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Family
“These two dimensions — enacting the world as a commons through reciprocity with all beings, and experiencing this sharing relationship as my own and others’ aliveness, and hence the cosmos’ true character — cannot be separated. Only when we understand that the metabolic process through which we participate in the ongoing life is an emotional experience for all who are implied in this, can we proceed from the attempt to efficiently distribute objects to truly engage in an exchange with kin. Only then can we belong to family.
An aboriginal person, asked about her relationship to country, answers: “This rock is me.” Having an identity is derived from belonging. Through this, the human experience of beauty can be explained as the experience of being loved as part of family, the experience of one’s own love for that family or a particular member of it, and one’s desire to sustain that family, to give back.” — Andreas Weber
The feeling of relatedness changes from culture to culture. The Anglo-American sense of family seems smaller to me than some other cultures I’ve experienced. Latin cultures register degrees of closeness in their language. Friends and family are addressed in a familiar form, and at least in my generation, care is taken to exclude people you could never trust or be close to. But nobody’s feelings are hurt by being kept at a grammatical arm’s length.
