Mutual relationships

As we are all humans we all have human rights and, thus, we have the same rights. We all have the same rights and responsibilities. But beyond that, we sometimes consciously construct relationships around a set of rules or understandings that spell out the ways that we each have the same rights and responsibilities.

Take the players on a baseball team. All of them have the same rights and responsibilities. Each has a right to a turn at bat. Each has a responsibility to field the ball. They may decide to play different positions with different expectations about what each position's responsibilities are, but the players can switch positions. When, in the fifth inning, the pitcher's arm begins to fade, he can go to right field and the right fielder can come in to pitch. Each player has fundamentally the same rights and responsibilities.

They may select one member of the team to be the captain. The captain has special rights and responsibilities but they are temporary and limited and if the team doesn't like the way the captain fulfills his role, they can vote him out and select a different captain.

The coach on the other hand is in a reciprocal relationship with the players on the team. The coach doesn't have the right to be on the field when the ball is in play, but does get to decide the batting order. The coach has a mutual relationship with the coach of the opposing team but has a fiduciary relationship with the umpire; that is, the ump creates the game[1].

[1] A cub reporter gets an assignment to cover what turns out to be a really dull baseball game. Desperate he looks around the club house and spots the three umpires standing over against the wall. Hoping for a story he goes up to the first one and asks, "How do you call ball and strikes?"

"I call 'em as I see 'em."

"Oh," he says and shrugs and goes to the second one and asks, "How do you call balls and strikes?

"I call 'em as they are."

"Uh huh", he mutters and turns to the third umpire, "And you sir, how do you call balls and strikes?"

"Sonny, until I call 'em, they ain't nothing."

The first umpire is allowing his understanding of the game to be shaped by the rules as he understands them. He looks at the rules and at the play and tries to associate them as he sees them. He knows there may be other interpretations but he is centered in the game. He is functioning at 3°.

The second umpire is not allowing for any other interpretation of reality. What he sees is the only reality there is, or could be. He is more ego-centric than the first ump. He is functioning at 2°.

The third umpire is not only saying that there is no other interpretation, or that there is no other reality, he is saying that reality itself is constructed by his experience. He is something beyond ego-centric. He is purely at 1°.