The Ubiquity of Reciprocity: An Introduction to Reciprocal Philosophy

Reciprocal Philosophy is about the ever-changing reality that confronts us from second to second during our lives. Time is forever moving forward: “Nae man can tether time or tide” (Robert Burns). From one second to the next we enter a new world that never existed before. The reciprocal outlook recognises the ceaseless change and development that is going around us. Our cells are continually dying and falling away to make the dusty air that surrounds us. We inhale and exhale throughout our lives thus changing the air around us. The most solid and enduring objects are undergoing the subtlest of changes before our eyes as they interact with the surrounding air and decay through subtle chemical and physical processes. Nothing stands still; it only gives us the appearance of doing so. In practice, we believe implicitly in the solidity and durability of the objects around but science, as ever, corrects our common sense thinking on such matters. Otherwise, we would still believe that the Sun goes round the Earth, instead of the Earth merely rotating to produce day and night.

Everything around us is temporary and nothing is entirely permanent. This philosophy is a way of describing and thinking about our changeable world. It offers a dependable but adaptable method of responding to an ever-changing reality. It concerns the way we reciprocate in response to events. We are interacting beings that flourish when we are productively involved in events as opposed to being buffeted and bothered by them. We can seek permanence not in things or events but in our permanent state of inquiry and wonder about life, the world and everything in it. Reciprocal philosophy thus advocates a permanent state of openness in always moving forward in search of better things.