'e-Family' Anyone? Why Connection Needs You to Give Up a Little Privacy

A family is a basic social unit that helps members survive as one fairly independent functional module. This module is the basic building block of our society. It goes without saying that if these basic modules are healthy, the emergent social structures too would be well oiled and functioning optimally.

So let us look at this basic building block. Let us start with a simple question.

How many people are actually required in a family that is at its optimized best?

We can begin working out a number. How do we arrive at that number? Let us try two people. A husband and wife. But soon you realize that is very incomplete. With only two, they have to do everything themselves. The strain becomes enormous. As they age, they have to put in more and more effort, which impacts them negatively. By the time they reach their sixties or seventies, no one will be there to look after them.

Fine. Let us try four people. Four is better than two, but the probability of problems remains high. One person or two might not cooperate. A child might die young. So while four is definitely better, it might not be a lot better. It might win only by a small margin, or it might be almost as inefficient and unoptimized as two members.

So you take this logical approach. You start considering numbers, traits, and attributes of different parts of this family set. You look at it mathematically. Eventually, you arrive at a number that is near perfect for an efficient and stable family. That number might be variable: eight or eighteen or even twenty five, depending on the personality of the individuals that constitute the unit. Regardless, it comes with caveats, conditions, a specific mindset, and certain compromises.

You are okay if only one or two are breadwinners. Another one or two act as chefs or cooks. Someone takes on procurement. Another looks after medicine. Not everyone does the same thing. Not everyone is required to be a breadwinner, because that would betray the very purpose of being a family. Surprisingly, as different people willingly assume different roles, the family becomes like a corporation. It becomes more and more independent and stable. There are breadwinners, bread makers, entertainers, and also managers who can step in when a push comes to a shove, acting as a backup and disaster recovery unit. In such a setting, every role is equally important for stability and proper functioning.

As you start adding more members and variables, you realize something else. You do not have to worry as long as there is respect for others' work and passion for your own work. But eventually you will reach a number. Above that number, when you increase the family further, stability issues begin to appear. More misunderstandings. More problems. More issues with leadership. As you go beyond the optimal unit, the system starts to crash again. So mathematically, you should be able to look at any community and figure out its stabilizing number. The number above which it becomes a problem, and below which it is not optimized.

What determines this number? Why might the ideal number be around nine for one group and twenty eight for another? The answer lies in the collective capacity for adjustment and mutual respect. Some groups are naturally more accommodating. Some have a stronger foundation of trust and shared purpose. The number is not fixed universally; it emerges from the unique traits, temperament, and agreements of the people involved.

So what is the main prerequisite for achieving bigger families? The biggest challenge is that you have to be open to respecting every member. To establishing connections. To sharing, caring, and being invested. The larger the number, the more accommodative the group has to become. If you want your privacy, your mom wants her space, your sister wants her freedom, and each person wants to be free to do whatever they want, then you cannot think of a stable family of more than two or three people.

You have to come to an agreement. This is what I will do. This is what my parents will do. And most importantly, you have to be ready to accept others as extensions of yourself. You have to be more accommodative and understanding. If my sister behaves this way, I am okay with it. If my uncle does that, I am okay. This is where we adjust. The more adjusting you become, the larger your family can grow, and the more stable it can become. But it is not just about you, is it? Other members too should be open to this approach. Most, if not all, have to be able to grasp the concept and understand the benefits of the approach. It is about a perspective.

Once we understand that perspective, we can then look at our own family and plan as to how we can stand united as a cohesive unit before we embark on a journey to stability by increase in numbers. Not as friends or a social group, but as an integrated single unit. As a family.

Now, here is a personal truth. I do not want to spend my time earning. Because if I spend my time earning, then I am again living in a nuclear family, not a joint family. What is my forte? My forte is research. Spending time on research. Had I been roaming around, making customers, talking to customers, I would not have been able to do even one tenth of what I have done. The value I bring to the table is my ability to process, understand, connect, and come up with healing methodologies. If that is what I am good at, and somebody else is good at marketing, and somebody else is good at earning, and we create a system, then what happens? We become a small independent ecosystem. Regardless of what others outside the system think, we become a well oiled, stable, independent functioning unit.

But the thing with a joint family unit is that you cannot be too rigid. Many people from the current generation will not be able to create a large joint family unit. Why? Because today it is all about individual privacy and freedom. That is how we have been brainwashed. The attitude becomes: I am not going to adjust. I need to care for myself. This mindset becomes a limiting factor. With it, you cannot form the bond of trust, love, and sacrifice that is the very bedrock of larger units.

My experiment with the 'e-Family' model

Let me share a personal story.

My current family is not made up of members from a bloodline or a genetically connected lineage. In this electronic age of emails, e-commerce and everything e-driven, I have an e-Family. And long before we got started on this family building and crafting exercise, we realized the need to share and to trust. To that end, in our house, everything is shared. My phone can be used by anyone, and so can the spaces. I do not have my own bedroom. I have let go of even wanting one. Not because we do not have any, but because they are spaces that are open to everyone. I am not suggesting that this is the right way or the way it is done. It is just that this is our way of building our family.

The undeniable fact: adjustment is not compromise

So when you want to build a joint family, you have to understand long term stability versus short term compromise. And the short term compromise is not really a compromise. It is an adjustment. When I decide to stay in a metropolitan city, I should be okay with letting go of the greenery and clean air of my village. That is a compromise, but it is no big deal if I understand the benefits and can see the bigger picture. If I want a place where the temperature is perfect, the water is perfect, there are green forests where I can rest under a big tree in privacy undisturbed, and also have offices and malls and everything I desire, I might never find such a place. You cannot get all things.

Our current need is to move beyond our wants of privacy, freedom, and other individualistic desires. We need to consider building systems that will help us address our real needs. Good food. Clean water. Useful education. Safe medications. Systems that belong not to individuals but are shared by all members. Systems that can plug in with other similar systems so as to grow by connecting as modules. By sharing, cooperating, and networking not just for money, but for true wealth: happiness, contentment, and health.

Can we build systems like that?

Yes, of course. I am building one. So can you.