More on Masters & Slaves

This is a follow-up to Masters are Slaves.

The slave compromises her standards in the face of her master. The slave is easily influenced by her master and becomes a lot like him when she's in his company. The slave compromises her standards in order to feed her false-self. The false-self constantly wants to be in control, and when the slave gets in a role that emulates her master, that's her way of being in control; to be manipulative, to trick her master that she is like him, and then steal his trust and use him for personal gains. But in this way, the slave becomes dependent on her master, because she could not fulfill these personal desires without him.

The master's false-self, on the other hand, wants to believe that the slave is just like him. "We like people who are similar to us" (Byrne, 1971).The master's real self deep down knows that this is not true, and the real self knows that the slave is fake. But the ego's wishful thinking mechanism keeps the illusion alive. When the slave sometimes breaks down out of character, her master wants to "fix her" back to "normal", for fear of losing such a wonderful friend who is just like him (or so he badly wants her to be). The master becomes dependent on his slave because he wants to keep this illusion of true friendship alive, he wants to know somebody like him.

The master is more vulnerable than the slave, because the slave can always leave him for another master. The slave's true feelings are not involved, because she's constantly playing a friend-role, which dissociates her from reality. The slave's burden is keeping the role alive and consistent. The master's feelings, on the other hand, can be badly hurt once the slave leaves him. The master had a hope that was destroyed. The slave is usually very different from her master, and believes she is morally superior, which makes her resent her master and find his company unpleasant. The opposite could also happen - the slave believes that she is morally inferior. She hates herself, and/or she envies her master, strongly wishing to become like him. She irrationally idolizes him and models her behavior after him. More on this here: Our Greedy Director

It's hard for the slave to leave her master, once she doesn't find him profitable anymore. It will be a battle. The slave will have to lead a long war. A single battle won't be enough. The master is used to seeing his slave as a mirror of himself. Once the slave started behaving naturally, the master would try his best to get her back into her slave role, because the master badly needs a friend who understands him. He will speculate that his slave is just having a bad day, or that she is mad at him for some reason. The master will become paranoid and cautious. All of these types of behavior would only handicap the slave from being herself and showing her real skin. She would have to avoid her master and completely ignore him. The master can't even hate his slave, because he will always remember her as the good old friend that suddenly changed into another person.

Neuro-Linguistic Programming, or NLP for short, is the teaching of temporarily becoming someone's "mirror image" in order to get what you want from them. It's great for short-term success if you're a car salesman, manager, supervisor, or whatever... But my advice is, don't ever use NLP on people who you plan on meeting more than once. It will set you up for a Master-Slave Relationship from the very beginning. NLP does not empower you over anyone, it just makes you their slave.

To all the people who I have wrongly manipulated: You don't know me. The Me you know is not the real me. I tell you what you want to hear because I am sick of pointless debating. The more time passes by, the stronger I believe that people don't want to change their habits. Why do I debate when I can simply nod and change the topic instead. Or worse, I can empathize with you and see the world through your eyes, thus, agreeing with what you are saying. You only see what I want you to see. Too many excuses for what is actually pretty simple. The real issue is, and has always been, for me to be able to state my preferences. Instead, I adapt to your preferences and you discover a person with seemingly similar preferences, which is nothing more than a lie. I am sorry, and if I have blocked you for no apparent reason, now you know why.

Love for Favor-Rapists

If you love someone and you want the best for them, if their happiness is as important to you as your happiness, then you would want to constantly favor-rape them. If your loved one lets you favor-rape her, she would be doing you a favor. In return, if she loves you back, she would want to favor-rape you. You let her do that, because you owe it to her. Basically, you owe her a permission to favor-rape you, because she lets you favor-rape her. And vice versa. This way reciprocity is still being met and a Master-Slave relationship can be avoided.

I really don't understand the concept of long-distance "love", as it doesn't make sense to me how one's happiness can be important to me if we are not together. The lack of physical contact is just killing any kind of sympathy for me. As long as I am with her, I act as one of her most influential external stimuli, to which she responds the strongest. Similarly, she's my strongest stimulus at that time. So whatever she experiences with me, I feel partly responsible for. Her happiness is important to me while both of us spend time together, because I can't be happy around her if she's suffering.

It's something like a mutual symbiosis: A symbiotic relationship between individuals of different species in which both individuals benefit from the association. In this type of symbiosis, both organisms of different species rely on one another for nutrients, protection and other life functions, hence, they are usually found living in close proximity. You become a symbiotic creature. Once you part your ways, you don't depend on that person anymore, and each becomes their own individual once again. Once you are physically not together, you are no longer a symbiotic creature, and the responsibility for your significant other disappears.

Until a consensus has been reached on what the couple should do together, if anything, each individual can go on minding their own business without feeling guilty. You can't just BE together without having anything to DO together - that wouldn't be a mutual symbiosis. So it's not only physical closeness that matters in such a relationship. There also needs to be a transaction, a mutual activity.

Let me know if I'm wrong.

Favor-Raped

If you give me help that I didn't ask for, I will stay away from you.
If you steal away my problem, I will get mad at you.

You have cooked food for me and I'm not hungry; plus, I don't like this kind of food. You say you'll get mad at me if I reject your favor. I eat your food and then you say that I owe you 5 bucks for the dinner. You are not a friend, you are not a businessman, you are a thug. If you were a friend, you wouldn't expect anything in return for your favor. If you were a businessman, you would make sure that I want your product, and you wouldn't force me to take it. But no, you are what you call "an altruist". You are so "generous".

If you give me help that I didn't ask for, it's me who's doing you a favor. You should be grateful that I accept your territorial invasion, and I don't ask for anything in return. How are you invading my personal space, you ask? Forcing anything on anyone equals violence. A man raped a woman. She was a lonely woman, very shy. She had been looking for sexual encounters to no avail. But when she got violated, she didn't enjoy that specific sexual encounter at all.

to favor-rape: to force an unsolicited favor upon someone.
favor-rapist: a person who favor-rapes people.

He/she who favor-rapes could also enter a Master-Slave relationship, especially if their favors have actually been helpful. The more I permit you to solve my problems, the more dependent I become on you. I let you make decisions for me. You become my Master, as you personalize my issues.

Was the master provoked to be a master by the slave? Is it that they care for their slave as much as they care for themselves, because they sees themselves in the slave? If I accept unsolicited favors that I can take advantage of, and I know that thus I am doing a favor to the favor-rapist, I have noticed that the latter gets greater pleasure out of giving things to me. If they later attempt to blackmail me, I indicate that I am fine left alone, and that I don't actually NEED their help in the first place. The slippery slope here is becoming dependent on the favor-rapist and forgetting one's own skills.

What if I don't have those skills? A big favor would be for the favor-rapist to TEACH me those skills. But what if I don't want to learn them, because I am too busy studying other skills? One can't possibly know everything about everything. In this case, I would ask them to use their skills for my benefit. Then it wouldn't be a favor-rape, because I will have asked for their help. I can ask for help and either receive it for free, or pay a price.

Our Greedy Director

Many people work full time as actors under the directing of their false egos. The false-self wants the person to be like somebody else whom it irrationally identifies with. So the person would act and convince himself that he enjoys and approves of things that his real self would actually disapprove of. He would get some sort of momentary pleasure out of his play, but would later regret it and experience guilt or some other painful emotion. The false-self wants the person to adapt to the social environments, no matter what, because the person was raised to tolerate and integrate. Or maybe the person idealizes some sort of an irrational philosophy, and in order to act upon his beliefs, he has to overcome his real self and be an actor.

"I like this", someone says. Okay, how do you like it? Is it that it satisfies your aesthetic preferences, or is it that it represents your values and you find it virtuous? I won't stop repeating that art often portrays the opposite of virtue. We find things humorous or entertaining when they are illogical and/or unusual. So which one is it? Do you like the Nazis because of your support for national socialism, or is it because you support war and murder? Or is it because you are entertained by their uniforms, slogans, and loud explosions? Or maybe it's because you identify with your Nazi uncle, because you think he is very virtuous. You want to be like him and you overcome your critical thinking to satisfy the needs of your false-self. You think you like something for A B and C, but the real reasons turn out to be X Y and Z.

You know you're in a character when you say something and you feel smug about saying it. You know you're in a character when you are in rapport with someone else, and you agree with his irrational point of view, just because you can look at the world through his eyes, like that somehow makes false things more true. You know you're in a character when you feel guilty about not being something that your friend wants you to be. You play a role when you troll somebody but you don't know that you're trolling them. When you look around for people's approval. When you convince yourself that the bad thing you did was awesome, just to dissociate from your rational sense of guilt and shame. You want to be this kickass person who has no feelings because you are a perfectionist who despises everything that you perceive as weak. That's why you identify with imaginary heroes who lack these emotions and you pretend that you are them.

You don't need idols to change your behavior. You need convincing truths.

Shooting Blanks

Talking behind someone's back is like having loaded your gun to kill your enemy, but then shooting at his silhouette target. It's like making a dummy of your evil boss and lashing out your anger at it, just so that you don't lose it tomorrow at work. Your anger is your bullets. Let's say your coworker Dick has a bad habit that really pisses you off, but you're too chicken shit to let him know about it. Instead, you turn to Bob, the colleague who you're better friends with, and you tell him the emotionally-charged story of Dick's disgusting habit and how he should stop doing it. It's like you're a mime fighting the invisible Dick. Could be very entertaining, depending on Bob's taste. And it surely feels great for your false-self, because you get to be a winner in front of an audience, without actually fighting the enemy. You could tell this story to anyone over and over again, and you'll have to keep telling it, unless you got rid of the problem. This is how you become a performer under your false ego's directing. But every time you tell the story, you empty your magazine full of anger, and the next time Dick does that annoying thing, it'll be too late for you to reload and shoot at him, because he'd already be out of range. Best case scenario, you'd have some ammo left, but it won't be enough for the kill. Meaning, you won't be angry enough to take action, because you'll feel like you've already done this before.

That's how you minimize your chances of finding real friends, and instead you surround yourself with enemies. Talking behind a person's back strongly contributes to avoiding the conflict that needs to be resolved. And avoiding the conflict would only lead to a compromise of your personal preferences, and letting the individual invade more of your personal space.

Keep your ammo.

Troll Vs. True Self

Why act like an asshole and troll strangers when you can be yourself and piss off your enemies? Many of your so-called friends are people who you tolerate only because you can't currently replace them with better alternatives; or at least that's what you think.

In order to find better alternatives, you're gonna have to ditch your old friends. Ultimately, their incentive is to keep their relationship with you because they probably gain a lot from you without giving back things that you want. They'll do anything to stop you from replacing them with better friends. The other option is that they actually change their behavior to keep you as a friend, but that's not very likely to happen, because people hate change when it's expected from them to give more than they have already been giving.

Back to the point, there are many friendships that are based on roles, and you have to be in a character to keep them alive. That is, your friend Peter doesn't like you, he likes what you become when you're around him. And you become something else, because you know deep down that he wouldn't tolerate the real you, and you unconsciously conform to his unwritten social norms for fear of losing the relationship. But why would you value such a relationship? Usually, the false-self would make up all kinds of excuses and justifications - "He's very entertaining", "He lends me money", "He's my hero", "He's a great artist", etc. Forget all that bullshit and accept your feelings, instead. There may have been a time when Peter was very fun to hang out with, but things have changed.

If you compromise a relationship with the thought "I don't like hanging out with Peter but I need him for X Y and Z", you're setting yourself up for a master-slave relationship. If you don't like being around him, it will show in one way or another. Most likely it will be expressed in a passive-aggressive behavior. You will become Peter's slave because you use him as a means to X Y and Z, for the price of putting up with him. When you use people as a means to an end, those people become your masters that you emulate in order to get what you want.

Note: Some of my views on this issue have changed. More on that here: Virtue Vs Loneliness