https://www.patreon.com/posts/filial-revisited-96878831
The Eastern Perspective
If you read the little bloggy post I put out on MLK day… well, thanks for the extra effort you put in, first of all. I truly have learned not to expect that people will READ, and I appreciate the work that goes into it.
Second of all, let’s revisit that idea as we move into our next – highly related – one.
We learned from our prior article on Narcissus, trapped in time, that Vulnerable Narcissism is intertwined with a negative past time orientation in which the sufferer ruminates on early traumatic events and generally shitty happenings.
From the events, they have low esteem, they socially withdraw, they turn up the dial on their alchemization of sadness into anger, and they become hostile to the point of antagonism.
Folks in their trauma throes – or, PTSD – sound a lot like this. And those of us who have gone through our own trauma battles often say “we have parts that we identify as on the VulNarc spectrum.” Difference being, we have made moves to exit this world of memory torment and specialized form of social withdrawal, through the hard effort of recovery.
So, from that perspective, it seems as if the full Vulnerable Narcissist is imprisoned IN their trauma, well after it has all physically ended.
On the same note, we all know too well that Vulnerable Narcs are known for their emotional manipulation and presentation of victimized helplessness. And the connection seems clear that this is also a remnant of traumatized times, the scars of which haven’t been properly healed.
Here’s my recently written-about thought on that front: Along the path of trauma endurance and recovery, we often have to ask for help from our social network, eventually. We realize we’re in over our heads and seek assistance in physical, emotional, or psychological ways.
OR, we can display such overwhelm that people OFFER to help us, without requiring the direct ask. This is what I believe happens with the VulNarcs most often. They “stumble into” social support based on the symptoms of their untreated PTSD.
So, the big Q is… If Vulnerable Narcissists are, in fact, trapped in a sort of “permanent trauma brain,” doesn’t it track that they’re also trapped in a state of relying on this social handout?
They go through difficult times. Someone finally notices. They provide assistance.
The VulNarc, in their perpetual traumatization, accepts the help. From the success of this endeavor – the dopamine reward for having something beneficial happen – they subconsciously learn “hey… being broken ENOUGH is the way to get people to care about me… and re-examining my autobiography of shit times, I have a lot of things I can feel broken about…”
And so, the rest of their social engagements go this direction.
Presenting themselves as weakly as possible in order to indirectly request and receive support and need fulfillment, because they haven’t otherwise learned how to via the neglectful and abusive upbringings they faced. Focusing on the negative past as a foundation. And allowing all events in the present and future to be framed equally negative, so that help can continue pouring in.
Eventually, for the VulNarc, emotional manipulation and basic care go hand in hand, enmeshed as one, because they don’t learn how to fully care for themselves as strong, empowered, autonomous, adults. They, on some level, “need” to be disempowered and codependent to have any path forward in life, because they don’t have the esteem to support themselves.
And doesn’t that explain some shit?
For me, it fits perfectly with my observation that VulNarcs are… children. On a social developmental plane, anyways. They only know how to behave as children in relationships. Which is why dealing with them is so difficult, illogical, unreasonable, emotionally based, and reactionary.
Because they are – in fact – in their own heads – trapped in time. In the same traumatizing conditions they endured much earlier on.
All the time, space, and energy in the world doesn’t encourage them to grow AWAY from this childlike ice sculpture they embody in their brains…. It only doubles DOWN on the patterns from that time period and solidifies them as permanent personality structures.
… Probably because they have exiled child parts that simply aren’t being heard or healed, so they’re doomed to continue living from these pieces of their developmental psychology. Accidentally creating collaborations between Exiles and Manager Parts in order to create a very immature, emotionally unmanaged, needy method of operation in their day to day lives.
In doing so, forcing everyone around them to play “adult” to their immature counterpart.
And on that note, yeah, it seemed like a good time to bring in another old conversation, revisited.
The real topic of the day, which is so deeply connected to VulNarcdom that it’s hard to avoid speaking to it…. So we’re bringing it back.
Let’s discuss, again, Filial obligation.
Because. As the majority of us seem to come to understand, our parents expect us to care for them as they age… and oftentimes, they will go about it in the most immature, manipulative, victimizing ways possible.
Filial obligation, in many cases, is how we reapproach our parents as adults after a bit of our own healing has taken place… and in that sober light of the sanity that we’ve found since leaving their homes… we find out about VulNarcs through our re-connection.
“Somehow they seem entitled to the world, while also insisting they are the individual targets of the planet’s focused cruelty.” We realize. And it’s not long before a research-capable Fucker stumbles upon the phrase “covert or vulnerable narcissism” to explain the contradiction they’re observing.
So it seems fitting to transition from that conversation on time-locked-trauma-imprisoned- helpless-child narcissists… into discussing our questionable responsibility towards them as their health fails.
What DO we owe them for? Their time, their investment, the fulfillment of their conventional expectations, a friendship between us that’s built on mutuality? Is it even correct to frame Fililal Obligation in the light of indebtedness? How does “gratitude” and the judgment of “beneficial actions” fit into the mix? From the Western view, there are many questions to examine.
And, from the Eastern perspective…
Is there a view that could actually – if you’re up for it and I’m not saying anyone needs to be – reframe the whole experience of filial obligation so it isn’t solely of one-sided benefit?
… Or is that shit all a scam?
Hm.
Today. Let’s dive into an essay I found from way back in 1997, discussing the various arguments for and against Filial Obligation. While I can’t say that there’s any one conclusion to draw in this highly personal set of circumstances, as least there are bountiful moral and rights-based opinions to contemplate on the topic.
But… I’m going to give you the writing out of order.
Leading, of course, with the most damning of the views.
First, we’re going to discuss the extremely challenging aspects of highly-conventional and culturally-enforced, Confucian-based, Filial Obligation. The specific views that will probably be most offensive to the vast majority of this community… unless, of course, we, ourselves, are the parents who are expecting Filial Devotion from our kids. In our first show, we’ll mention the worst of it and move right along.
Because then we’re going to discuss five alternative philosophical discussions of Filial Obligation from five additional thinkers of Western origin. Some for, some against. Each one with a highly distinct argument for their case – what matters in parent-child relationships and where are boundaries drawn? I think you’ll be sometimes surprised, sometimes thrilled, and sometimes frustrated with what they have to say, and what our narrating author has to say in return.
After that dive, we’ll return to discussing the Confucian view… but in a less-upsetting light. We’ll look at the counterarguments to the moralistic tale spun by our article penner AND we’ll pull out the nuggets of gold from the piles of shit that he spews. So, in episode three, I’m going to tell you the potentially positive perspective shifting beliefs that underly the more offensive ones. Where “Self benefit” meets “caring for these VulNarc assholes”… somehow “for the greatest good of both of us.”
And, of course, within that episode, we’ll end on the “real talk” of it all. What we can gleen from these six distinct philosophies, how to use them to influence your own decisions, and how to engage with FIlial Obligation from a place of higher-self and healing, if that’s the obstacle currently knocking at your door.
So. Let’s talk about taking care of families.
Along the way, lettuce wrap in our own wisdoms from a trauma-informed and experienced lens, in order to “even out” some of the idealized parenting perspectives that these arguments are based on. And see where we all fall with our thoughts on Filial Obligation – as givers AND receivers – after hearing so many perspectives of varying validity.
Sound like a plan?
Sick.
Let’s get into it.
The Confucian Perspective – the bullshit we hate, at first glance
Today we start with the troubling information.
You may remember an old episode from 2022 in which we talked about Filial Piety. I gave you several traditional Chinese vignettes that demonstrated the concepts of moral filial obligation.
They were… upsetting.
The beautiful tale of a child who slept outside naked in order to attract all the mosquitoes to himself, rather than his parents, is the one that comes to mind most rapidly.
So, to say that the traditional, duty-based, Eastern view on Filial Obligation is a bit challenging to the individualistic and rights-based Western perspective… is bit of an understatement.
That’s what we’re here to examine, to some extent today. The life-duty versus life-rights debate that underlies many of these discrepant arguments.
And I’m starting us off with a return to this traditional, duty-centered, Eastern perspective.
Ready? Great, let’s get upset.
The article: Shifting Perspectives: Filial Morality Revisited
Author(s): Chenyang Li
Source: Philosophy East and West, Published by the University of Hawaii, Apr., 1997
Li tells us:
The primary purpose of this essay is to provide a Confucian perspective on filial morality as an alternative to the mainstream Western perspective, namely to show that the Confucian perspective is plausible on its own account. I, however, do not pretend to have found an over- arching framework in which one can demonstrate that one tradition on the whole is superior to the other. I submit, that the attempt to demonstrate that one tradition is superior to another would be futile.
… Nevertheless, one may be able to compare aspects of two traditions to see how each deals with some problems of shared interest. Through comparison one may be able to show that one tradition has a stronger and more plausible view in some particular areas.
So, Li is a proponent of Confucianism as the basis for Filial Obligation behaviors. He has a moral and dutiful view on the conundrum. Yeah, he thinks he’s right. But, he’s not here to tell us what to do, either.
And, to dive right into his troublesome Confucian views that are likely to make a lot of us scream, he starts with a short story:
The August 25, 1993, issue of the Chinese newspaper People’s Daily reported that in Shandong Province a ninety-year-old woman sued her two sons for failing in their filial duty. The woman’s husband died young and left her with two sons, one and three years old, respectively. Through countless hardships she brought them both up. Now she had become old and could not work. Neither of her two sons wanted to take care of her. The court intervened in her favor, and the sons agreed to take full responsibility for her living and medical expenses.
In China, the law states that parents have a legal obligation to rear their young, and grown children have a duty to support their aged parents.
This reflects a Chinese social value that is deeply rooted in a mainly Confucian culture. Unlike in the West, where filial morality is rarely a philosophical topic, in China it has long been at the center of philosophical discourse.
Alright, anyone else already fostering some big Qs on this situation? Or shuddering at the idea of your parent being able to seek legal recourse against you for something like going no contact?
Yeah, seems problematic. And it’s only going to continue.
Li tells us:
Filial morality is one of the areas that deeply divide traditional China from the contemporary West. Many Westerners have found this Confucian value hard to accept.
For example, Bertrand Russell commented: “Filial piety, and the strength of the family generally, are perhaps the weakest point in Confucian ethics, the only point where the system departs seriously from common sense.'”
Shots fired, Bertrand. Maybe that’s a bit harsh.
OR… maybe not. Here’s what constitutes the Confucian ethics around family caregiving. There are five points. Keep a checklist in your head of the points you don’t agree with – mildly – and the points you don’t agree with – to an indignant degree. Here we go.
In ancient China, filial piety included five types of behavior.
First, one must support one’s parents. The Classic of Filial Piety states that “supporting one’s parents is the filial piety (xiao) in common people” (chap. 6).
In this first point, they’re referring to “support” in a financial and material sense. Point two is a different type of support. Ego support.
Second, one must honor, revere, and obey one’s parents. Confucius said, “Filial piety nowadays means to be able to support one’s parents. But we support even dogs and horses. If there is no feeling of reverence, wherein lies the difference?” (Analects 2:7). Mencius said, “[T]he greatest thing a filial son can do is to honor his parents” (Mencius 5A:4).
So give them what you’ve got, physically, and keep your cognitions set to “supportive” as well. You have to feel GOOD about them, or it doesn’t count. Sounds like mental and emotional dictation to me. And I’m a pretty firm believer you can’t rule over someone else’s internal world. But how about their gonadal experience?
The third type of filial behavior is producing heirs. Mencius said, “There are three ways of being unfilial. The worst is to have no heir” (Mencius 4A:26).
Sigh… Alright, now they also get to control you or your partner’s womb and lifelong experience devoting yourself to parenthood. SO. Let’s just hold our discussion of this point until later.
The fourth is to bring honor and glory to one’s ancestors. The Classic of Filial Piety states that “to establish oneself, to enhance the Way, and to leave a good reputation behind, in order to make one’s parents illustrious, are the ultimate goal of filiality” (chap. 1).
AKA bring no shame upon your family. This could include a great many implications, such as “ain’t no queer a child of mine,” or, “only lawyers and doctors belong in this family.” Dream big, there are a million ways we can “disparage the reputation of our families” based on their socially held judgments, beliefs, and biases.
Last one.
Finally, after the deaths of one’s parents, one must be able to mourn and offer a memorial service and sacrifice to them
So, lastly, upon the transition into death, we need to give them a good sendoff into the next world while continuing to remember them on this one. And, I mean… let’s memorialize and revere who deserves to be memorialized and revered, no? Across the board, must we be raising statues and setting up altars?
Overall…
I know, we already have a lot of “whatwhatwhaaaat” moments taking place here for the trauma-informed and experienced among us.
To recap this very shallow touch upon Confucian Filial Ethics so far:
- First of all. Great, that lady sacrificed to raise her sons… that’s nice… but, from a trauma experienced mindset that’s wholly aware of how “reality” tends to get skewed when spewed from the mouths of abusers… there’s no mention of how this mother treated her boys while she kept them alive. Maybe they aren’t just “horrible people,” but have reasons for the obvious detachment they felt from her. Sure, as we struggle financially, our parenting tends to suffer. No doubt she was overdrawn. BUT, still, a government body may not have had to demand they financially contribute if the relationships had inherently created an authentic inspiration to return the care.
- Second of all. Quick point. Ethic number two: Honor and revere my parents? Okay. Follow up question: For what?
- Ethic number five: And do it forever after they die? I mean, it gets easier to forgive and soften towards your rents after they’re in the ground, let me say that much. But still… memorialize them forever after death… for what?
- Thirdly, we’re failing our parents if we don’t procreate for them? From the moment we’re born, we’re obligated to crank out children? Welp. Got some bad news for them. The world is burning and generations of procreation-age would rather give their dogs really good lives than bring more humans into this mess.
And many other points of great concern.
Including, again, “bring only honor onto your family name.” Ohhh Fuckers, that could go so wrong, in so many ways. Talk about a prompt for lifelong self-repression.
But we’re going to come back to these five ethical tenants of Filial Obligation at the end, when we let Li make a real argument for Confucism. One that, actually, has some reframing potential, if you’re able to look past the potential snake oil of it all.
Before we get to all that, first, let me just keep giving you the glaring negatives of this duty-based perspective held by Li, based on his Confucianistic cultural views.
With the next piece of it that he discusses sounding very familiar to the conversation we were having at the top of this show…
How ELSE is this Eastern perspective problematic for many of us?
ON: NOT MAKING REQUESTS AND EXPECTING SERVITUDE ANYWAYS
Yep, getting right into the manipulation of it all, Li says:
In Confucian duty ethics, the morality of Jen demands that, within such a fiduciary community, those who have resources, spiritual as well as material, ought to be the benefactors, and those who are in need are entitled to be beneficiaries.
In Chinese culture, people in need are usually unwilling to ask favors; it is up to those who are capable of offering favors to come forward to do so…
In other words, it is the moral requirement… that compels the capable to offer benefits or favors to those in need.
So it’s up to the individual to notice and offer what they have to people who have less. Furthermore:
The person being offered a favor would show reluctance to accept it and decline out of modesty by saying things like, “I would not want to burden you with that … “;
Unless he is sure that the offering party is sincere, he would not accept the offer.
Hence, for the Chinese, request has little to do with the generation of favors.
So, if this has you thinking “Ohhh, excellent, perpetually fawn over and serve the VulNarcs,” we’re on the same page. Isn’t this sounding like the “correct thing to do” is to carefully anticipate what people around you need, and to expend great effort trying to force those points of care down their throats?
Isn’t that… fucked up?
Look, none of us enjoy asking for help. Most of us will suffer great consequences instead of biting the bullet and making the request. And in loose social situations, yeah, I think it makes sense to refuse the offerings of people we don’t know very well – at least, unless they absolutely insist and it would be offensive to continue to reject their kindness.
BUT. This excerpt is 1) about our family members, not strangers. And 2) also framed differently by our education on the mandatory fulfillment of needs, and the manipulative experiences we’ve had around the needs of others. Isn’t it?
What have we been talking about for several months now? Our needs. Our responsibility to meet our own needs. And our subsequent responsibility to directly request help to meet the needs that we can’t fulfill on our own.
If we can’t do that, well, we can’t expect people to sense our helplessness and pick up the pieces for us. And we can’t “put on shows” to exaggeratedly demonstrate that helplessness, in order to shuilt others into adulting for us, either.
We HAVE to care for ourselves, with a purposeful approach that includes the humbling experience of asking for assistance sometimes, or else we are terrors to the world.
Right?
Well. What does this Confucian perspective say, instead?
“Nah, you should be monitoring the people around you for ways that you can deliver them what they lack. They will make a demonstrative show out of refusing your offerings. You will validate this behavior by doing what they’re coercing you into. You must insist that they accept your help. Really fight to convince them to allow you to fulfill their deprivations. Or else, it means you are an immoral person.”
Doesn’t that sound like the people around us displaying their perceived helplessness and victimhood in order to provoke others to offer them care? The VulNarc conversation about learned manipulation that we opened the show with?
And then… doesn’t it also sound like these same people being massive pains in the dick about accepting what they were passively trying to influence us to give them, anyways?
Doesn’t that sound like… a lot of our parents already? The very things about them that drive us insane and make Filial Obligation behaviors next to impossible, even when we attempt to “be ethically correct”?
Well, yes. But the Eastern perspective that is founded on duty says it’s the right way.
And, somehow, in our otherwise Western world, this Eastern philosophy is the underlying narrative of the people who have come before us.
SO, uh… What other points from this view can make us tear our generationally-trauma-educated hair out?
Let’s talk further about these “dutiful ethics” that are up for discussion, especially concerning how hard and selfless life has been for everyone except us.
ON THE NEXT GENERATION’S RECEIVED GIFTS
How else can we be infuriated about reality vs. the stories we’re fed first thing in the morning?
Well, Li tells us we owe great debts to our families, also, because:
An often cited Chinese proverb says, “[A]n earlier generation plants trees under whose shade later generations rest.” This short sentence has a rather profound significance.
Traditionally, Chinese peasants would take a rest under a shade tree while they worked in the fields under the burning midsummer sun.
When people doing things of benefit to late- comers cite this proverb, they mean that if nobody had planted the trees, late-comers would not be able to rest under their shade; therefore, in order for their descendants to enjoy some sort of benefit, the benefactors feel a need to do something even though they themselves may not benefit from it.
When late-comers received the benefit “planted” by their forefathers, they would cite this proverb, meaning that they appreciated their forefathers’ effort in “planting the seed” for later beneficiaries.
There is also the proverb, “[W]hen you drink the water you must not forget those who dug the well for you.”
You can see where this is going.
In this kind of culture, the relationship of benefactors and beneficiaries is expressed in terms not of rights but of duties and benefits that we owe each other. Based on this duty ethics, there is a mutual obligation between parents and children.
When children are little, their parents have a duty to take care of them; in turn, when children have grown and their parents are in need, the children have a duty to take care of their parents.
Return the investment that was made before you were grown, they say. Look at all the effort that went into growing your tree. The question being… once you plant the tree, isn’t it sortof your job to keep watering the thing? Isn’t that a responsibility you’re signing up for? How much returned care do we owe people who HAD to provide for us, and so, therefore, they at least “kindof” did?
Well, we’ll continue discussing that point into our next episodes, because it seems to be the focal point of this conversation in many ways. But for now, Li says:
In this duty ethics, from the premise that parental care is a discharge of parental duty it does not follow that the child does not owe his or her parents anything when they grow old and are in need.
So, in this view, it doesn’t matter if our parents were required to keep us alive. It doesn’t matter if we struggled, suffered, and found great misery in that lifetime. It only matters that we ARE alive. Because we’re still breathing, we’re in debt to those life providers.
Which, I think a lot of us struggle with. Hence, all those feelings of “parental ambivalence” we mention. Welp, Li says, get over it, you aren’t revering your kin and that’s a damn sin. Sigh.
And if you’re ready for this to step up one additional level of annoyance, what does he say…
ON THE GOLDEN RULE
Who’s ready to feel highly manipulated?
Confucius’ teachings can be summarized in two words: zhong and shu (Analects 4:15). Zhong implies conscientiousness. One should be conscientious in developing one’s virtuous character. Shu means extending one’s own mind to others.
This is the golden rule that you should not do to others what you do not wish others to do to you (Analects 5 : 11); by extension, you should do to others what you wish others to do to you (Analects 6:28).
The idea of shu enforces the duty ethics on filial piety.
Okay, this is making sense, right? We treat people the way they have treated us. So, you’d think that we treat our parents the way they treated us…
WRONG. Stupid idiot, there’s no accountability for our parents. Only us.
Now check out this argument of the Gold Rule gone wrong:
Confucius himself specifically applied the concept of shu to filial piety by including the following in the Way of the morally superior man: “to serve my father as I would expect my son to serve me” (Doctrine of the Mean, chap. 13).
Would not every one of us wish that our children accompany us when we are old and lonely, or serve us at our bedside when we are sick and infirm?
The Confucians would say, then, that we ourselves must start serving our own parents.
So. The Golden Rule isn’t about our parents’ behaviors. It’s always, entirely, about ours.
Right out of the gate, we hear that we need to respect and serve the people who laid the groundwork for our lives of improved circumstance. To which, many of us would say… “what trees did these Fuckers supposedly plant for me? What wells did they dig?”
Sure, we can identify the shade that these people have thrown. The darkness they’ve cast onto our lives. And there’s certainly a tunnel they dug for us, spanning the space from the earth we walk on straight to hell.
But, um… I don’t know, from my perspective as someone who’s seen my parents seemingly do a similar or WORSE job providing for us than their parents did for them… I’m not sure what honor to extend for the non-sacrifices they made to un-better things for the next generation.
I don’t know about your clan, but I’m pretty sure mine forgot to plant those trees.
So there’s the first hole to punch into this argument of returning resources.
Secondly, if we’re basing this whole idea of moral Filial Obligation on the Golden Rule… well… doesn’t that go both directions? Well, not round this argument. Here, instead, we say “you only get what you got, you’d better give more if you want to eventually receive what you deserve.”
And it’s sortof brilliant, in its backwards abuse justification, huh?
Couldn’t the parents simply be kind to their children, in order to receive kindness back? Couldn’t this scheme be a little more direct than waiting for the spawning of new human beings to make up for the one-sided efforts that parents have made?
Nah.
Instead, Li says that Confucianism states “be kind to your parents, because someday you’ll want your kids to be kind to you.”
And that really seems like a thought-loop created by some unaccountable parents to me.
“Just keep serving this person who hasn’t necessarily treated you with any kindness, and wait for another, purely hypothetical, relationship to hopefully, karmically, return kindness your way somewhere down the line.”
“Being a child of this parent has been a horrible experience for you, but someday you’ll have your own children to abuse and rely upon, and then they’ll dutifully serve you just like you’re doing for your parents now, so that your kids can theoretically rely on THEIR abused children to do the same in another generation!”
Let’s all take a moment to let this sink in and appreciate the genius of it.
The cycle never ends. Continually offer more care to people than they offer you. Maybe that will eventually come back to be a positive force in your life. If not, well, that means you didn’t actually offer enough care to the careless people you were raised by.
It’s an infinite loop of reverse-logic that can’t be broken.
But. This discussion on why the Eastern, duty-based morality, perspective on Filial Obligation, is highly triggering and sounds like a thousand mile high pile of bullshit… must.
SO.
LETS WRAP
For now, let’s set this Confucian argument for Filial Piety aside.
It’s upsetting!
At least, it is for me. The societal abuse justifications and inconsistent ethical rules for particular individuals are a littleeeee difficult.
But I’d love to hear your thoughts on what we covered so far. Pop em down in the comments if anything made your ears perk up and your – possibly outraged – gears start turning.
Support your parents.
Honor and revere them while you obey their every word.
Bring them babies.
Don’t dishonor your family name – whatever the fuck that could mean.
And memorialize your rents when they’re in the cold, cold, ground.
Furthermore, be sure you’re focusing on how you can help others, always. They won’t ask. You must guess and you must force your assistance down their gullet.
Also, don’t forget all the trees that have been planted for you. Repay those debts. You owe the people who animated this future corpse.
Finally, be sure you follow the Golden Rule… but, in the sense that you don’t treat others the way they treated you. You treat your parents like royalty and accept that they will continue to be shitty to you. Hopefully, down the road, your own progeny will be kind to you the way that you were kind to others.
Keep in mind, this doesn’t say that WE have to be kind to OUR children, either! We’re also entitled to be abusive to them and expect that they will kiss our arthritic, age-mutilated feet down the line.
And, uh, what do you think about any of that? Share with the crew, if that’s something you’d like to do.
And from here, let’s jump into our next section of the discussion.
Next time, we’re going to connect again with Li and talk about five alternative – Western – views on Filial Obligation. Both, arguing for and against the practice. Some, we will probably enjoy. Some, are a continuation of societal abuse, normalized.
I can’t promise that any of them will relieve you of all strife, of course. But I DO promise, they’ll give you a lot to chew on.
From there, we’ll fill our mouths one more time, as we come back for episode three. I then reveal the self-based side of the Eastern view, which might change everything for some of us.
Or… might sound like some VulNarcy parents, still trying to manipulate their kids into obeying them with great servitude, and getting a lot more creative in their tactics to do so.
Sigh.
Yeah. We’ll see where we land at the end of it as a community.
How DO we approach FIlial Obligation. And is there a helpful reframe that we can use when we have no choice in the matter.
I’ll see you next time to deepen the conversation, as we get into the bulk of the thought-provoking details.
For now, I think we can conclude… “There’s nothing wrong with needing a hand, and everyone will come to that point in their lifetimes. So learn to make direct requests for the help that you need, and use that help to help yourself… or else… suffer the fate of the VulNarc. Perpetually trying to convince others to care for you in ways that you can’t, yourself. And maybe even requiring Eastern Philosophy to find the justifications for the uneven, self-serving, duty-based, relationship dynamics you’re demanding.”
But I’d love to know your takeaways.
Until we talk next time…
Hail yourself, yourSelf, and all your parts.
Hail your right to decide how you’ll engage with the people who mowed down and set aflame the forests your generation was supposed to benefit from.
Hail Archie and Barkus.
And cheers, y’all.
Talk to you soon.