Being less 'self'-centric and more considerate

[syd]

I don’t believe it is “impossible.” Sincerity simply revealed that it is disingenuous to call this ‘caring’ when it is a veneer pasted atop affectional intimacy. I’m not genuinely interested in that ‘caring’ because its motive is to merge with ‘her’ for sexual validation and the attendant ego-delectation. Such feelings don’t lead to a PCE or to enjoyment and appreciation of this very moment; it is just ‘me’ seeking to prolong ‘my’ own euphoric feelings.

Reminds me of what Claudiu had to report on similar thing:

@claudiu

The degree to which ‘she’ affects ‘you’ will vary — eg if I’m in a normal state, then my partner’s negative moods or emotions will often trigger a “resistance” in me, a dislike of that she is feeling, and a wanting her to stop feeling that way. This latter can be mistaken for caring but actually it’s a self-centered empathy response (me wanting to stop feeling bad in response to her feeling bad). While if I’m having an intimacy experience, I automatically ‘perceive’ the totality of the situation — she is a fellow human being, she is having a hard time — how unfortunate! What can I do to ameliorate this? It’s a much more genuine caring, and though I still fully recognize and to some degree am directly affected by her feelings, it’s nowhere near the same, the enjoyment and appreciation of being alive practically does not diminish. Incidentally this way of handling things is much to her benefit too!

Note that “she is a fellow human being” is miles ahead of seeing her as a sexual-cum-romantic object to be “cared” for. And more importantly, the definitive marker of success in all of this is that one’s “enjoyment and appreciation of being alive practically does not diminish”.

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Regarding your point about ‘choice,’ something seems to have changed in your view since about 3 weeks ago:

@Andrew

Being a typical blind nature ‘male’’ is hard. Really is such a massive drag. You can see how it has only a single goal; sex. It, blind nature, doesn’t care at all about her. It doesn’t care about you either. Which is to say, ‘we’ don’t care about each other naturally.

If we don’t care naturally, isn’t ‘choosing’ to care just another moralistic strategy to avoid the raw fact of my self-centeredness? I’m not interested in moralistic forcing. I’d rather be sincere about who I actually am than force a version of caring that serves as a spanner in the works.