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Padriag -> RE: The Question (11/14/2007 9:48:02 AM)
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For the first part of your reply I agree with you and your previous post.
quote:
ORIGINAL: toservez
The difference for me is not that a person makes their other’s life better, I agree 100% about that, but how they make it better.
In other words, as you wrote you are responsible for your own happiness would you be happy with your other if when he first met you he was thinking I need to fix you? I am guessing you never have thought of yourself as broken.
When I read the post and journal entry I got the impression, could have been totally wrong, that the OP was not talking about two people making each other better by being in a healthy relationship and the natural dynamics that happen for most in them.
However after this you lost me.
quote:
I read they took pleasure in fixing, transforming and guiding another human being from their personal wisdom and experience. In other words they enjoy fixing an inferior being because they just know how to do things better then others and enjoys that feeling. The control the OP talks about comes from not thinking of the other as an equal.
While I think its generally a bad idea going into any relationship with the intent of "fixing" another person, guiding and transforming is a different matter. Using one's own wisdom and experience to aid, help, and guide another person in their own growth can be rewarding, for some very much so. Likewise, many D/s relationships have an implicit inequality... that is the submissive definitively is not the equal of the dominant.
Personally I think its best to be responsible for your own happiness, and clearly you and I (and others) agree on that. But I'm not prepared to say that's the only way it can or even should be. Perhaps in theory everyone should because that would eliminate co-dependence and other things that have been deemed "unhealthy." The problem with that is that theory doesn't always apply when the "rubber meets the road." Not everyone is capable of that kind of independence, people have different strengths and abilities and some folks just don't have the inner wherewithal to do that... they need that connection with someone else. I suppose its not surprising, humans are by nature social creatures, so is it really any surprise that many need and depend on social relations and interactions to be happy? It may have been labelled unhealthy by ivory towered psychologist who envision a perfect world... but I have often wondered if co-dependence isn't a natural occurance, one that evolved as part of the social dynamic (perhaps to help ensure the success of that dynamic) which has been so much a part of our success as a species. More simply put, perhaps its natural for some people to very much need other people? Perhaps that's what makes some submissives (no, not all) who they are?
As for equality, I'm curious what you meant by that. How do you see a submissive being equal... or unequal... to a dominant?
Scott, we're different as to why we're dominant. I have no desire to provide structure and control as any sort of service, I provide it as a means of getting what I want. That's just a difference in personal style and I don't believe either is right or wrong. Dale Carnegie, among many others, was a strong advocate of what might be called "service oriented leadership". That is, leaders who do so in order to serve the needs of others, to better others. If that works for you and makes you happy, good for you! Personally, it would not work for me, I'm just not oriented that way. There are pitfalls to everything, what happens when you can't fix someone, or when the person you depend on for happiness is gone? But likewise, for myself, what happens if I fail in my goals... what happens when there is no one to pick me up but me... and what if I can't? Nothing is perfect, and no matter what any of us chooses there will always be risks. Life is a matter of choosing what risks we can accept and cope with... and that's a personal choice for each of us.
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