Symbiosis - Three Primary Relationship Types

Bonsai Tree

As individuals we grow and develop the nature of who we are by our
experience.  There  are times when we should channel our choices and we can guide our growth like carefully crafted bonsai trees.  Other
occasions call for us to go with the flow and our lives more resemble
a mountain field of flowers.

Without some careful consideration our lives can resemble more of a weed garden than a mountain meadow.  This is because we often take for granted the work that is done to maintain a beautiful mountain meadow.

In nature the effective relationship between different species creates

the beauty and wonder of our open spaces.  These relationships include simple and complex examples of symbiosis where a multitude of organisms work together in three types of relationships. 

• Mutualism
• Commensalism
• Parasitism

In mutualism all of the parties to the relationship benefit from the
association.  In commensalism one of the parties benefits while
neither harming nor helping the other.  In parasitisms one organism or
person benefits at the expense and even harm to the other.

Our lives are full of symbiotic relationships.  But how often do we
pause and evaluate our relationships and their qualities?  Before
jumping to any quick conclusions each of these relationship types are
essential for our well being in an ever-diverse and complex world.

It is easy to discount parasites as bad and evil because their very existence comes at the cost of others and their well being.  But
simple examples like organic farming and more complex applications
like cures for allergies and other illnesses, show parasites have their
place.

I benefit from the wonders of social media.  In many ways my

relationship to social media is more of one of commensalism.  I enjoy
tremendous benefit because of the authors on wikipedia, the memes of
facebook and the quick fact updates of Twitter.  In all of this I
usually get great reward at the effort of others with no real benefit
or harm to the others by my actions.

I have an immediate bias and prefer relationships of mutualism.  In
the give and the take of our interactions we feel like we are doing
good, but we also enjoy the benefits we receive from others.

However, as long as we exist in symbiosis we should generally feel
good about our situation.  What we want to avoid is codependence. In
codependence, our excessive fixation and manipulation of the other
comes at the expense of both.  Any relationship that is mutually
harmful will, by definition, ultimately fail and that failure will
often come at great expense.

So as we plan for the upcoming year let us consider our relationships
and make goals and plans for a healthy symbiosis in all of our
encounters.  Some of these will result in planned and organized
gardens.  Others will result from similar hard work but their beauty will be unexpected and seem like unplanned mountain meadows.