Friendship and family

The nature of alliance is economic and also physical. Your left hand and right hand are allies, so much so that they do not consider who gets the most resources and who does the most work. Similarly, being part of a tribe involves subsuming one's individual identity to the needs of that tribe. In an individualist society, that is not very noticeable, but in a society more oriented towards the group, it's very noticeable. A sign of health in a friendship or family relationship is 'not counting,' when you don't keep track of who has done what for whom, because it either all evens out or everyone is happy to do their part. A sign of distress or unevenness is when people start tracking slights and favors. 'Is this person taking advantage of me? Do they know they are? What is their motivation?' 

Of course, there is also 'doing activities for company and mutual benefit' like games, gossip, and sharing meals. I consider this a shallower, social bonding level, compared to the underlying exchange of favors (or advice/knowledge, an important currency). Interestingly, while sharing gossip is a social bonding game, sharing secrets/intimacy is in the deeper level, because of the deep need to connect most people have. 

One thing I've encountered in recent weeks is considering people as only part of their family, not as individuals. 'I'm not going to have contact with the W. clan,' ignoring that T. W. is your longstanding friend and you'll have to explain that his friendship means nothing in comparison to his family name. 

More on this later, I'm just trying to organize my thoughts.

Mortgages

Freewriting! Gets a little creepy, as a warning.( Read more... )