3rd of love, man'chi, and all that jazz

to go further with my last post...

to say that emotions are intelligent and involve choice and evaluations is one thing, but can you really choose who you love?

traditionally, the answer is no.

however, it all has to do with your self-definition, the definition you have for yourself. when a person is stuck in an abusive relationship, and claims that she (she, for the sake of conversation) can't leave because she loves him, and indeed she does love him and she will forgive him anything, regardless--- what therapists/friends work with her about is not trying to tell her that she can't love him and to love somebody else, but to get her to re-evaluate her self-definition. they try to get her to realize that she is a beautiful, worthwhile individual who deserves better, and only when she recognizes that and thinks that of herself will she be able to remove herself from the situation. and, doing so, often she realizes that she does not love him anymore. and it isn't because she just turned off the emotion, and it isn't because of the fact that he hurt her etc (he hurt her for a long time and that didn't bring about this response), it's because she adjusted her self-definition to such a degree that his behavior was no longer seen as tolerable, and she chose to disconnect from him.

it is not a cut-and-dry matter, but there is a level of choice here.

or, do you choose when you will get angry? if someone behaved deliberately, and did something that is generally unexcusable, but you knew that in *their* culture it was considered highly flattering... you might have to stop and think about whether you should be angry or not. it depends on how he meant it. and the fact that you stop and think means that you do choose. and that there might be a "right" time to be angry and a "wrong" time or circumstance as well. and those evaluations depend on your self-definition (which includes what would be offensive to you).

etc etc etc

also, the mededeni believed (?) that an ateva could associate with anyone/everyone they met, which is definitely not an absolute reliance on the hierarchy. there seems to be some choice there on some level as well, even beyond what might ordinarily be acknowledged as the level of choice regarding man'chi.

and so the question is: to what extent is your self-definition... enculturated?

if part of your self-definition is that you are part of a certain culture, and this understanding might be on a level you are or are not highly aware of, then your culture and its rules/ideas/concepts about "the way things are" are going to affect you and your self-definition.

perhaps the (Ragi?) atevi have the hierarchal-man'chi-structure because that is what came up in their environment (I'd love to dismiss the atevi animal world, since it is going to complicate this lol, but I won't; I just won't discuss it right now). perhaps an ateva brought up in a culture where it was okay for one's superior to feel attachment towards oneself, and that reinforced one's purpose instead of destablizing it (ie, the human way of things), then that ateva wouldn't feel absolutely discombobulated when such a thing occurred. because, to that ateva, such a feeling was not warranted. it would not be "right" under the circumstances. and that ateva would have to be quite enculturated before he truly started to "feel" along the same lines, because you don't think about such things, usually, before you feel them. usually, it is somewhat automatic. pre-processed, based on known data.

same with a human raised in a hierarchal-man'chi culture. or a paidhi who finally was actually enculturated in the Ragi scheme of things, who really started to see the order and the method behind the culture and therefore started to be able to process what happened around him, in that culture, at the gut level.

because when you think that man'chi is cold and distant and without feeling, that seems to me to be quite wrong. that an atevi only attaches to certain other atevi does not mean that they don't have strong feelings towards those other atevi and are not much happier because of it. and to think that an aiji doesn't need you personally, only needs someone to fill that spot in the hierarchy, that purpose, well...

then you need a reality check, to realize that humans don't need a particular person to love as well. any adequate person will do. in fact, part of the process of love is bestowing/projecting favorable attributes upon the beloved in order to make it a better match. if it doesn't work out with one person, then another might come along. and if you had never been born, your partner would not have been doomed to loveless hell forever. there would have been somebody else who fit in with their self-definition at least as well. humans need somebody to love, or at the very selfish least, somebody whose purpose in the relationship is to love them. that's the purpose of the beloved: to connect them with the world and reality and other people and also help to define oneself.

and yet that is not to say love is cold and unfeeling. and humans usually don't sit around and deliberate on who they will love or if they should love somebody else instead. it doesn't work quite like that. and neither does man'chi, I'd say. the aiji needs followers, or s/he's a rogue aiji, a failed and crazy person. they need followers, they need the upward flow of man'chi, the way that humans need others to love them, and for the same purpose: to connect them with the world and reality and other people and also help to define oneself.

the fact that Ragi atevi are not as loud and obnoxious and brazenly familiar with their emotional displays does not mean they don't feel emotions, after all. that's just cultural too.

or for now it is lol