caring and connection

I struggle, like probably everyone, to feel deeply cared for and connected with. Since I am not in the head of anyone else and barely in my own mind at times, I can only express my feelings for deep care and connection. I desire to make someone feel cared for, loved, and connected. I don’t think this is too crazy because I also believe that no feelings that I have are new or novel. Others are thinking this way as well. This means that there is someone out there that desires to give me the same, but where are they, who are they?

I have known and currently know a few humans that are able to care and connect with me deeply. My mother and grandfather were two people in my life that were unafraid and focused in their love and care of me. I miss them dearly and sometime feel a hole from their absence. My two kids are young and I am able to connect and care for them deeply as their father. As they’ve gotten older, the world has started to creep up onto their shoulders and shut down their ability to deeply connect. Their hungry personalities (and bellies) crave the firehose of sugar and fat the world has to offer. This unfortunately makes watching fireflies boring and Minecraft extremely exciting.

Caring and connection has weirdly become a commodity that Western culture barters with irresponsible abandon. While I see caring and connection as a gift to be given to people that can reciprocate, we’ve made “caring and connection” into a source of power to barter with. Most of us are no longer survival animals, so why do we still play this power struggle bartering game? For those of us that want deep connections, the current bartering game that others play cuts deeply.

Why do I think we are at this point? I think we are overly stimulated, from porn to reality television, from video games to social media, we are swimming, if not drowning in a sea of constant noise and continuous distraction. Because of this, we are unable to focus on the reality of now and are easily tricked into a scarcity mindset. There IS enough to go around and share, yet we exist in fear mode which makes us hoard what we have or that which we’ve been given. With a blind goal of “power over” others, we lose the beautiful reality that is power with each other.

Those practicing power over (without consent) are living in a scarcity mindset. They live in a shallow pool full of fear where if they don’t dominate others, they will be dominated. The type of dominate and submissive games we see playing out in the world is broken because it lacks so many things that make an ever-generating power dynamic work. By contrast, good BDSM experiences and relationships are built off of consent and trust.

I like this paragraph from Psychology Today as an example of how power can positively work in a relationship where there is dominance and agreed upon submission.

BDSM is the acronym for “Bondage, Discipline, and Sadomasochism.” This sounds like a form of sexual expression highlighting the harshness of inflicting and receiving pain. Yet the practice is actually more cooperative and mutually gratifying than the term might imply. In BDSM the submissive (or “sub”) willingly grants the dominant (or “dom”) power over them, and they do so out of trust and respect. This transferring of control is commonly called “The Gift”—it’s an arrangement—not coercive but consensual. And the “gift” itself is an agreed-upon ”power exchange.”

Power exchanged between people is a gift.

Energy exchanged between people is a gift.

Power given to people isn’t fuel.

Energy given to people isn’t fuel.

Power and energy is an exchange of deep care and intimate connection.