My libidinous energies were invested in a somewhat diffused way -- not in parents but in the community in which I was brought up, along with its geographical environment. This is a substantial difference between her and I. I have never actively sought my parents' approval -- although I have been happy when I got it. Rather, I sought to live in harmony and equilibrium with my local environment. It is an approach implied in this ethos:
Greetings in Shona usually go something like this; "Makadii?" (How are you?) The answer usually goes; "Tiripo, kana makadiiwo?" (We are well, if you are also well). Infused in this greeting is this society's ethos. The recognition that our destinies are intertwined. That no person is an island. That we belong to the human family. That each person has responsibilities not just to themselves, but to the community to which they belong. That you are what you are because of others. Hunhu, ubuntu.
My ethos, in a similar vein to that above, has been to live in harmony with things in general, or otherwise to be left alone. This is not particularly bourgeois (as it has little to do with the nuclear family.)
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