Life itself comes through the stems. Every human is connected umbilically, in an uninterrupted chain right back to the first two original parents. All life flows through the stems. We forget that too easily. No human develops true humanity without receiving first life, and then love, not to mention food and shelter, from other humans.
Every family understands the necessity of sharing.
No functional family expects each individual to be always and fully autonomous and self-sufficient. When we seek to impose that silly standard upon society at large, it is because we are blinded to the fact of our spiritual stems, the reality of our lives as family. It is sharing and giving, living as family, which make us human and give joy and meaning to our lives. The essence, the fulfillment, of our lives derive from our living in harmony with the tree. It is an illusion for us to imagine that we may concern ourselves solely with our own well being, or with that of our immediate circle, those leaves which are clustered about our own particular twig.