Our Interdependence

Breaking through the myths and messages to find ourselves through each other

I woke up today musing about our interdependence.  Society offers messages that tell us to be fiercely independent.  Don't ask for anything.  Don't need anything from anyone.  That is the hallmark of adulthood in a kind of libertarian fantasy.  And that's a part of America's enduring founding myth: rugged individualism.

And we talk of our need for each other in terms that are pejorative like codependence.  And we could get in the weeds and discuss the difference between interdependence and codependence.  We must always account for nuance and context.

But I argue that we, via lots of mechanisms of modernity and chance and happenstance, have become so insular as to tell ourselves we don't need what we clearly need and might want if we let ourselves.  And that is togetherness.

We may not even think we want togetherness, touch, approval, time spent together etc, but we are not mere spirits floating around.  We are in an earth-suit and it is the 10,000BC tribal model.  We have existed until very recently in tribes with families and shared spaces and shared duties.  Rites of passage, hunting, gathering and community gathering were typical the world over.  Those that still live like this have a high quality of life. Our bodies need this and I think our spirits do too.

There are lots of ways to get community.  We can have a lover and not be married with kids.  We can find community online or at work or at a bar watching a sporting event.

But we still are what we are.  Human animals, seemingly with a spirit inside, but that's up for debate.  I have no inside information here.  But I know it's ok to need who and what we need.  It's ok to long and it's better when we quench those longings, even if they don't feel like our longings, but artifacts of our earth-suit itself.

All the world's a stage and perhaps we are actors playing the role of a human in a strange time of conflict and division.  A time of undue disconnect and ultimate connection.  A time where we can traverse the planet with ease, and yet the planet and its inhabitants are unsure of what's to come or what to do about the elephant in the room.

We may never unlock the mysteries of our existence, but I say why not treat this life like a play and join our troupe.  Practice learning the lines but ad-lib as needed.

And if it's a game, then give the spirit inhabiting the earth suit what it needs to survive and go on to the next adventure.  Find every potion, every shield and every ally.  If this is a game, then let's play.