Humans are social animals. We make and need relationships. This is fact.
Yet what do those relationships revolve around? Ultimately, why is there an “us” at all?
From anthropology to the personal memoirs of the famous, from news headlines to crimes of passion, there seems to be but two pivots: Dollars and DNA.
Dollars
Not restricted to greenbacks, this topic instead refers to property, to capacity, to resource.
How do people survive in nature (urban or outback) to participate in relationships? Resources – food, water, shelter, et. al.
How do people show they are worthy of investing in a relationships? Resources – fine clothes, flashy wares, higher qualities all around, excess.
How do people keep the relationships they have alive? Resources – sharing, fortifications against the environment, individual specialization for the collective benefit, abundance enough to be able to afford time bonding.
DNA
Not going into the details here – suffice to say no-one and nothing is alive today without the required drive to immortalize DNA being at the root nature of our ancestors.
Relationships bring people together. When people are together, DNA, aka genes, – from gut biomes to sickness to other things less general-audience-appropriate – gets exchanged.
Whether enjoying another person’s time, attention, looks, or potential, the brain chemicals that foster relationships only exist to assist in the binding of new gene sequences.
Children
In the classic structure of male-female relationships, the male tends to be on the hook for not just enough resources for self, but enough to share; the female, the potential for both parties to immortalize their DNA in the form of children.
But humans cannot raise (and in many cases, deliver) a child on their own. Human babes are helpless for an inordinate amount of time, requiring dedicated caretaking by one parent. So like birds incubating eggs, at least one other in a relationship must provide their excess resources to the parent caring for the child(ren).
While different sexes each are gauged on different merits of what they bring to the table*, biology and anthropology prove consistent: Relationships develop from the demonstration of having either the resources or the potential gene-propagating-capacity to produce children and support those children into self-sufficiency.
* All sexes can provide resources in modern economies, while all sexes can also leverage modern technology to propagate their DNA. A partner or partner capable of assisting with resources or DNA is not required, though is no easy path.
–
Life and luxury equate when it comes to developing relationships. Time and genes attract goods and services, and vice versa. From that attraction comes relationship-building. From swell relationships comes time together or high levels of feel-good emotion. From exposure or passion comes the ever-increasing chance of, well, children, the timeless binding of the dollars and the DNA around which all relationships pivot.
This line of thinking struck me other other day – so it goes concerning insight and muses. Like most ideas, I tried to find a way for relationships to form other than the resources dollars represent and gene-potential, but I am at a loss 🤷♂️
If you have ideas or insights, let me know so as to update this post! In the meantime, let not these baser points lessen the joy you find in others and yourself – those feelings and experiences are real, so revel. Cheers to you and yours!
Jimmy Chattin 