Emerald

Separation and oneness are two sides to the same coin. One is relative and the other is absolute. We live in a world where (in order to function) we must respect the separateness and boundaries of objects and beings. So, the relative truth is that we are separate because we function as separate. And within that separation comes duality and relationship to the other. And this is where respect comes in and can be given and received between self and other. But in the absolute sense, everything is one. And we are all parts within a greater whole. Respect in my definition, means to recognize the oneness/sacredness of the other through the lens of separation and relationship.

Me too! Hiya!

Does the lion disrespect the gazelle when he eats him to survive? My philosophy on survival and boundaries is that every animal gets to protect themselves and survive. And every species gets to prioritize members of their own species. For example, I don’t eat meat because I am in a fortunate enough position to not need to eat animals to survive. So, to justify eating an animal to myself, I would have to engage in hierarchical thinking and a disrespect to the animal where I place my desire for 10 minutes of sensory enjoyment over the value of the animal’s entire life. But if I were in a situation where I had to eat an animal to survive, I wouldn’t have any qualms about it. That’s just the nature of survival. And each human and non-human animal is entitled to a fair crack at survival. This is the way that Animistic cultures have viewed things like hunting. It’s always with a deep respect to the wisdom of nature and the circle of life. And it’s to understand that sometimes you eat the lion and sometimes the lion eats you. So, I will swat the mosquito for my own survival. But the mosquito will suck my blood for it’s survival. And that’s just how things are. But I don’t disrespect the mosquito to swatting it away… any more than the gazelle disrespects the lion by running away. I can still recognize the validity of their existence, but still maintain my own survival.

No to the first question… and not always to the second question. As long as she’s on board with it, it can still be mutually respectful to engage in casual sex.

Interesting. I wonder why these things diverge. If more testosterone leads all people to have a higher sex drive… then why aren’t more masculine women the most easily aroused and promiscuous?

The dichotomy isn’t so much about polygamy vs monogamy… both of these can create a stable environment for child rearing as long as there is consistency to the familial structure. The dichotomy is that of wide/shallow and narrow/deep. And wide/shallow orientation creates problems for familial stability. This makes wide/shallow orientation inferior to deep/narrow if the goals are pair bonding, family building child rearing, and community building. And biologically speaking, those are the fundamental goals underneath our sex drives as human beings. And while men and women’s strategies for getting there look different, both of these strategies are fundamentally about coming together to build stable families. And since our sexual instincts are fundamentally about procreation and child rearing, (generally speaking) men have two natural modes… wide/shallow and deep/narrow where women have one mode which is deep/narrow. Men tend to begin wide/shallow in the early courtship process… and then move to narrow/deep as the relationship progresses. And women tend to be narrow/deep in both early courtship and in the progression of the relationship. But the biological goal is to both get to deep/narrow. So, men who haven’t experienced deep/narrow yet and have not experienced marriage and fatherhood, they might think wide/shallow is the only natural thing. But it is important for men who value pair bonding, fatherhood, and community stability to put these two instincts (wide/shallow and narrow/deep) in the proper relationship with one another to serve the stability of their family and community. This takes some maturing to do this well and to realize where the deeper pull of their masculine instincts are actually leading them. To elucidate this, think of the quote “still waters run deep”. And if men’s sexual instincts are like currents in the water in this analogy… The deepest currents of instinct are the most powerful… but they are also much more subtle and take maturity to recognize and connect to. But the shallower currents of instinct are there too. And they’re much easier to understand, appreciate, and connect to. But biologically, these shallower instincts around casting the net wide are there to serve the deeper instincts of building healthy families and communities.

I did specify that it’s my way of viewing respect. And that I see it as separate from things like admiration. There are other words to describe those conditional forms of respect. I view respect in the same way that people have a respect for nature. There is a natural reverence toward all elements of existence… including humans. And to answer your question, I get along very well with people in my life (in part) because I do my best to practice unconditional respect. And I do this practically by recognizing the validity of a person’s subjective truth and seeking to understand them, rather than judging them. It’s less of a question for me as to whether or not another person is “worthy” of my respect. I’m showing up respectfully regardless of how anyone else wants to show up because it is one of my values. And respect in the way that I’m defining it is not contingent upon behaviors or qualities. But being respectful is contingent upon certain behaviors. And I think you can tell a lot about how respectful a person is going to be by how unconditionally they give their respect.

Not so sure that that’s true. Testosterone tends to correlate with more masculine features in women… like facial hair and deeper voices. But I’ve known plenty of very feminine women who are more promiscuous… and plenty of more masculine women who are more commitment oriented. And vice versa. And the same goes for men. Plenty of very burly men who are commitment oriented, and plenty of promiscuous variety-seeking feminine men. Most of the gay men that I know seek a lot of variety while possessing more feminine qualities. So I see no correlation anecdotally… nor have I seen any studies that suggest this. Are you sure this is true? Or is it pop science that you heard in the pick up community?

I wasn’t saying that someone who is trustworthy is the same as someone who is admirable… or that someone who has integrity is trustworthy. Etc. These can come together or separate. I was saying that it’s common that the word respect gets translated as some combo of trustworthiness and admiration. But that isn’t the way that I define respect for the reasons that I stated above.

That’s not quite what I meant by what I said. What I mean is that (biologically speaking) that women and men’s EARLY dating strategies diverge to ultimately get to the same goal. And that goal is to create suitable family structures to raise children in. And this can be monogamous or polyamorous depending on what’s more adaptive. The main requirement here is stability. If a man just runs with the pluralistic early dating strategy and forms lots of shallow bonds and impregnates tons of women…. this impedes his ability to co-create a suitable family structure and be a good father to any of these children. And in nomadic times, this would probably mean death for the woman and child. So, the shallow wide pluralism of the EARLY courtship process becomes maladaptive to the ultimate biological goal of raising new human beings and building strong families and communities… if it’s not transcended once a deeper commitment is formed.

These are more in the realm of credibility, trust, and admiration… which are conditional. These are important to be selective about as it helps you discern how to practically orient to each person in your life. I define respect as the recognition of the inherent sacredness and unshakable validity of all beings… which cannot be lost. And so, if I cherry-pick who (and what) I show respect to… it automatically brings ME out of integrity. And that is because integrity is about being in alignment with Truth. And the recognition of Truth and the recognition of unconditional love are one and the same thing. And with this, we can understand the forces that shape people’s shortcomings and the fundamental fragility of the human experience. So, I don’t worry too much about what other people do in practice in terms of what they consider deserving or not deserving of respect. When I hear people talking about how their respect isn’t given freely, I know that that person’s paradigm will cause issues for them, because they will judge others… and that external judgment will make thrm judge themselves more harshly and thenfeel shame and fear losing respect in their own eyes. And if they have this type of judgment and see certain people as unworthy of respect, then this is coming from their own disconnection from the Truth.

So, the way you’re defining respect is someone giving up power to someone else? The issue here is that it would be a bad idea to respect anyone in that case… because it disconnects you from your own personal sovereignty and capacity for self-governance. This is why the world is filled with sycophantic people who are always looking outside themselves for perfect leaders to tell them what to do. But no human being is a perfect leader. That’s why it’s unwise to give up power to that person. But you can surrender to causes and forces that are greater than yourself. And you can play a role within the greater system.

Sometimes you can really just observe common patterns in people. It isn’t always a projection. And calling a spade a spade is valuable. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck… it’s probably a duck. And it can be of great benefit to simply be frank and straightforward about it, instead of hedging and tiptoeing around things… especially on this forum. That’s why I come here to practice more severe compassion. It’s the perfect environment for frank teachings because that’s the way Leo has cultivated his audience. Also the reason why I know about this pattern is because I’m human and have had similar types of defensiveness in other situations. Collective scapegoating and judgment is a very common thing for people to do to cover their own vulnerabilities. So, when you acknowledge it in yourself and then see it in others, it’s pretty obvious. Plus, there’s a huge epidemic of men who are caught up in unconscious viewpoints that are harmful to both themselves and women. And so, when I see someone who is caught up in resentment towards women, I seek to break them out of unhelpful mental binds that diminish their power.

Men and women can do both polyamory and monogamy quite naturally. In most societies, monogamy is how we live. But there are cultures where one man has multiple wives. And even some cultures where women have multiple husbands. But overall, I think this apparent divergence of men as polyamorous and women as monogamous has to do with our early dating and attraction strategies… but both are leading to similar goals in the long run. And that goal (biologically and historically speaking) is to create suitable family structures to raise children in. So, men will have to cast the net wide to create a funnel to find a suitable partner. So, men have a pluralistic early dating strategy that’s wide and shallow. While women’s strategy is to sort out all the unsuitable guys and be picky and find the best fit. So, women have a monistic early strategy that’s narrow and deep. But most contemporary men and women prefer monogamous relationships. Men may fantasize about having sex with many women. But most men wouldn’t like the realities of an actual polygamous or polyamorous relationship. So, most men have to choose between singleness and shallow wide plurality OR relationship and deep narrow monogamy. Only some men genuinely resonate with deep narrow polyamory.

A person must earn trust and admiration. And it is often that trust and admiration get confused with respect. In my experience, it is wisest to respect all sentient beings unconditionally regardless of identity. The Sanskrit word Namaste means the God in me sees the God in you. So, to say that there is some person that isn’t worthy of respect is a blasphemy of sorts. It’s something that’s not rooted in the deep truth of unconditional love. But with regard to trust and admiration, which are conditional in nature… I don’t see identity as being something that makes someone trustworthy or admirable. Trust and admiration is earned through merit and good character… not identity.

My answer is that respect should be given unconditionally to everyone. That doesn’t mean trusting everyone of course. Not everyone has trustworthy character. But to respect everyone recognizes fundamentally at all beings are unshakably valid and are part of the infinite tapestry of unconditional love… regardless of their shortcomings.

My guess is that a significant portion of dating and relationship advice that’s geared towards men is counterproductive. I’ve heard some things and known right away that the guys who take the advice will struggle with forming relationships with women. Like the Andrew Tate kind of stuff… it’s not actually going to get you success with women. It will actually chase most of them off. And many PUA type entrepreneurs want to create a revolving door where they can rile men up with stories about how they can be so successful with women with their methods. And they share this with a dose of misogyny to make the man feel better about himself just for being a man. So, it becomes a self-soothing echo chamber. Then he buys some course or product and tries it and is unsuccessful. But he returns to the Andrew Tate-like guy to grouse about women rejecting him and to self-soothe. And he buys another product, attends another seminar, etc. Then he goes back out and is unsuccessful. And he comes back to the self-soothing echo chamber. And eventually after all that failure, he ends up in some Black Pill entrepreneur’s funnel who will convince him that he’s hopeless and worthless. And he’ll then pay money to have these Black Pill entrepreneurs rate his face for signs of ugliness and other such monetizable trauma responses. The whole thing turns into one big grift to extract money from men and to continue extracting money from them by keeping them purposefully unsuccessful. If men actually became good at talking to women, these guys would go out of business. So, they convince men that their methods work when they don’t. And they brainwash them into believing things about women and relationships that aren’t true or helpful. And if a woman tries to warn this guy that his paradigm is off… these entrepreneurs have those bases covered. They’ll say, “Don’t ask a fish how to catch it.” And this inoculates the victims of these schemes from ever questioning their paradigm… because the paradigm (though unsuccessful) weaves a story for them where they can feel superior and better than. It gives them a shield from their soul sickness.

You seem to be under the impression that women are in a more powerful and privileged position to you. And you seem to feel envious and resentful towards women because of this perception. And so, you’re creating these posts to further shadow box with the imaginary women in your head. And these imaginary women in your head are implying that you’re less worthy of respect somehow. I know you’ll probably deflect my observations again and say that I don’t know what I’m talking about. But it’s such a common issue, and it can be spotted quite easily. All this woman-focused resentment is just a protection mechanism to avoid your own feelings of shame and to self-soothe. Can you notice that you’re making these posts to try to diminish the power of these imaginary women who live inside your head?

Don’t be such a glass cannon. If you can’t take it, don’t dish it out.

I’ll actually answer the prompt now… These are the qualities that I ascribe to great women… Personal Sovereignty (Queen Archetype) Intuition Sensitivity Wisdom Empathy Connection Social Accuity Creativity Decisiveness Good communicator Conscious Integrity Centeredness and unshakable confidence Community oriented

Great video about a Japanese concept that explains masculinity. It’s the explanation I’ve heard that’s most in alignment with how I’ve experienced Divine Masculine both in and out of my Ayahuasca experiences.

Your whole list revolves around how men react to women’s qualities. It’s not really based in any practical solutions, as you claim. It’s the positive quality… then grousing about how women usually don’t measure up to that quality… and then the consequences of men disapproving of the women who don’t measure up to that quality. You may want to check your shadow motivations. In response to the great man thread, you created an entire thread to complain about women and imply the threat of losing men’s approval… under the guise of general personal development advice. And you asked specifically for male opinions… when the other thread was for anyone to reply to.

I’m not so sure about the quality of this test. Sometimes I wanted to choose both or neither answers. I ended up getting a 16… but I feel like I could have easily gotten a 12 or a 20 if I just chose slightly different answers that would have also fit. Edit: I retook it twice… I got 11 if I erred toward the more modest answer that resonated and 24 if I erred toward the less modest answer that resonated.

@bloomer Autism doesn’t mean that someone is ‘retarded’. Many Autistic people are quite intelligent. When I was a teacher, I had students in my classes who were on the Autism spectrum who you’d never guess that they were on the spectrum. The only reason I knew is because teachers get notes on their roster about any diagnoses or accommodations that the student has. And if you are on the autism spectrum, the only difference is that now you know about it. And it’s better that you know about it because you can better create accommodations and coping strategies for yourself by knowing what others on the spectrum do.