Being Together

It is actually quite a simple thing to be with someone.  Sometimes you have the choice or freedom to decide with whom you share time, sometimes you don’t.  Sometimes you’re with someone you like; sometimes you’re not.

However, there are some relationships in which the need to simply be together is trumped by the need to stay together.  Being together is easy…staying together is much more tricky.  It’s tricky because it forces us to choose between our own freedom and the freedom that is created by way of the relationship.  Often, my best interest is not the same as yours.  The twist occurs when my best interest conflict with what is in our best interest.

That is the genesis of the Ojibwe tradition of considering the effect of your actions on the 7^th generation from now.  Humans knew about “sustainability” thousands of years ago.  We gave up sustainability as a sacrifice to the god of our own temporal boundaries.  Sustainability means that our best interests by definition must trump mine and apparently, that is un-Capitolistic. 

Unless you’re willing to give up the association that brings you into relationship – brings you from me, mine, I into us, ours, you have to be prepared to give up some of your “freedom”.  

The whole point of freedom is that you get to choose to whom you’re going to give up some of yours.