(Stillness in the Storm Editor) Social media launched into our lives in a swift and prolific way. Due to the positive feedback loop effect of social trends, the more people that joined the more felt compelled to follow along or miss out. This technology is having a massive effect on human life, particularly relationships, disturbing a delicate pair bonding process that draws from biological factors, which themselves, draw from spiritual impulses. For the modern person, forming a lasting and valuable bond with another human being could be more challenging than ever.
Before discussing the spiritual factors that impact pair bonding, it will be helpful to understand the biological.
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The human organism (men and women), are the product of billions of years of evolution, drawing from long-standing evolutionary impulses and drives. What those evolutionary drives are (Darwinian or otherwise) isn’t at issue in this discussion—we’re merely stating that they exist. Scientists discuss these factors in terms of evolutionary strategies, such as a man’s desire to find a fertile female, and a woman’s desire to find a strong man with good genes, capable of providing for her and protecting her during the post-birth years.
Just because we live in a modern technological world doesn’t mean these drives go away. They remain major influences. Omitting conspiratorial causes, it’s clear that technology developers either didn’t consider the effects on human psychology or didn’t care.
Numerous studies have revealed that social media has a host of negative effects on human life. Specifically, it affects pair bonding—how men and women form deep, lasting, fulfilling, and productive relationships.
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What makes a good relationship is a rather large discussion unto itself. Briefly, commitment to another is also a commitment to oneself—to strive to be the best you can be and in term be a good partner. This devotional drive—provided your partner is truly worthy due to their honor, respect, and ethical capacity—encourages you to invest in your partner instead of dismissing them when things get tough.
Let’s make some comparisons.
In the past, men and women had fewer choices. In a small town, for example, there might only be five potential mates. The personal method you would use to evaluate these mates is manifold—one of them is a comparison. Through rank ordering, I person evaluates a potential mate along several dimensions of categories of analysis, selecting the most likely candidate out of a pool.
For ease of discussion, let’s assume that Joe, a young 20-year-old man, is looking for a mate amongst a pool of five women. He might find all of them attractive in some way but he clearly needs to make one choice. He evaluates them based on their physical beauty, which is a biological evaluation of their fertility and overall health. He’ll also evaluate them metaphysically or intangibly in terms of their social value (how respected they are in the community) as well as how well they are capable of meeting his personal needs. Once he’s made his selection, he can approach the woman of his choice and see if she comes to the same conclusions about him. The women evaluate the man using similar yet different gender-specific factors. In the end, if both people decide that they are each their best choice, they’ll make the investment and begin the adventure of trying to pair bond.
In this small town scenario, the limited access to potential mates causes an induced interest in that both people can more easily feel as though their choice is the best one. But in a global scenario, the situation changes drastically. Instead of feeling like you made the best choice due to limited comparisons, you unwittingly evaluate your potential mate against every man or woman you’ve ever seen. In effect, you assess your partner not only against available mates you have access to but ones you don’t, like celebrities, models, actors, and of course, other people on social media. As a result, the ancient biological programs that help you form a strong bond with your partner breakdown to a certain extent. This is particularly easy to recognize when considering the more ancient biological programs.
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Hypergamy is an informal term referring to a person’s desire to “trade up”—the feeling that who they are currently with isn’t the best choice in comparison to some perceived better choice.
In a small town scenario, the hypergamous instinct is bounded by the number and quality of potential mates in the social group. In a global scenario, this instinct—which is itself an ancient biological selection strategy—can be easily distorted.
For men, one of their biological drives is to spread their genetic material to as many fertile women as possible. This is balanced by the pair bonding drive as a culture advances intellectually. That is, a man’s promiscuity slowly reduces to zero as he develops his mental attributes, replacing animalistic urges with spiritually attained character growth. For example, a man who is materialistic and values nothing but pleasure and pleasure-seeking is more likely to cheat than a man who has made contact with spiritual values, of self-growth, interpersonal honor and devotion, and cultural legacy and altruism.
For women, one of their biological drives is to find the best genetic alpha, along with the drive to find the best provider for their children. Similarly, this biological urge is balanced through spiritual development. A woman’s promiscuity reduces to zero as she develops the capacity to pair bond and invest herself in a partner worthy of her.
In short, the solution to the destructive effects of animalistic instincts is personal growth and development. In doing so, attraction moves beyond the purely material and selfish pleasure-seeking mode to one of intangible selfless or metaphysical attraction. As proof of this concept, consider atheists vs spiritualists. Tantra is an ancient spiritual practice of sexual expression and pair bonding that, in effect, teaches the individual how to form a transcendent sexual attraction for their mate. Instead of only the body as the primary sexual excitor, who the person is, their values, their experience with you, and your recognition that they are an aspect of the divine inform your capacity of love. Spiritual attraction appears to change your neurology in that one who is materialistic is not capable of perceiving the nonmaterial beauty of their partner, making them more likely to focus only on physical beauty as an attractor.
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For human beings in general, spiritual development or personality maturity—if the term spiritual bothers you—is a function of environment and personal willingness to grow. Generally speaking, the animalistic instincts fight against spiritual drives, as growth often comes through hard work and facing personal challenges. In relationships, which are arguably one of the best places to grow spiritually, commitment and loyalty (provided it is for a true and non-abusive partner) compel the individual to set aside their cowardice and grow in the process. When two partners growth together through meeting the challenges of relationship, the pair bond deepens profoundly.
What happens when you live in a world when you see and interact with more and more people? The social comparison mechanic of pair bonding effectively becomes a kind of “easy out” for both men and women.
Think about it.
In the small town scenario, you only had a handful of people to choose from. You can’t just disregard your romantic partner in the hopes of finding a better one later. But today, social media makes people believe they can do just that—albeit at an unconscious level.
Social media tells your ancient instincts that you don’t have to work hard to be in a relationship with your partner because a new and better one is a few phone swipes away.
To be clear, this negative effect on pair bonding is not conscious. Likely, when times get tough in a relationship, people don’t immediately go to social media to look for a new mate. But the subtle effect is nonetheless real.
For men, the endless onslaught of female images can easily cause them to become overly materialistic with their appreciation of beauty—especially if they are immature in their personality development. For women, who are more biologically driven to be critical of their men, the constant presentation of accomplished powerful men causes a devaluation of the men they’re with—again if they lack personality development.
The resulting effect is a kind of disposable relationship mindset slowly becoming the norm.
Despite these challenges, the impact of social media is actually providing honest researchers with a wealth of data to understand love—one of humanities greatest mysteries.
In the final analysis, whether you’re a biology denier, one who believes that all programs are an evil plot of the Deep State, or you’re just looking for love, the reality that can’t be denied is that love and pair bonding is a very complex and misunderstood phenomenon.
Note: The preceding is a very small slice of a body of research I have been focusing on in earnest for some time. At this point, a consistent set of conclusions continue to present themselves, which I briefly summarize as follows. The animal in us (leaning on biological instincts) seeks to pair bond just enough to further the species. The spirit in us, taking this biological foundation, elevates the mere sexual and biological to the heights of sublime partnership, a dance of souls. The human works in the middle, striving to reach new levels of fulfillment by accepting the personal growth challenges that come from transcending the animal nature so as to realize the spiritual. In short, despite the challenges of our animal instincts, they are ultimately meant to help us grow spiritually as individuals—if we can be brave enough to accept the mission of personal growth.
In the modern age, newer generations have much to contend with. Most people don’t think twice about the effects of social media on pair bonding. But a growing body of evidence suggests that forming truly fullingly love bonds is harder than ever due to the animal instinct magnifying effect of social media.
By learning how to work with your animal instincts, yourself give you and your partner the best chance at what is arguably one of the most rewarding aspects of human life—feeling the joy and endless growth of loving and being loved.
– Justin
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by Sherrie H., February 16th, 2019
The combination of social media and relationships can be damaging, to say the least. A certain amount of genuine connection can be lost.
Finding love and keeping love in today’s world is difficult. When it comes to social media and relationships there are twice the amount of issues than before love was displayed online.
Let’s face it, putting a spotlight on relationships and being available to the world changes things and tests the strength of unions.
How social media affects love
Social media has done good things for society, and it has brought more people together. Individuals who would have never found a way to meet in the past can now make easy online connections. These are the good aspects.
There are negative impacts on relationships, however, and we see social media and relationships as less than savory. Here’s why:
1. It’s Easy to Pretend
“Online relationships are not real” – I’ve heard this statement from so many people in the past decade. You know what, some of this statement rings true, but of course, not all of it. When you meet someone online, social media, for instance, you have the opportunity to craft who you are.
You can be anything you want to be, honestly. Unfortunately, most people are lying about who they are on social media. This is one reason love often fails through this medium. Social media and relationships do not work that well because people can be fake.
They can get away with being fake for a long time, even for a while after meeting in person. Their persona has been built so strongly during online connections, that when they first meet in person, it takes a while to catch on to the truth of this person. This is one reason why love is hard to find.
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2. It’s Easy to be Used
Social media and relationships present an unhealthy recipe sometimes. It’s easy for people online to take advantage of one another. Since you cannot be together, face to face, you have to trust blindly. When you’re trying to find love, social media presents an unfair arena.
Some people are more adept at conversation behind a screen, and can easily use other people at will. You must be extra careful when meeting people online because real love is extremely hard to attain this way.
Most of the time, what you think is love ends up being a union for convenience and gain.
3. Dishonesty Reduces the Chances
Just like pretending to be someone they’re not, some people online can be dishonest about most anything. Love is difficult when it comes to social media and relationships because most everyone lies. Some people are even habitual liars.
This makes them experienced liars as well. If you’re smart enough to detect the dishonesty, it can make it hard to actually find any genuine people. Without personal contact, it will be hard to understand the level of this dishonesty.
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4. Social Media Addiction
Once you’ve actually met someone online, the next step will be to meet in person. Say, all this goes well too, well then what? One of the things that kill relationships after meeting offline is the addiction to the old social environment.
If you met online, then chances are, one or both of you will still be addictedto some form of social media. There are so many risks and temptations involved with this issue that can destroy budding relationships.
For instance, if you met online, then beware of infidelity online afterward. While this doesn’t always happen, it does happen often. Sometimes people are simply addicted to the online chase, while others get caught up by spending too much time on social media.
It’s best to moderate to preserve your relationship, honestly. Either way, this addiction can prove to be a big hurdle for love.
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5. Elevated Expectations
Here’s one that most people don’t even consider – high expectations. So, you meet online and learn so much about this person. You are stoked, right? They seem responsible, they are funny, they act in a respectable manner, and all that.
Well, let’s wait until you meet in person and see how that goes. No, really,you have to do this. That’s because most people are not as great as they talk themselves up to be.
That’s most people, as I said. Personally, I have started doing this thing with myself which involves sharing my worst attributes to offset the things I may have inflated if that makes sense. Anyway, high expectations can damage a relationship as much as cheating or being disrespectful.
This is because you feel cheated and disrespected by someone who hasn’t been 100% honest with you. Or, they’ve just hidden their bad parts. You will find the truth, and you have to weigh your options with this one. Or, you could just lower your expectations and see what happens with that.
Is social media the devil?
I had a friend who made a video and posted it on social media. While I don’t like to share my friend’s name or the name of the particular social media, I will say that it involves a book with many faces on it.
Lol So, he opens up the video with a blanket statement saying, “******** is the devil”. Those asterisks are there to hide that social media network’s name….ahem…
So, then he goes on to say why he feels this way, and it’s quite compelling. Needless to say, sometimes it can seem like social media is out to destroy relationships, but you must remember, we are the ones behind the keyboards allowing this to happen.
So, take it as you wish. I do hope, however, that you are able to have healthy relationships free of the negativity involved in social media. I think, as with many other things in life, it has a great deal to do with moderation.
After all, too much of anything isn’t all that healthy. I hope you find your balance too!
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Stillness in the Storm Editor: Why did we post this?
Social media is one of the most influential aspects of modern-day life. Neurological processes within consciousness are designed to seek out social values and express them in life situations, governing a person’s self-worth as a function of how well they are accepted by their peers. Thus, one of the best ways to manipulate a society is to manipulate the social spheres. The preceding information reveals a deleterious effect of modern-day social engineering, which is designed by the Deep State to manage a population’s beliefs, values, and ways of thinking, amongst many other things. The fact so many people crave social acceptance and are willing to subject themselves to perils in the process, only proves the point even more. We crave recognition as a function of knowing thyself. Thus, the spiritual values in the interpersonal domain are stimulated greatly through social media, as one seeks to know themselves through reflections in others. With this knowledge in hand, one can begin the slow process of retuning their value system to one of extrinsic to intrinsic foundation. Social media extrinsically augments an individual’s values through social influence, often with ill effects. But once one recognizes that they are being manipulated through their social urges they can seek better means of satisfying these needs without compromising personal and cosmic values in the process.
– Justin
Not sure how to make sense of this? Want to learn how to discern like a pro? Read this essential guide to discernment, analysis of claims, and understanding the truth in a world of deception: 4 Key Steps of Discernment – Advanced Truth-Seeking Tools.
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