Reciprocity Or Animosity?

This week we're keeping the ball rolling with a little thing called reciprocity. If you're familiar with the term, you know how it plays off of balance and the as above so below philosophy we were tossing around last episode. Now, I'll state the obvious here. Many of you may only recognize the term from Lauryn Hill's smash hit X Factor via Miseducation.

But as we were explaining previously, the idea is more than just a soulful song lyric. It's something that essentially maintains our entire existence. Which makes sense, I suppose, given the effect that balance has not only on our world, but literally our entire universe. If you're curious about any of that, go check out our last episode. But for now, it's story time. So one day, as I was listening to Miss Hill beautifully croan on about her tumultuous relationship, you know, I hear she's going on a 20th anniversary tour, by the way, and, oh, trust I'm going to get my ticket. I just hope she show up on time. That's fair, right? But point is, it got me wondering about what's truly considered a fair and even amount of reciprocation in today's changing social climate, and if it's even truly something we should aspire towards.

 So reciprocation typically refers to the social norm in which one responds to a positive action with another positive action. Think support for love or food or services for money, et cetera. Now, when you think of it this way, that kind of natural give and take we've grown so accustomed to in our modern lives starts to sound a little less natural, right? It kind of starts to sound like manufactured, almost more so an expectation or a common courtesy than a genuine response. That's what makes it a social norm. Of course, we know in actual nature, tradeoffs happen all the time. Organisms constantly interact with each other in their environment to survive and thrive. That's just facts. Take, for instance, the process of pollination. Bees, butterflies and other insects visit flowers to collect nectar and pollen. And in that process of transferring the pollen, they're facilitating the reproduction of many other plant species, or even photosynthesis, where plants engage in a give and take with sunlight, carbon dioxide and water to produce glucose and oxygen. And sure, the fact these things work together so seamlessly can seem like a great example of how reciprocity can work to our collective advantage. But when have you ever known humans to take a great idea and not overcomplicate or monetize it, right? Enter commerce.

The first official bartering system on record began as early as 6000 BC, dating all the way back to ancient Mesopotamian tribes. These tribes were known to steadily trade goods back and forth in order to facilitate their needs as they arose. Say a farmer with eggs trades them to a local baker for a loaf of bread, and so on and so forth. Simple enough, right? But eventually, things changed, as they're known to do. And well, as society grew in size, so did its needs soon enough, the early civilizations had agreed upon common goods such as animal skins or salt to serve as the currency that individuals could exchange for goods and services instead. Now, I'm no enemy of progress here, but in my opinion, this is where **** starts going left.