The 50th Law (with 50 Cent)

Keys to Human Nature
We humans like to believe that the emotions we experience are simple
and pure: we love certain people and hate others, we respect and
admire this individual and have nothing but disdain for another. The
truth is that this is almost never the case. It is a fundamental fact of
human nature that our emotions are almost always ambivalent,
rarely pure and simple. We can feel love and hostility at the same
time, or admiration and envy.
This ambivalence began in our childhood and set the pattern for the
rest of our lives. If our parents were relatively attentive and loving, we
remember our childhood fondly, as a golden period. What we
conveniently forget is that even with such parents we tended to feel
resentful of our dependence on their love and care. In some cases, we
felt smothered. We yearned to assert our willpower, to show we could
stand on our own. Feeling too dependent on their attention could open
up tremendous anxieties about our vulnerability if they were gone. And
so we inevitably felt some hostility and desire to disobey, along with
our affection.
If they were not kind and caring, later in life we resent them and
can remember only their coldness and our present antipathy. But we
forget that in our childhood we tended to gloss over their negative
traits and find ways to love them despite their treatment, and to

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somehow blame ourselves for not deserving their affection. Given the
fact that we depended on them for our survival, to feel they truly did
not care would have stirred up far too much anxiety. Mixed with
moments of anger and frustration were feelings of need and love.
And so as children, when one emotion dominated us, the other lay
underneath, a continual ambivalent undertone. As adults, we
experience similar ambivalence with our friends and intimate partners,