"Man is by nature a social animal," wrote Aristotle. He was the first among Western thinkers who paid tribute to the need and ability for communication, cooperation, coordination as the foundation of all human achievement. Aristotle also said that he who can live outside society is either a beast or a god; in other words, either subhuman or superhuman. A certain duality of such reasoning cannot but catch the eye: on the one hand, the strength of a person is associated with his social nature, and on the other hand, it is this feature that is ultimately presented as a weakness, a limitation that must be overcome in the highest and divine ideal of self-sufficiency, independence from society. Between these two positions the pendulum of thought has been swinging since the time of the ancient Greeks,and this ambiguity runs like a red thread through all the philosophical schools of antiquity, from the Sophists and Stoics to the present day.
It is possible to write off this circumstance for the inconsistency inherent in thought, but the contradiction here, in essence, is only imaginary. As is usually the case, what gives us strength is also the source of our weakness. What we see most clearly creates at the same time blind spots that block much more from us. Man is a social being: it is the strength that underlies our weaknesses, it is the weakness that opens the way for our strength. It is not surprising, then, that since ancient times everyone has been faced with the question called by Albert Camus the greatest question of life: "How to live among people?" Contrary to his routine and even seemingly vulgarity against the background of the great problems of philosophy, he belongs to the key mysteries of existence due to the fact that it always unfolds in social space. A person's life is inevitably filled with "others"and even if we decide to hide from this omnipotent presence on an uninhabited island, they will get us there, because they still inhabit our past, and through it they shape the present and the future.
The most important step in understanding human relationships, as well as in understanding anything, is taken when we comprehend their internal structure, their structure. If we arrange the levels of interaction from the simplest and assuming the least degree of closeness between people to the most complex and based on the deepest unity, then the operational or intellectual level will be at the bottom. In fact, this dimension boils down to the business exchange of information and other forms of pragmatic relationships - it is this dimension that dominates, for example, in a purely working context. At the level of operational interaction, people do not feel either a real interest in each other, or, of course, empathy, empathy, characteristic of higher levels. From the point of view of pure reason,the other is always perceived only as an instrument for the realization of our external interests, or an obstacle standing in their way. The operational level of relationships is not capable of generating any closeness between individuals, except perhaps cold and logical cooperation, for it requires a sphere of feelings.
This closeness, therefore, can arise only on the second - emotional - level. But it may not arise - because just as operational relationships are full of conflicts, the dissimilarity of the mental life of individuals generates sharp contradictions. With some people our hearts beat in unison, while meeting others produces a terrible cacophony and alienation. In order to more accurately comprehend this phenomenon, it is necessary to introduce the concept of complementarity - a measure of harmony, similarity, complementarity between people and different layers of their existence (the choice was inspired by Lev Gumilev, who used this term in his theory of ethnogenesis).
Positive emotional complementarity means that people feel unaccountable sympathy or attraction for each other, that their inner rhythms overlap enough, and this allows them to organically satisfy emotional needs and understand each other's inner life. We recognize such people almost instantly, from time to time even from afar - it becomes clear that we, as folk wisdom puts it, on the same wavelength. The touchstone of positive emotional complementarity is the capacity for co-joy - the higher it is, the higher, as a rule, the former. On the other hand, everyone is familiar with the opposite situations, when people, without any special reason, "disliked each other." Even against the background of common views, a common lifestyle and interests, they experience an unaccountable antipathy and cannot tolerate one another on the spirit, sometimes, again,without prior experience of personal communication - such is the negative complementarity. Therefore, one can imagine the sphere of emotional relationships as having two semi-mythological poles - love at first sight and hate at first sight - and a broad band of cold indifference in the middle. Each person in our life has his own latitude and longitude on this globe, although in practice it is difficult to determine coordinates with great accuracy.although in practice it is difficult to determine the coordinates with great accuracy.although in practice it is difficult to determine the coordinates with great accuracy.
Contrary to the misleading name, the emotional level includes the entire sphere of feelings and mental life, including an aesthetic attitude (understanding of the beautiful and ugly), a sense of humor, tastes and character traits. Well, high emotional complementarity is wonderful, delightful, and, it would seem, what is more? However, if it is not supplemented by at least a minimal threshold of spiritual intimacy, there is a fundamental inferiority in it that makes disintegration inevitable. Emotional harmony means that people can be good together, but this marvelous perspective does not hold them together if they look and move in different directions.
The third, spiritual level, is responsible precisely for where we are moving and how we see the main problems of human existence, how we answer in our hearts to fundamental questions. The spirit is the sphere of the main thing in us - the fundamental values and basic aspirations of the individual, personal ethics, attitude and worldview in their deepest cut. We can say that he is that highest and at the same time the lowest (for the deepest) layer into which the intellect and the soul flow in two streams, a dimension where mind and feelings meet and from which they are simultaneously born. No matter how close the sense of humor, tastes and rhythms of the emotional life of people, if they differ in this most important thing, if there is no such fundamental mutual understanding between them (and the spiritual sphere is the sphere of mutual understanding in terms of the main thing),then the sword of Damocles constantly hangs over their relationship and it is very difficult to keep it from a fatal fall, though possible, but very difficult.
In everyday life and in the history of mankind, we constantly have to observe confirmation of the structure and dynamics described here - from it, ultimately, they are derived. It often happens that people who are spiritually close to each other do not experience any mutual attraction or even feel rejection. On the contrary, one can observe a strong emotional attraction between beings with negative spiritual complementarity - usually ending in collapse for the reasons described above and at times destroying lives.
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One of the vivid examples that come to my mind in this regard is the fate of F. Fitzgerald, whose unlucky wife dragged him to parties, forced him to drink black and just literally did not let him write books, which he so wanted. Who knows what legacy this great Gatsby would have left and how much happier he would have been if he hadn't fallen into the classic trap of a relationship with the strongest negative spiritual complementarity and equally strong emotional attraction at the same time? It seems that it is in such cases that they sadly say something like "You cannot order your heart."
What practical consequences can be drawn from all these observations? First of all, one must understand that human relationships develop at all levels simultaneously. They do not exist in isolation, but are interconnected, and, being parts of a single system, they flow into one another and are in mutual influence. In each case, however, we can talk about the dominance of one or another of the named dimensions, about the degree of complementarity for each of the points, which determines the nature of the relationship, their prospects, vulnerability, strengths and weaknesses. Further, within each of these levels there is its own fragmentation, internal diversity and conflicts. The model presented here is only a cursory first approximation in the analysis of a complex problem, a strong point, if you will, from which you can push off in any direction and it needs to be improved and supplemented.
Finally, it is clear that we would all like to turn each slider to the maximum, by ten, but the casino does not give out such jackpots. You have to deal with many less perfect options, and what is important to be able to do is to soberly assess the alignment in order to understand what can and cannot be expected. The most problematic layer, of course, is the layer of the spirit, and the more original and richer the person's personal content, the more difficult it is to find complementarity in this area. If we talk about a romantic partner, then knowledge of the history of philosophy and culture in general leads to a disappointing conclusion: the number of people who were at the forefront of spirit and creativity, who managed to find themselves someone capable of real understanding, is so close to zero and so closely rested against his rounded back,that all new pioneers can only wish to give up hope. True spiritual complementarity is an opportunity that diminishes in volume with every step a person ascends. And on the contrary, the closer a person is to the middle of this staircase, on which the bulk of people sits, lounging, the easier it is for him. I believe this is because people from the first category need to be able to be content with the minimum threshold values of intimacy in terms of spirit and get used to fundamental spiritual loneliness, deriving joy from emotional complementarity. Although it cannot satisfy the fundamental need for understanding and unity, in the end, there is usually no other choice. And on the contrary, the closer a person is to the middle of this staircase, on which the bulk of people sits, lounging, the easier it is for him. I believe this is because people from the first category need to be able to be content with the minimum threshold values of intimacy in terms of spirit and get used to fundamental spiritual loneliness, deriving joy from emotional complementarity. Although it cannot satisfy the fundamental need for understanding and unity, in the end there is usually no other choice. And on the contrary, the closer a person is to the middle of this staircase, on which the bulk of people sits, lounging, the easier it is for him. I believe this is because people from the first category need to be able to be content with the minimum threshold values of intimacy in terms of spirit and get used to fundamental spiritual loneliness, deriving joy from emotional complementarity. Although it cannot satisfy the fundamental need for understanding and unity, in the end there is usually no other choice.that people from the first category need to be able to be content with the minimum threshold values of closeness in terms of the spirit and get used to fundamental spiritual loneliness, deriving joy from emotional complementarity. Although it cannot satisfy the fundamental need for understanding and unity, in the end, there is usually no other choice.that people from the first category need to be able to be content with the minimum threshold values of closeness in terms of spirit and get used to fundamental spiritual loneliness, deriving joy from emotional complementarity. Although it cannot satisfy the fundamental need for understanding and unity, in the end, there is usually no other choice.
© Oleg Tsendrovsky
