Of soup-friends and token-exchangers.

I’ve noticed a pattern. (surprise!)

It seems to me that two very different models exist of what people in our culture think we are doing when we nurture one another. This makes sense given that any modern culture is a complex swirl of ancestral inheritances only recently jumbled together and barely stirred, like marbled paper used in old book linings.

One world view is that nurturance is like tokens. In this world view when we take care of one another we pass tokens back and forth, with the assumption that getting nurturance is ‘receiving’ a token, and giving nurturance is ‘giving up’ a token.

In this model, while people may accept that at times tokens go more one way than the other for a while, overall, because we believe taking care of others ‘costs’ us something, it makes sense to keep a kind of count, to aim to have ‘tokens’ exchanged about 50/50 over time.

The other world view is that when we nurture one another, we are not exchanging tokens but are, rather, making soup. The pot is on the stove, and we gather around it. I put in a potato, you put in a pea. Over many many hours of care and interaction, the soup begins to  cook, and this nice home-cooked meal smell fills the house. You can imagine this is even the kind of soup that expands as it thickens. Because when we are sharing we have an abundance, friends come over and add some beef (or tofu, hey, your call) to the soup, and others come over and add some fresh picked garlic, or parsley and lemon from their yard – and presto, having taken this time to cook together we have a nice warm feeling for all of us in a home filled with deliciousness, our needs all get met, with those we trust around us to share in it.

In this second model, we do not ‘lose’ or ‘give away’ a token when we nurture others, because the act of nurturing itself feels good. The people in my soup-group are my soup-friends. To nurture a member of my soup-group creates closeness with them, creates emotional connection and intimacy, and over time of nurturing one another consistently, creates trust and safety between us. These feelings – this pot of shared soup – are what we seek.

It seems likely that this token-exchange world view of intimacy, whether between lovers, partners, or close friends is not coincidentally extremely widespread in the culture that invented capitalism and the commodification of, well, just about everything.

To those whose ancestors accumulated the most wealth this earth has ever seen, the world appears a scary vacuum waiting to take it all back. In this competitive, individualist world-fantasy it only makes sense to create tiny citadels-of-two within which nurturance is reciprocally exchanged. How else might you know if your tokens are going down or up?

On the other hand, to those who have nothing but each other and hopefully enough to eat, sharing everything is a no-brainer. The extra kick of abundance that sharing everything creates is the only way everyone survives.

The risk in this second model is when ‘soup-makers’ encounter ‘token-exchangers’ and do not realize the different assumptions underlying their acts of care. Because even very generous token exchangers naturally have a fear of giving and a desire to be receiving, because they conceptualize nurturing as ‘generosity’ or at the very least derive satisfaction in giving by feeling they have ‘done a good deed for another’ rather than in the experience of connection itself, this system creates a tendency to keep score, if only subconsciously and only over the long term. Because they don’t fully perceive the direct gain to themselves in nurturing others, aware only of what they think of as ‘giving’ or loss of tokens, they may not even be aware that a soup-maker who nurtures them is not ‘giving’ but is making soup.

If the token-user cannot see there is soup being made right in front of them, they may try to hoard potatoes, because they believe they and only they must always feed themselves.

We understand this economically: sharing material wealth creates abundance that is much greater than its parts.

Attachment Theory, coming out of a field traditionally rooted in the primacy of the individual and the family, has managed to understand this extends to the couple, but has gone no further. In Wired for Love this is called the Couple Bubble, and you are told that No One Would Ever Do For You What Your Partner Would Do, and Defend The Couple Bubble against all outside bonds.

But the truth is anyone can be soup-friends. All it entails is knowing you are doing this together, and then doing it, and sticking it out, over time. Sticking it out even when things get tough, and working things out, because you are in this together.

True friendship, just like partnership, is not 50-50. It’s not ‘give and take.’ It’s 100-100, all in for all.

Because if you are keeping score and believe that connection is 50/50, on some low-token day you may decide you just can’t care, because you have not comprehended the cost, and believe you must keep all your tokens for yourself.

Ironically, it is those who hoard potatoes for fear of famine who most often end up hungry and eating alone. We understand this economically, and yet strangely enough, some have not yet made the leap between the economic principle and the social one.

‘The miracle,’ said Leonard Nimoy, ‘is this: the more we share, the more we have.’ This is as true of nurturance as it is of potatoes. Because everyone gains from the warm limbic connection that comes of vulnerability and trust, ‘giving’ nurturance to those you are close to is giving to yourself.

An understanding of limbic connection and how it works not only for couples but for all interdependent bonds can help bridge the gap.

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If this speaks to you or makes you think, please help out by sharing! thanks!

Read more: The Tricks of Shame and Hope

Read more: Nurturance is About More than ‘Tasks’

I love this Bay Area Transformative Justice pod mapping worksheet so much that big, dramatic, hyperbole feels called for. ie I wanna shout it from the rooftops and say it again and again: if you consider yourself a feminist man, or you allow others around you to let you walk around with this identity and you enjoy having that reputation, or if you find you get laid or get dates or partners because of this reputation, and if you have not yet mapped out your pod of people who you would want to call you on it when you act in abusive ways, then do this right now. like today. like right away. Because it is everything, it is wonderful: https://batjc.wordpress.com/pods-and-pod-mapping-worksheet/

ps I wrote a short post! Just for you.

Do you love speculative fiction and social justice? I’ve written a speculative fiction novella that explores the transformations our planet is undergoing and the undoing of cultures of domination. Cipher is currently exploring agents and publishers. Help it find its wings! Learn more about Cipher here.