But now you do, too...

I've been thinking about conditions we put on approval, like love and pride...Of course Andrew and I know that we're just joking, but we're still treading an interesting and subtle line: "talk to me, hang out with me, read to me, send me the best presents, or I won't love you as much..." It's not true of course, but there's always a reason for teasing, even when it's "just teasing". So then if it's not true, then why bother? If I love him without asking anything in return, why should he give anything in return? Well, because he loves me too...but then if he withholds tokens of that, I feel unhappy, and he knows that, and so I'm exercising control over him, guilting him. And hopefully he knows that my love is not contingent on his doing things for me or giving me presents. But the presents, the tokens, make me feel happy. Should I hide that? As long as my happiness is elevated by something, I'm applying pressure and judgment. How can someone simultaneously love unconditionally and express joy over extra tokens of love, even express any preference for anything? Of course, we don't really love unconditionally...we love contigent on a continuity of character. "If I suddenly murdered twenty people, you wouldn't love me anymore," I told him. "But you wouldn't do that." Of course I wouldn't. The person he loves certainly wouldn't. But then the love depends upon my remaining that same person, with certain assumptions about what that means, how I'll act. If he, or Liz, or anyone in my family, anyone I love, suddenly murdered twenty people, I wouldn't stop loving the person I loved. I would feel that person had disappeared.

Pride is another problem. I want to tell him how proud I am of him for studying so hard, for doing so well on his exams. But expressing pride is such a slippery thing. Of course, unconditional pride doesn't even really make sense. So if pride is necessarily conditional, then isn't it imposing a judgment? Isn't it implying by contrast that you would feel disappointment if the reality were slightly different? Like with any expression of pride comes a threat of future disappointment. At the same time, I know the feeling of being proud of myself. And when I am, it feels good for the people I care about to seem to share in that pride. Maybe pride in someone else is only benign when they are genuinely proud of themselves.

Of course, Billy Heywood tackled this dilemma eloquently. His mother walks into the room, dressed up for her date. "Wow, you look great!" he exclaims. "I mean, you always do, but...now you do, too." I always love you, I'm always proud of you, but...now I am, too.