Diversify!
The permaculture principle 10, as listed by David Holmgren, states “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.” It might be the most applicable one to our relationships as well as our economies. It calls for diversity. How about a diversity of friends! If we focus all of our energy on one person and put all of our relational eggs in one basket, we might end up feeling rather lonely. Many of us who have been in seepy relationships know how alone one can be in those… It pays to have lots of relationships, intimate and otherwise. Close friends can help us sort out our life path. Acquaintances can be fun to hang out or watch a movie with. Why would anybody but their eggs in one basket? Because that’s the cultural messages we’re getting: You have to find The One and then you’ll do everything with him/her. It’s almost as if the ideas from agriculture have filtered into the rest of culture: Monogamy is the monoculture (huge fields of the same crop) of relationships. Maybe it’s time to diversify! That doesn’t necessarily mean polygamy. My parents have a pretty strong marriage and one of the things that seems to keep it strong is that they have a diverse set of friends – each has their own and some are in common. And such a diversified approach would probably help us all by increasing the social capital associated with involvement in civic groups since research points to marriage as a time and energy-sapper.
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Rachel – you mention that diversity is important for a marriage.
Well ….. I’ve read the statistics that show that there are a LOT of couples that divorce after about 20 or 30 years of marriage because they realise that now they have nothing in common anymore.
They might have been together for the kids or while they worked .
Sure, it’s good to have your own hobbies, but I’ve read – and actually seen it in action – that couples that have a hobby or interest together are happiest. They don’t need to be “chained together” ….. they just need to have something fun to do together in their spare time ….. something to talk about every day , something to look forward to ,…….
i01anda
Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
Hehe… Yeah, sure, it applies on relationships just the same! 🙂
I agree with the diversity model. It’s something I began exploring a few years ago — I wondered why there is such a greater level of acceptance extended to friends than to intimates (lovers, partners, companions, etc.)? I discovered many things along this pathway of discovery and it can be summed up in the notion of diversity. When we meet someone with whom we wish to connect, the tendency (or better said, the social/cultural norm) is to focus all our attention and engage in all our activities with that one person. The only thing is this … when we meet the proverbial one we are, for the most part, engaged in many other activities with a variety of people and it is that energy that we bring that is part of our attractiveness to the other. When we shift into a mode of exclusion, it’s almost as if we are no longer the person the other met and was attracted to–a friend describes it as dimming our light. The burden of expectations that can be placed on any relationship to be the source of all that we experienced from the variety and diversity of friendships, relationships, activities is quite a heavy one and can figuratively squash the life out of relationships. Like your parents I believe that diversity is a key element to life and since relationships are part of life, diversity is one of the keys to healthy and enduring relationships–whether one is coupled or single!