Step 52 Up The Tribe Triangle: The Legacy of Reclaiming Kinship
“It is not the level of prosperity that makes for happiness,
but the kinship of heart to heart and the way we look at the world.”
-Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Alignment and kinship are the base of the Tribe Triangle as well as the foundation of both culture and humanity itself. Alignment and kinship are the two components of an honor-based culture which has evolved over hundreds of thousands of years to meet the survival needs of humans and give us a chance to thrive in a challenging world. The world that generated the honor-based culture of tribe also reinforced and rejuvenated it with regular and repeated real-life lessons. These lessons are now hidden from us by the success of our species. Like the fall of all great empires, our success contains the seeds of our undoing.
As we developed industrial farming that removed the need to hunt and grow our own food, invented climate-controlled living environments and removed all forms of predation, we also lost the drivers of alignment and kinship. Meaningful connections with the people we live and work with has become a seemingly optional investment.
“Humans become human through intense learning not just of survival skills but of customs and social mores, kinship and social laws-that is, culture.”
- Richard Leakey
Our current pride-based, me-centric world is proving to be disastrous for the physical, mental and emotional health of humanity. Stress-related illness and death is rising. So are clinical anxiety, depression, addiction and suicide that are now at epidemic rates. Feelings of loneliness and isolation are now accepted as normal. None of this is natural and none are healthy.
The solution to these critical challenges is to keep and celebrate the food, shelter and safety advances of our society while reintroducing kinship back into our close communities that require it. The work you are doing on these 52 steps is reclaiming our birthright of kinship.
“The first lesson of evolution was one of conflict.
The lesson now is one of kinship.”
- Holmes Rolston III
We will never go back to the time of tribes and villages and that is a good thing. Our destiny is at the scope and scale of the stars. While we cannot create kinship within groups as large as cities and nations, we can and must own the small cultures in which we spend most of our time. This is our immediate family and community and the team or department we work in. This hybrid model of humanity provides the health, meaning and belonging that can only come from kinship while still maintaining the pursuit of our unique destiny as a conscious species.
The kinship work you are doing with your family and work team is transforming the world. It may be the most legacy-producing labor in your entire life. When people experience the belonging of tribe they heal mentally, emotionally and physically. They become more functional at home and at work. This increased vitality directly impacts everyone they interact with at school, in their communities and with coworkers and clients. The ripple effect of healthy humanity has a vastly broader influence than we can ever imagine.
“The influence vital people vitalizes.”
-Joseph Campbell
Like everything else on this epic journey up the Tribe Triangle this process begins with you, Tribe Leader. Whether you have started this project as the pursuit of personal family and career improvement or answering the call to understand and solve some of the big challenges that are facing society today, all roads lead to kinship and belonging.
Remember Ubuntu, I am because we are and we are because I am. You are an indispensable component to your family and team. You are them and they are you. You are not sacrificing yourself for your people; you are celebrating yourself. There is no greater expression of love for yourself to have your people growing and thriving.
“Kinship: not serving the other but being one with the other.”
-Greg Boyle
We are currently facing new challenges at a scale and pace never experienced by humanity. Many of these challenges are at an international and global scale. Most of us simply do not have the operating system, position or resources to engage with many of the trials of this magnitude.
We do however, have the operating system, position and resources to address those challenges with the people and projects that we interact with every day. We may not be able to save the world but we can save our partners, our families, our communities and our work team. As leaders, creating the powerful social cohesion of kinship is our responsibility and our duty. You now have the map and it is your challenge to use it and answer the call to the creation of kinship. It has always saved us and it always will. Think globally. Act locally.
“A community is made up of intimate relationships among diversified types of individuals-a kinship group, a local group, a neighborhood group, a village, a large family.”
-Carroll Quigley
Click here to watch the video of Step 52: The Legacy of Reclaiming Kinship
Leaders Must Write and Speak
Answer these questions in your journal by really writing them down. Discuss them with at least one of your most important people and really listen to their response.
When you reflect on the beginning of your journey up the Tribe Triangle it started with the establishment of an aspirational vision to share with your family and team. What is the impact of this vision on the rest of the world?
“Whatever you are doing, take the attitude of wanting it directly or indirectly to benefit others. Take the attitude of wanting it to increase your experience of kinship with your fellow beings.” - Pema Chodron
Ubuntu,
Philip Folsom