Recently I have been tackling some questions about relationships, of the romantic, friend and family kind. In particular, I was with faced the question whether after many failures it is worth engaging in relationships and moreover whether it is worth striving for a relationship of the glorious and most fulfilling kind. If we are repeatedly shortchanged in the relationship department, why keep shopping there? This is the credo of the cynic, with which I was faced and it occurred to me that there must be some contradiction that the cynic has not sorted out for himself. So let me briefly explore this contradiction and explain why I am not a cynic.
Whatever the cynic expects out of a relationship has been left unfulfilled, hence he is a cynic. When he engages in relationships, he chooses not to invest deep feelings, not to get too involved, rather to keep it casual. But is there not a contradiction here? Why does the cynic choose mediocre or even meaningless relationships? Does he merely wish to pass the time or to satisfy physical urges? The answer is: he has recognized the right value but he does not believe, having examined his past experiences and reaching his conclusion via the logic of induction, that he can attain it.
What is that right value? The right and only value to pursue in relationships is love as the result of a free mind, of a selfish spirit who relentlessly seeks that which he deserves and who claims that which rightly belongs to him. The strongest and deepest passion one can feel for another person is the kind stemming from the realization that that person will complement the achievement of all one wants. It is a profound acknowledgment of the other person as reflection of one’s own highest values.
To be selfish in relationships means further that relationships must not be prisons, they should not be restrictions upon one’s personal goals, desires, hopes and dreams. The right person will love one for the freedom one so dearly must protect and for all the things one wants to make of that freedom. The freedom to be and the freedom to enjoy one’s self constitutes one’s inalienable right, even and perhaps especially in a relationship.
How many loves, if any, can one have, how many broken hearts, how many frogs must one kiss until the right prince/princess comes along? Who knows? But there is no excuse to seek less. Life as the highest standard is a long-term commitment to the pursuit of values and hence the achievement of happiness. If one recognizes the right value, one must not deny oneself the pursuit of it.
Pursuing anything less will eventually result in resentment and self-loathing. The cynic does not wish to compromise his greatest values. But by believing that the most fulfilling kind of relationship is not within his reach and by accepting less, he does exactly that. As the cynic engages in mediocre relationships because he does not believe that he can obtain the higher value of the right kind of love, he debases himself and his very recognition of the right. His lingering in meaningless relationships only confirms his assessment of relationships as sacrifice not as realization of the highest values. His purchase of lesser goods only perpetuates his current state of dissatisfaction fueling his cynicism. Worse, he has judged his partners as not fully worthy of him, yet he sacrifices the integrity of his judgment by remaining with them.
We make mistakes. We commit errors on judgment. We keep friendships with people who we do not relate to any longer because we have known them for ages. We remain attached to relatives who have wronged us in many ways because they are blood. We stay in romantic relationships because we fear being lonely. We have sex with people we do not love. But the cynic’s credo is not far from those simple mistakes. Once one has made his judgment about another person as being not fully worthy, one must act on that judgment no matter how painful the loss may be. Otherwise, the cynic’s fate is not far out.
That is why I am not a cynic. Sure, an uncompromising attitude about relationships leaves one with very few of them: a handful of friends, a couple of great loves. Does that mean one will be lonely? No. After all, one must be productive. One must realize oneself, create and enjoy the fruits of one’s labor mind and labor. Any relationship must always be an achievement, not a substitute in the overall production of an heroic life.
©’07 Anja Hartleb-Parson
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