The Bottom of Transactional Relationships — When a Dead Phantom Child Is Preferred to a Real One
Transactional relationships between people and transactional relationships in professional contexts are, in their psychological mechanism, surprisingly similar. In such relationships, a protective bracketing of reality often takes place - not in a methodological, but in an existential sense. Reality comes to resemble Bluebeard’s locked chamber: something one deliberately does not enter, because opening it would destroy the foundation of the relationship - emotionally, morally, or ontologically. A human being is capable of living a meaningful life only insofar as they are willing to sacrifice their time and energy for the realization of a potential future that carries an idea extending over time. Thus, the the trans-temporal meaning is the antidote to transactional relationships and the key to achieving this lies in mutual prioritizing a transcendent aim through conscious naïveté. Still, many make this question of the meaning of life philosophically more complicated than “6-7” (“sixseven”), even though in reality it is often staring them straight in the face.
Being in contact with reality and becoming stuck in epoché
I do not consider Martin Heidegger’s project fully sufficient, primarily due to the absence of an explicit axiological axis—but that was never his aim. Nevertheless, Heidegger’s ontological turn has always struck me as a compelling and substantively strong counter-position to that of his teacher, Edmund Husserl.
At the core of Husserl’s phenomenology lies the insight that the world always appears to consciousness in a particular way, and that in order to investigate this appearing, one must temporarily bracket the ontological assumptions of the natural attitudev - this is what epoché designates. It is a strictly methodological step meant to clarify perception, not a denial of reality. Yet precisely this possibility of bracketing opens the door to existential misuse: a situation in which the brackets cease to be an investigative tool and instead become a permanent mode of living.
In such cases, what should - according to the natural logic of perception - continuously enter consciousness and unfold further within it, is placed at a certain point on “pause,” and simply left there.
According to Husserl, for example, when we hold a phone in our hand, we do not reflexively say, “this is a phone.” We first perceive a certain form, weight, and structure. Only afterward does consciousness begin to constitute layers of meaning upon it. In Husserlian terms, the world is never simply “given,” but always already interpreted in a particular way. Becoming stuck in epoché would here mean consciously halting the perceptual process before its full unfolding: one sees a rectangular object with a screen, yet withholds the further meaningful associations that would allow it to be experienced as a phone in its full functional and existential sense. In this way, for instance, one can hold a broken or empty-battery phone and preserve ambivalence regarding its possible uses, without acknowledging its actual condition and meaning. Such partial and controlled perception creates an appearance of neutrality, but in fact constitutes an active delimitation of reality.
Heidegger’s analysis of Dasein, by contrast, begins from the fact that the human being is always already in the world - bound to situation, temporality, and finitude. We do not stand opposite the world as neutral observers; we experience it through the holistic structure of being, always moving toward our own death. From this perspective, it is impossible to relate to the world fragmentarily without paying an existential price. For Heidegger, the phone in one’s hand is not first an object, but part of the world—a tool whose meaning is disclosed in use, and in the possibilities of being that it opens or forecloses.
For me, Alfred North Whitehead’s process philosophy has functioned as a scientifically more rigorous parallel to this ontological intuition, and at the same time as an important development of it. Whitehead describes reality as a sequence of events, each moment composed of physical, affective, and moral prehensions - everything that converges into the formation of that moment. Cognition and value are not subjective layers added onto reality, but intrinsic components of it.
In this sense, Heidegger’s account becomes even more powerful when read through Whitehead: the meaning of the phone is no longer limited to its “mode of being in the world,” but is bound to the totality of the concrete moment - to the influences, memories, expectations, and orientations flowing into that event. Objective reality does not disappear, yet each moment is qualitatively distinct, and the same object may carry radically different meanings at different times.
It is precisely here that we arrive at transactional relationships. When people choose to experience reality in a way that presupposes its partial bracketing and controlled disclosure, there is always a risk of forming an interpretation of the world that no longer corresponds to reality’s own structure. In such cases, one is - partly consciously and partly unconsciously - stuck in epoché as an existential condition, and this is an existentially dangerous way of living.
Transactional relationships thus often function as a distorted ontological compromise: contact with reality becomes selective, conditional, and only temporarily functional. Each moment is experienced by excluding a substantial part of what actually belongs to it, often as a consequence of chains (nexuses) of prior moments carried forward from the past. In this way, life is lived in a state of only partial contact with reality, while certain aspects of the world are deliberately kept on “pause.”
The tragedy of carrying a dead child and Glass Child as an ontological truth
In trainings, I have described the mechanism of becoming stuck in epoché through a concrete, lived example - one that is disturbing by nature, yet precisely for that reason psychologically and existentially intelligible.
Let us imagine an older couple whose great aim is to have a child. The woman becomes pregnant, and together they attend an ultrasound examination of the fetus. At first everything proceeds normally; they are hopeful and filled with anticipation. At the next ultrasound, however, the absence of a fetal heartbeat is revealed - the child is present, and yet, at the same time, is not.
In a certain psychological state, the parents do nothing other than remain stuck in epoché. They behave as though nothing tragic has occurred, halting their perception of reality at the moment when the pregnancy still appeared normal. The next ultrasound is cancelled for mundane reasons, and “ordinary” everyday life continues. Rationalizations follow: “at this age pregnancies always have complications,” “excessive testing causes unnecessary stress,” “doctors’ assessments can make things worse.”
In substance, the woman is carrying a dead child, yet both parents - the woman actively, the man through silently approving participation (as a sin of omission) - refuse to name reality in its precise terms. Life continues as if nothing of the sort had happened. Direct emotional confrontation with reality is replaced by seemingly important activities: solving logistical tasks, attending to other people’s concerns (healthy eating, household issues, sorting waste), maintaining everyday functionality - in short, substitute activities.
Multiple psychological mechanisms are at play: avoidance, repression, rationalization. Yet the central phenomenon is larger - it is not any single defense mechanism, but the ontological bracketing of the pregnancy for the sake of self-protection - becoming stuck in epoché. What Edmund Husserl described as a methodological phase in the clarification of perception has here become a permanent mode of living. This is not the defense of an individual psyche, but a collective defense of the couple as a system. Silence creates the appearance of stability. The man’s passivity is not neutral; it is an active form of participation that makes this arrangement possible. This is precisely the essence of the transactional relationship.
To understand this mechanism, one must emphasize the fundamental importance of naming reality. A paradigmatic example is the task given to Adam in the Bible: the naming of the animals (Genesis 2:19–20). This is not a marginal detail, but an existentially decisive act. Naming does not merely assign a label; it structures reality, establishes identity, and entails responsibility for what exists. In this sense, naming is not merely a linguistic act, but an ontological event: what is named enters temporality, relation, and meaning. This can be understood as an analogue to what process philosophy later describes as a chain of events, in which each moment carries forward the weight of preceding reality.
In sharp contrast - and as a positive counterpoint - to the silence described above, Glass Child by Maarja Kangro stands as a constant reference point in my thinking - a book in which no prolonged celebration takes place beneath the Sword of Damocles. Reality is not kept on pause; it is allowed to fall with its full weight directly into the heart. Things are named quickly, with brutal honesty and ontological precision. There are no protective constructions, no postponement. Grief is not a phase, but a mode of being. Decisions arise in direct contact with the raw brutality of reality. Grief is the part of life that cannot be expelled; being is here and now together with all of its pain and tragedy - the child’s cranial bones are soft and uncovered, parts of the brain undeveloped; in simpler terms: the child is alive, but its potential is incompatible with life. This is the acknowledgment of truth. This book should be required reading for anyone who seeks to rid themselves of their child through abortion without compelling justification (though I doubt many would be able to read it to the end - the truth about the lovability of life is more than such a soul is capable of bearing).
How does this relate to the transactional relationship?
The transactional relationship is, in its essence, precisely the first variant described above: a silent agreement between two people to keep reality unnamed, to postpone truth, and to live by remaining stuck in epoché. It stands in direct opposition both to Adam’s act of naming and to the existential honesty embodied in Glass Child.
Transactional relationships as a silent agreement to postpone collision with reality
If we consider, for example, a typical relationship between an older sugar daddy and a younger sugar babe, we encounter an almost ideal illustration of becoming stuck in epoché. According to the logic of intersexual interaction, this is a clearly transaction-based relationship: the younger woman “puts on the table” her beauty, companionship, and intimacy; the older man, in turn, offers his lifestyle, material support (for instance through housing, car lease, and covering ongoing expenses), and variety - travel, experiences, and at times access to social networks. In essence, an exchange takes place in which sexuality and the simulation of intimacy are traded for material benefits. Each party possesses something the other lacks and desires, and the relationship unfolds according to the logic of a transaction.
What distinguishes such a transactional relationship from a meaningful and transcendent one is the absence of any higher shared future aim - such as marriage, the formation of a family, or having children. Paradoxically, it is precisely this missing dimension that has kept many sugar babes bound to such relationships for years. Often there exists an internal hope that a moment will arrive when the relationship will be “reinterpreted” and transformed into one oriented toward a higher purpose. Sometimes this hope is placed in the other person’s change, sometimes in the end of his existing marriage, sometimes in his eventual decision to “put everything on the line.”
In its essence, this resembles carrying a dead child in the womb - the inability to face the brutal truth of reality in the way described earlier through the example of Glass Child. Hope is kept alive not by reality itself, but by postponing it.
At this point it is worth asking why the “child is dead.” In theory, a significant age difference does not in itself preclude a meaningful and enduring relationship. The problem lies not in age, but in the fact that the tragedy of non-viability is built into such relationships from their very beginning. Often this is not simply a dead fetus, but rather something closer to a dead glass child - something that was never viable to begin with, yet is subsequently kept “alive” through sheer force of imagination, idealizing and romanticizing the relationship as a “once-in-a-lifetime love.”
Psychologically, the excluding factor is usually mutual, even if it is not acknowledged at the outset. The sugar babe’s disappointment is most often only partially conscious. One reason for this is that the sugar daddy has adopted a distorted logic of “holding space”: he compensates for the absence of a masculine leadership role by overdosing romance and empathy. Rational framing of the relationship is replaced by disproportionate understanding, listening, and mere “presence.” The moment never arrives in which the man says, “I am fully committing to this relationship, and this woman is someone I want to spend my life with.” He fears the arrival of that moment and therefore postpones - often through passivity - the conversation about “who we actually are to one another.”
It is precisely from this absence of masculine initiative and the failure to name the relationship that the woman’s disappointment begins. She senses that the emphasis remains on the present moment while the future is suspended at the level of hope. This hope is not dared to be challenged, because doing so could lead to a tragic collision with reality. Metaphorically, the “next ultrasound” is postponed, and life continues on fragments of hope gathered from the past, leaving room for the fantasy of a “beautiful shared future.” In reality, these hopes are often the woman’s own internal projections, read into the man’s non-excluding yet non-committal attitudes.
As a result, there is a constant need to rationalize the replacement of masculine decisiveness with emotionality, responsibility with understanding, and intervention with mere “being there.” This is a quiet, sad, and often unacknowledged disappointment - carrying a dead child while pretending that everything is still intact and possible. A paradigmatic case of becoming stuck in epoché.
The man’s disappointment usually arrives earlier. This turns him into the party who, “in good faith,” exploits the situation for as long as possible - receiving sex and companionship in exchange for a lifestyle and material support that he would not obtain from a partner so much younger without such a transaction. Although in theory he might still have the option, even late in life, to “put everything on the line” and begin a new meaningful relationship, this is often prevented by a rational instinct of self-preservation. He understands - even if the realization is unpleasant - that the woman entered the relationship primarily for his lifestyle rather than for his personhood. This knowledge leaves a deep and often irreparable mark on the psyche, one that prevents the relationship from moving to the next level.
A further layer is added by the direct experience of the woman’s fundamental dishonesty and duplicity. This includes situations in which a sugar babe begins the relationship in parallel with a previous one, lying to a spouse, a partner, and often to children. Such behavior inevitably raises the question: what would prevent the same behavior from recurring in the future? Even when rational explanations are offered, witnessing dishonesty firsthand leaves a dark imprint on the man’s psyche that cannot simply be erased.
Frequently, in such circumstances, the sugar babe has herself rendered herself impossible as a prospective long-term partner - destroying the hope of the relationship at the outset, as if “killing the relational fetus within herself.” Often as a consequence of fundamental dishonesty, she brings with her not only pathological conflicts with a former partner, years-long custody disputes, legal battles, division of assets, economic risks, and the potential for escalating problems, but above all she nullifies her own past as a dignified woman. In Alfred North Whitehead’s terms, this accumulated burden of prior events is carried into every new moment. Yet every person’s capacity to bear another person’s past is essentially limited - sugar daddy included.
Thus the participants in a transactional relationship live like the previously described couple carrying a dead child. The man has internally decided to exploit the situation frozen in epoché for as long as possible. The woman suppresses reality in the hope that “one day he will marry me,” failing to understand that this day will never arrive. Had the man wanted that outcome, he would have chosen it long ago. In this way, the woman often trades her last youth and beauty for small change, closing off for herself the possibility of any truly meaningful and temporally enduring relationship.
The man, in turn - especially if he has children - loses contact with them, because he replaces the ideal of a functioning family with a hedonistic, non-viable, and unsustainable life model. Such a choice offers neither example nor orientation; it deepens rupture at the level of both generations and responsibility.
The real damage – the loss of meaning in life resulting from prioritizing a “dead phantom child” or a “glass child” over one’s real children
As with everything discussed above, what follows applies equally to both corporate and private transactional relationships. In most cases, the parties involved fail to grasp a guiding principle that lies very close to a definition of the meaning of life itself: a human being is capable of living a meaningful life only insofar as they sacrifice their time and energy for the realization of a potential future that carries an idea extending beyond time. When this logic is broken down into its components, what becomes visible is a systematic investment against it through participation in transactional relationships.
Irvin Yalom has stated that at the core of existential freedom lies the realization that “alternatives exclude.” In essence, this is a reaffirmation of the existence of hierarchies: by choosing one option, a person necessarily relinquishes others. This can only be understood through the lens of life’s finitude. The logic is simple: because life is finite, we inevitably live under conditions of limitation, moving toward our own death.
There are two fundamentally different approaches to coping with the tragedy of this limitation:
a) Flowing spirituality (Western mysticism derived from Eastern philosophies), in which everything that happens in the world is framed as a “game of life,” largely (or entirely) preconfigured in advance. Within this framework, the individual’s ego-driven will to reshape their own life is largely an illusion, because at the level of the universe everything is one, and destiny is therefore already determined as “each having their own path.” Fear of death dissolves into the knowledge that it lies beyond human control and that even the length of one’s life is essentially predetermined. This implies that a person’s influence over their own life and fate is merely apparent, since no proponent of this approach has ever succeeded in drawing a clear boundary at which human agency ends and “predetermination” begins. There is no need to “worry excessively” about raising children, because they have their own lives and will make their own choices - choices that are, indirectly, also predetermined by the universe. This results in only partial responsibility for one’s life, amounting to a withdrawal from responsibility both as a person and as a parent.
b) A value structure grounded in moral absolutes, in which absolutely everything a person does - or fails to do - carries significant weight, because no clear boundary can be drawn regarding how far the effects of one’s actions may extend. Every everyday act reverberates both inwardly and outwardly. The “distribution” of responsibility is impossible, because it is never known how one’s actions will echo through history; responsibility can only ever be total - 100%. Fear of death here does not arise from the prospect of “the end of a pleasant life,” but from the responsibility to ensure that the remaining time is used in the most meaningful way possible. This is precisely what allows Yalom to conclude that although “death will kill us, the idea of death may save us.” Limitation and finitude are not deficiencies of life, but the very form through which life gains its value.
Under this second approach, it is impossible to detach the meaning of life from a trans-temporal significance. No matter how one attempts to hide from this realization, in the context of close relationships this meaning can exist only in children. In any human life, there are only a few relationships of truly deep significance: parents, siblings, a small number of close friends, a partner, and children - and they do not carry equal weight. The relationship with one’s parents ends with their death, which is always premature if the relationship was good. With most other relationships, a different logic often applies: every hour invested in them is an hour taken away from one’s children.
Across multiple studies, people have reported that family and children constitute approximately 65–75% of their overall life focus over time, with everything else making up the remaining 25–35%. This may appear radical, but in a trans-temporal sense it is undoubtedly true. Children are the only beings on earth who love their parents unconditionally from the very beginning. Over time, that love becomes conditional, depending on the parent’s behavior. And no one other than the parent themselves can destroy that love- something that can be done only by directing one’s life toward something else, including transactional relationships.
Life is finite, and the hours are numbered. Every hour a person invests “not in their children” is an hour taken away from them - and one should not then expect unconditional love from those children in the future. People engaged in transactional relationships usually fail to understand that their capacity to love children is not limitless. When short-term pleasures are prioritized over one’s children, a situation is created in which trans-temporal meaning disappears.
In sugar-daddy and sugar-babe relationships, for example, both parties often detach from reality into an irrational emotional bubble, where a parallel reality emerges- one in which limitless love and euphoric happiness appear possible. This fantasy world includes their children and, in its most idealized versions, even accommodating former partners. Everyone understands, forgives, supports; everything is one. They imagine themselves as cannons of infinite love, showering one another, their children, and the world with pure affection.
The harsh reality, however, is often different: both parties usually lose contact with their children - not because someone forcibly separates them, but as a result of their own choices to prioritize something else: a phantom child as the dead potential of a relationship, or a glass child as an impossible relationship, over their real children. That is enabled and intensified by a drift toward flowing spirituality, used as a means of rationalizing the situation. Judgment is feared, and moral absolutes are rejected.
This is also the point at which the same relational logic collides with what Jacques Lacan and Slavoj Žižek describe as the Real. Yes, professional relationships are also deeply limited in transactional form and likewise require trans-temporal meaning - but work and career ultimately remain elements within a hierarchy and cannot occupy its top peak. When people make even their most consequential career decisions and begin to question the meaning of life, they often descend into unnecessarily deep philosophical abstractions, making it some “6-7”. In reality, one thing is sufficient: if a person has a child, everything becomes clear. Go and look at that child - and you no longer need to ask what the meaning of life, or trans-temporal meaning, is.
A viable alternative — prioritizing a transcendent aim through conscious naïveté
A human being is capable of living a meaningful life only insofar as they are willing to sacrifice their time and energy for the realization of a potential future that carries an idea extending over time. This sentence is worth reading more than once. Psychologically, it expresses a rather elementary truth: what renders a person durably satisfied and motivated is not the achievement of something, but the knowledge and inner experience of moving toward something meaningful and higher than oneself.
For this reason, the foundation of any functional and non-transactional relationship can only be a clearly articulated and shared future perspective - one whose realization is believed in, awaited, and worked toward together. This is also why the significance of marriage should not be underestimated: it introduces finitude consciously, as a sacrifice, into the present moment.
We have conducted extensive psychometric analyses - both in corporate contexts and with private clients - to assess interpersonal compatibility. It is evident that people who are highly dissimilar (for example, with markedly different levels of extraversion) tend to experience frequent relational friction, while overly similar individuals often struggle with shared weaknesses. The optimal configuration is therefore one of relative similarity.
Yet one conclusion has significantly reduced the practical weight of such analyses: compatibility of personality traits is secondary to the question of whether the parties enter the relationship with a shared transcendent aim.
It is a demographic fact that the other person is never the “best possible” option nor a “once-in-a-lifetime love.” Inevitably, they are psychometrically and biographically imperfect, far from any ideal. The decisive question is not this imperfection, but whether—despite it—a shared future aim exists.
Even where compatibility is sufficient, a relationship lacks vitality if one party perceives the shared future in a Alfred North Whiteheadian sense - acknowledging chains of past events, tragedy, limitation, and responsibility - while the other remains stuck in Edmund Husserl’s epoché, unable even to face reality objectively. In such cases, personality compatibility loses all practical relevance: the shared future becomes, in essence, the carrying of a dead child - a postponement of collision with reality.
This is why the positive nature of marriage or a clearly goal-oriented, value-based relationship as a form of self-conscious “voluntary self-binding to slavery” should not be underestimated. When what is placed at the highest level is a shared future that is at least possible in principle and aligned with the logic of life, clarity emerges regarding what one’s time and energy are being sacrificed for.
Paradoxically, movement toward an ideal rests on a two-step process:
the complete abandonment of naïveté regarding the present situation and the partner’s imperfections;
a sufficient degree of rational naïveté with regard to a jointly chosen and clearly established potential future.
In trainings, I have often used the term conscious naïveté in precisely this sense: a fundamentally honest orientation toward a chosen shared future, accompanied by total commitment to pursuing an ultimately unattainable ideal. In the context of intimate relationships, this is possible only between two independent individuals who do not need one another for survival, yet nevertheless decide to move forward together in the name of a shared ideal.
Emotional and physical attraction can be supportive in such a relationship, but it is never decisive - more precisely, it never compensates for the absence of a shared path. Erotic attraction and closeness is always temporary at the beginning of a relationship; once that phase passes, what remains is submission to the shared aim. The core of conscious naïveté lies in a very clear recognition of one’s own and the other person’s limitations: the knowledge that within me exists more potential to act badly, in an evil manner, imperfectly, even cruelly, than I would like to admit - and the decision to restrain that potential through rational choices, thereby avoiding the destruction of the other person and, consequently, of myself.
If this is complemented by a clear agreement on how conflicts are to be resolved, and on how to face both the tragedy of life and sheer malice - whether arising internally or from the outside - a genuine possibility of endurance emerges.
Metaphorically, conscious naïveté can be compared to an operation in which the woman sacrifices her right arm and the man his left, and their circulatory systems are joined. A new, shared body comes into being. Divorce remains theoretically possible, but an inevitable form of disablement is built into it. A new identity is born, and the human being’s metaphysical - metaphorically even physical - existence acquires new boundaries. Such intimacy entails dependence, unavoidable confrontation with the other’s imperfections, and shared pain. Yet it is precisely the awareness that “leaving” is impossible without remaining whole (or even alive)—especially when children are involved - that creates the conditions for an entirely different approach to conflict. Many feigned grievances disappear, and serious issues are resolved through negotiation, because departure is no longer a realistic option.
Is this approach radical? Yes.
Is it honest? Equally so.
In moving toward an ideal, the individual inevitably loses in relation to their own imperfection. Yet by joining and acting as a more effective unit in the service of a shared potential, there is at least clarity about what one is sacrificing oneself for. And when compared to the pseudo-freedom of transactional relationships - where pleasure, disengagement from reality, hidden aggression, constant drama, and the search for help in places where it can never be found take precedence - this may not even be a bad alternative.
The corporate parallel — the limits of sugar daddy techniques
All of the above may initially seem intelligible in interpersonal relationships, yet appear utopian in a corporate context. This contrast, however, is mistaken. In practice, we often see in leadership trainings that strong leaders arrive precisely at this position in their relationships with strategically important employees.
There is nothing new or sufficient in inverted pyramids, “customer first” slogans, or even the formal alignment of value hierarchies. If a shared transcendent aim is absent - that is, if there is no submission to the insight that a human being can live a meaningful life only by sacrificing time and energy for the realization of a potential future carrying an idea that transcends time- then these leadership models become substantively empty.
When a company’s relationship (often embodied in the founder or top executive) with its key employees is purely transactional, it is structurally indistinguishable from a sugar daddy–sugar babe relationship. If a higher aim is missing, or merely performed, the only remaining lever is to increase the benefit contributed to the transaction - most often money. Yet this, too, functions only for a limited time. Nothing can replace a person’s sustained sense that they are moving together with the organization toward something meaningful in the future. When this belief is absent, many subsequent “motivation techniques” become inevitably ridiculous.
A leader who operates as a sugar daddy can rely only on short-term loyalty. Within a transactional logic, the employee becomes instrumental and replaceable - a means of production, as Marxist critiques of capitalism would frame it. Of course, it is possible to preserve hope (equity, options, career progression) through manipulative promises or tacit endorsement of employees’ aspirations, while knowing full well that these outcomes are in fact excluded. But this is categorically different from an honest and substantive articulation of a shared aim. This is precisely why leaders who govern through values and meaning are often personally more demanding: they themselves submit to something higher and cannot afford cynical flexibility.
The contribution of an employee who genuinely shares a leader’s vision of a meaningful future - and sees that the leader also subordinates their actions to that aim - is systematically underestimated. Such alignment often yields striking results: fewer conflicts, greater initiative, increased transparency, and significant time savings through the privilege of being able to “speak plainly.”
I know leaders who have compelled an employee who cheated on their spouse to confess this to the betrayed partner - or at least to give a binding commitment to do so - under threat of termination. Of course, this is an intrusion into private life. Of course, it is not written into any employment contract. Of course, one could call it “bullshit.” But it is, as the character portrayed by Alec Baldwin says in the film Pearl Harbor: “Very. Very good bullshit.” It may not conform to procedural rules, yet if a person lies to someone with whom they have sworn to spend their life, what seriousness can talk of values at the level of employment relations possibly retain? There are leaders who have dismissed employees on the spot in such situations - and it cannot be said that they are unsuccessful. On the contrary, they are often highly successful: absolute, at times harsh, but value-clear and aligned with the moral logic of their organization.
Transactional relationships always produce a clear outcome: pathological pretense and a way of living that is not aligned with the logic of life itself. William James wrote that for one possible identity to become actual, the others must more or less die: “To make any one of them actual, the rest must more or less die.” It is worth briefly reversing the terms of this sentence. When we choose to live within a deviant identity that should have been allowed to die, we can only be “more or less” alive.
And perhaps the desire not to arrive there - to live fully rather than merely “more or less,” as inevitably happens to participants in transactional relationships once they reach the bottom of them - is precisely the foundational answer to why such relationships should be avoided, both in professional and in private life.
