No Man is an Island

I haven't posted for a while, and I thought that what I was going to post about was my frustrations and joys with playing video games, but something came up yesterday that struck me a bit more intensely.

I was chatting with an aquaintance online who was in a bit of a crisis, and over the course of the conversation, they told me 'I hate the feeling of needing help'. To me, this was a bemusing statement. At the same time, I could sympathize, and could not. Maybe everyone feels this way, at some level. We all want to be perfectly independent, totally self-reliant, and many of us suffer the delusion that we are. I can't afford that delusion. I can't read normal print, and I can't drive, so I'm very dependent on other people to survive in our modern world.

The funny thing is, even for healthy, fully-functioning people, it is still a delusion. You think you can survive on your own? You don't grow your own food, most likely. You go to a store and buy it, and because you do, you feel like you've aquired it by your own means, but it took someone else to grow it, to process it, to deliver it, and to present it in a reasonable place for you to aquire it. You didn't build the car you drove to the store to buy it in, most likely. Many other people were involved in building that car for you. You likely didn't build the home you came back to, or the refrigerator you stocked with the food to keep it fresh long enough to eat it. Every one of us is dependent upon thousands of other people for each and every aspect of our modern lives, and we've gone to great lengths to forget it.

So set aside your fear of looking weak, of needing help, and become a part of a society, where you contribute what you can, and accept the contributions of others with grace and gratitude.