FOUR FACTOR RELATIONSHIP MATRIX

If you draw up a matrix with the following four factors you could have four possible relationship combinations. Here are the four factors:

1. intimacy
2. shallowness (non-intimacy)
   
3. intensity
4. lightness (non-intensity)

Thus, there would be four possible combinations:

1. intimate-intense
2. intimate-light
3. shallow-intense
4. shallow-light

Seems to me that the ideal relationship would have periods, or moments, of all four modes. Who could stand to be constantly intimate-intense? That might be a formula for burnout. At the other end, light-shallow would be nondemanding, but probably not be sufficiently meaningful. A comfortable mix of all four modes would probably be ideal. True?

SOUL MIRROR

This strikes me as important: that we should look for ourselves in the reflection in the relationship mirror. This indicates that relationships ultimately teach us about ourselves in a process of self-learning. Intimacy is about both our inward plunge and outward extension to another. As we progress in our comprehension of our own deepest nature, we are contacting the Ground of our Being in the Universe and there resides Love in the Universal sense. The self-knowledge/self-love becomes Universal Knowledge/Universal Love. Another way to put it is that to contact the love in our hearts is to love God. Relationships, no matter their difficulties, pain, and impermanence, teach us about ourselves, thus about God.

All this is idealistic (it is), as many will say.

On another matter: Probably the most salient reason that I have such a high regard for females is that they have a tendency to be more developed in both interpersonal and intra-personal matters (a generalization, of course). It is accepted doctrine in education, according to Howard Gardner (in Multiple Intelligences), that humans possess at least eight intelligences. Two of them are interpersonal (between people, i.e. relationships) and intra-personal (self-knowledge). (It seems to me that the two types of intelligence are linked.)

None of this is new to most women, as they know first-hand that men are (usually) not as developed in these two areas. Nonetheless, this is a valid reason why women should be highly respected. This is why I admire them. They help me see myself in their mirror.