I read this piece of work by Yung a long while back
It was a meditation on the injunction to treat your neighbor as you would like to be treated
And what Yung pointed out which I really liked
Was that an injunction to be nice to other people
It was an invitation to reciprocity
It was something like this
Is like you should figure out how you would like to be treated like you were taking care of yourself
Not how you would like people to respond to you
It's more important than that
It's like imagine you had a child that you really cared for
And someone said “Well people will treat this child exactly like you want them to”
“But you have to figure out what that is.”
And so, then you'd have to sit down for like a month
And you think okay well how do you want your child to be treated
You don't want everyone just to be nice to them
You know you want people to challenge them and you want people to discipline him
It was a meditation on the injunction to treat your neighbor as you would like to be treated
And what Yung pointed out which I really liked
Was that an injunction to be nice to other people
It was an invitation to reciprocity
It was something like this
Is like you should figure out how you would like to be treated like you were taking care of yourself
Not how you would like people to respond to you
It's more important than that
It's like imagine you had a child that you really cared for
And someone said “Well people will treat this child exactly like you want them to”
“But you have to figure out what that is.”
And so, then you'd have to sit down for like a month
And you think okay well how do you want your child to be treated
You don't want everyone just to be nice to them
You know you want people to challenge them and you want people to discipline him
The first chapter I have in my book Is called is “Stand Up Straight with your Shoulders Back”
And it's an injunction to be combative
Not least to further your career let's say
But also, to adopt a stance of ready engagement with the world
And to reflect that in your posture I kind of have an affinity for lobsters
When a lobster loses a fight, it kind of crunches down so it looks smaller
When he wins the fight, he stretches out, looks bigger
And so, he's signaling other lobstersThe tally of his victory
So, you think well so what
The lobster runs on serotoninNeurochemical
And if the lobster loses the serotonin levels go down and if he wins the serotonin levels go up And when the serotonin levels go up
He stretches outAnd he's a confident lobster
And one of the consequences of that is if a lobster loses a battle
And you give them the equivalent of antidepressant then he stretches out and go fight again
And it's an injunction to be combative
Not least to further your career let's say
But also, to adopt a stance of ready engagement with the world
And to reflect that in your posture I kind of have an affinity for lobsters
When a lobster loses a fight, it kind of crunches down so it looks smaller
When he wins the fight, he stretches out, looks bigger
And so, he's signaling other lobstersThe tally of his victory
So, you think well so what
The lobster runs on serotoninNeurochemical
And if the lobster loses the serotonin levels go down and if he wins the serotonin levels go up And when the serotonin levels go up
He stretches outAnd he's a confident lobster
And one of the consequences of that is if a lobster loses a battle
And you give them the equivalent of antidepressant then he stretches out and go fight again