When you situate yourself in a nexus of relationships–ancestors, community, spirits, nonhumans, and more–your role in the intergenerational gift economy becomes clearer. When this role becomes clearer, your responsibility as both inheritor and steward becomes clearer. Your responsibilities become your sacred task. They are no less tasks for being sacred, but the context matters. There are some responsibilities I have that are not easy. When I settle into the nexus, though, the clarity keeps me going.
To deny or ignore this nexus of relationships is what cultural critics have called the atomization of the individual. It has many effects, one of which is perpetual adolescence. Taking up your role in the intergenerational gift economy is what constitutes adulthood. The person who refuses their role in the nexus of relationships also refuses the task of adulthood, and so spends their life in pursuits of childish things.