Entry Penned Beginning
Tuesday March 17th 2025 C.E
12:42 GMT+7
So much has happened, none of which I am going to recount at this time.
Right Now I am in Thailand, so hopefully I will be able to once again make posting to this journal a regular occurrence but only time will tell
So this post stems from lots of things happening in my life but also a lot of thinking I have been doing and is on the nature of reciprocity and the duality of it depending on context.
When first learning about the nature of reciprocity it is to easy to see it as a tit for tat situation or simply about fixing the damage done. With most people that is true but when the harm is done to those we love, to family, to clan to those who we choose to share our lives with and intertwine with in fundamental ways, it is a different thing.
Meme culture has popularised the examples of the plate or the piece of paper or fence post. That is to say:
“Drop a plate, apologise to it, has that fixed it? That is why sorry needs to be a verb, a doing word”
or
“Screw up a piece of paper, now smooth it out, is it the same as it was, that is why we need to be careful with our actions, the echoes remain”
The classic of course is the student whose master tells them to take a hammer and hammer a nail into the post at the end of the garden every time the student loses their temper and says or does something to hurt someone. At the end of the month the student recounts to the master what each nail is. For the following month the student is to make right the harm done, and when they have done so they may remove the nail. At the end of that month the master takes the student to look at the post with its many holes. “This is the foundation of your relationship with others, see how the damage has been done even when the harm has been removed.
This is one of the problems with reciprocity, it is more than superficial analogies; especially when we are speaking about harm done to those we love.
For example let us say I have a mug of sentimental importance to me and a loved one breaks it while washing the dishes; they apologise, they get a replacement mug and allow me to feel my hurt. We are good now.
Now let us say thatthis same loved one consistently breaks dishes when washing them to the point that now I fear it when they say they are going to wash the dishes, I worry about what I am going to lose this time. The harm they need to make right is not merely the mug but the damage to our relationship. I need to see some sort of change that says “not only do not wish to do this again, I am willing to make this change so that I don’t”
In this case it might be “I won’t listen to music while washing your stuff so I can focus exactly on what I am doing” it might be “I am not going to wash dishes anymore, I have talked to person X and will take over their cleaning and they will wash the dishes instead”.
At its heart that is what I believe reciprocity between loved ones is;
“I understand what I did that hurt you and this is what I can do, and keep doing, that shows you that I don’t want to hurt you this way again enough to do something about it, to change. Change a behavior, a way of thinking, an attitude. When looking at how we got here I can see these things that led to my choice or decision or action. This thing is not so fundamental to my identity that I am not prepared to change that to prevent hurting you again.”
Sometimes that thing is a fundamental part of who we are, and then it becomes a case of recognising we are all creatures of the shadows, we are all imperfect and have room to improve, who better to help us do so than those we love?
Reciprocity then becomes a conversation about how can I be true to this aspect of who I am AND not hurt you?
Some of this is based very heavily in the spiritual roots I come from, although is found in other practices. A lot of folks know the whole Crowley bit of “Every man and woman is a star” the rest of the context is “It is only when we stray from our orbits that we come into conflict”
If I have hurt you then I have strayed from my orbit, so who better to help me understand how to be the best me possible than the person who has felt the impact of that?
I have been liking the term forged family a lot lately, and I think it works as a good metaphor here too. Forged family in that we are forged in each others fires, forged family in that when we collide we temper each other, we make each other stronger and better for it because we share common goals, common ideals and ways of viewing the world.
If a loved one owes me reciprocity should the thing I want be for us to not hurt each other again in the future? Shouldn’t the thing I want most be to help them be the best version of themselves, that we should want to help each other be the best versions of ourselves we can be and doesn’t that, by definition mean accepting we don’t want to hurt each other.
Ultimately, when all the metaphors and analogies run out, when we get down to the sharp and point end of it, isn’t that the real definition of reciprocity?
That if this harm to me that happened leads to you becoming a better version of yourself, becoming more your truest self then this harm to me has been worth it. When we talk of reciprocity aren’t we really saying “this is what good thing needs to come out of this harm having happened to make it have been the right choice” ?
-Robert James-Noonan O’Wayreth
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