people's emotions are systematically disengaged throughout their daily lives. 

A normal person fears what they must do. Others do ... only what they fear.

A normal person restrains themselves from all manner of social taboos under a concept of morality, then subconsciously ruminates and confuses themselves in a fog of trauma. Others retain unfiltered thoughts and confuse others by their effusions.

Each one is free in different dimensions. We only choose to be free of one cost, and beholden to another.

Notes on hydration and sexual reciprocity in females

This is a bit of a weird hypothesis.

:: AVP and OTC 

So we have this signalling token called Antidiuretic Hormone / ADH a.k.a. Arginine Vasopressin / AVP ... which translates as "anti-pissing hormone", which of course is triggered when we've pissed too much, and the relevant receptors detect hypertonicity ( paraphrased : thickness of blood ). AVP has a much more popular sibling called Oxytocin / OTC which is inaccurately popularised as "the love hormone". 

I say that is inaccurate, because it overemphasises the positive connotations without neutralising the concept of love within an objective context : AVP and OTC systems interact antagonistically, but both contribute to ingroup-vs-outgroup behaviour in humans. And these systems both evolved historically from systems using the signalling token vasocitin which remain today in non-mammalian vertebrates ( those less fuzzy, less milky, yet boned animals ). Both AVP and OTC have a short plasma half-life.

:: OTC

OTC is released, among other triggers, by social touch, in both males and females. OTC release is correlated with, and possibly causal with regards to orgasm/ejaculation in both males and females. In females it seems possible that it might form a positive feedback loop ( OTC > arousal -> orgasm -> more OTC ), corresponding with the female experience of increased sexual arousal after orgasm.

:: AVP

Anyway, it appears that AVP features prominently in the vasoconstrictive sexual erection response of human males ... and then it just falls off a cliff upon orgasm/ejaculation ( the two are not the same, but that stands to be finessed ) : correlated with the "refractory" period. Meanwhile AVP just doesn't spike in human female sexual response - in fact it is possibly negatively correlated with female sexual response, as it orientates behaviour towards outgrouping.

:: Herein the stupid hypothesis : 

If you're courting a human female, it might help if you keep them adequately hydrated to minimise vasopressin-induced stress on their system. Conversely if you're a human female seeking to maximise outgroup skepticism, it may help to stay slightly dehydrated. 

:: Links

1 : The Oxytocin-Vasopressin Pathway in the Context of Love and Fear https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2050116121000507

2 :  How Relevant is the Systemic Oxytocin Concentration for Human Sexual Behavior? A Systematic Review https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5743651/ 

3 : Endorphins, oxytocin, sexuality, and romantic relationships : An understudied area https://www.wjgnet.com/2218-6220/full/v7/i2/17.htm

4 : various ; links above provided as key examples only

:: Pointers to Other Signalling Tokens

AVP and OTC systems interact with Nitric Oxide / NO systems, and various other signalling tokens in the body. How inconveniently ... complex. AVP is a vasoconstrictor, whereas OTC and NO are vasodilators : it should be noted that vasoconstriction/dilation is definitive in some cases, and otherwise correlated with the concept of organismal stress, also sexual response.

Dopamine may be regarded as a "reward" molecule, and it gradually increases in both males and females during courtship/arousal, peaking at the point of orgasm. There's a supply-chain that goes "tyrosine  > dopamine > noradrenaline > adrenaline". Adrenaline and its trusty sidekick noradrenaline are involved in a whole bunch of schenanigans, redacted.

Serotonin may be regarded as a "satisfaction" molecule, and it tends to kick in after orgasm, telling you to chill and you can stop bangin now. I haven't written any note here on the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems yet, nevermind ... that's not the main point of this article.

Managing Intimacy on a busy schedule

Current protocols for intimacy management :

- my long-term target (2008) is 4.5 hours/week of intentional/dedicated time across the portfolio

- incidental time ( co-xyz-ing ) theoretically doesn't subtract from non-relationship priorities, so target is not currently limited

- counterparties that need affirmation probably need to rigidly schedule intentional time

- counterparties that have fewer of such needs default to ad hoc scheduling

- emergencies are ad hoc, of course, so are inconsequential to ad hoc scheduling protocols

- for counterparties on rigid schedules, emergencies are classified by priority : only emergencies stemming from factors external to the counterparty are prioritised to be addressed on ad hoc scheduling; internally generated emergencies are deprioritised and queued to be addressed during rigidly scheduled time 

Life is permanently WIP, but it remains a joy to reify long-term plans, and to increase operational output, efficiency, and sophistication.