Dr. Martin Hash Podcast

Relationships are life's greatest source of control: at every contact we try to determine who is in charge. Positive relationships that you want to continue show an acceptance of this hierarchy, and the most successful relationships have an easy exchange of control. A good relationship is comfortable and provides something positive to both parties. Unfortunately, people abuse & exploit relationships, especially anonymous ones like between the State & its citizens. In such relationships the rules must be detailed, petty & strict, which we would find totally abhorrent in a personal relationship. The very impartiality of government undermines the cohesion & effectiveness of society.

Simple friendship is purchased: it's bought with time, entertainment, or money but it is bought. You must be aware of this if you want to establish or maintain a relationship. At first, establishing the relationship is relatively inexpensive because of the entertainment value from both parties, but that sense of discovery, which initially has tremendous value, diminishes rapidly as the personality & circumstances of the other party materialize. It then becomes an effort to maintain the relationship because you are now expending some value, and must make allowances for the other person's wants & desires. Marriages are prone to fail for exactly this reason, and without romantic love, an evolved trait which is short-lived, there would probably be no marriages.

The default relationship between strangers is adversarial, then closer contact usually moves the relationship into a truce, and after more time some clannish friendship develops that occasionally evolves into personal friendship. Without courtesy & social wariness, people's natural base impulses of envy & resentment with turn them into instant enemies. Add the fact that failed friendships make the worst enemies and it is easy to see that friendships are few but enemies are many, and that friends decrease with time but enemies accumulate.