Daniel Schmachtenberger about living together
On our genetic disposition to interdependence and how much of a pain in the ass compromising on anything is...
It’s been an age and a half, I know. I went down numerous other rabbit holes and seem to be slowly emerging from my spontanieous writing fast. I’m sharing some of this insightful conversation between Nora Bateson and Daniel Schmachtenberger, since it helped remind me why I find this subject so important.
I’m including snippets of the transcript where Daniel speaks:
“I find it really interesting as to why in the wealthy industrialized world, the nuclear family home is the almost universal default setting when intergenerational family was, historically for a very long time and for the majority of human history. …
So we actually have evolved and are genetically fit for very very deep dependence and interconnection with about that many people right 50 to 150.”
Personally, I can really feel my genetic adaptation for interdependence with a large number of people. Especially since I had my son 4.5 years ago, doing things independently without considering a group of people feels unnatural, often impossible. And yet I crave this mythical independence so much. I regularly feel unsuccesful without it.
“Sartre said “hell is other people” and that having to compromise on anything, how the house is decorated, the cleanliness of it, who has the chores, what's on TV anything, is just such a pain in the ass that we if we have the optionality we go to not having to deal with those things. But then everybody is lonely and they watch other people on TV and they look at other people on social media and they're on ubiquitous antidepressants and yet still don't want to actually deal with the pain in the ass of other people and the only people that they will live with is where the bonding energy of sex holds them together or the progeny, the byproduct of sex and that's what the nuclear family is. Like anything less than the bonding energy of sex or children is not enough bonding energy to deal with how much we don't want to have to deal with other people and yet ubiquitous depression anxiety loneliness meaninglessness lack of connection happens and it's it's fascinating, because we have to actually get over that and it's obviously a very difficult thing to get over.”
This juxtaposition of craving independence and self determination with the tangible effects of loneliness is such a big subject for me. I’m so grateful for this clear articulation Schmachtenberger style (I think I finally learnt to spell his name even though Substack suggests Schwarzenegger). And my brain cannot but link this household question with the bigger dilemmas around living together. Dilemmas around land and belonging and what actually helps us to thrive within nested ecosystems that include the wider more-than-human world.
Here’s the full conversation below ↓, it’s worth a listen. I promise to be back soon and in the meantime, do write back with thoughts, insights and ideas about who to interview next.
Much love,
Greta