Interdependence
Growing up in Canada, I was not quite as subject to the American myth of meritocracy, perhaps, as many who grew up in the US.
I did, however, remember being briefly bedazzled by the books of Horatio Alger — Ragged Dick and Mark the Match Boy were the two I remember best and read more times than the others, but they were more. I didn’t see through the formulaic, naive premise. I believed back then I could accomplish anything.
Emi Nietfield’s article, a kind of review of Bootstrapped by Alissa Quart, effectively lays out how profoundly delusional this myth is. The clue was right there all the time in the impossible notion of pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps. Yet it fit so beautifully into the American dream that millions wanted so badly to trust that they threw away all critical thought so to do.
More basic delusions, perhaps, lie embedding in the concept of the pursuit of happiness — suffering, desire, instinct, pleasure, ego, avoiding pain, hedonism, accomplishments, personal growth, co-dependence and other complexities of life can lead one to imagine these paths to be ways to find true happiness. Arguably they ultimately come up empty.
However, enlightenment isn’t necessarily as simple as it is described in places like this, or as easy as just buying the right book. For many (most? all?) of us, it’s a lifelong process that can take a multitude of forms, including decades imagining it is about some combination of the things in the paragraph above and more. Meditation and/or yoga over the years might be a way there. Conversely, they might be distractions, posing as the end rather than the means.
In the end, being connected with reality means fully leaving behind any myths that have to do with ‘I did it all myself’. We all live our entire lives dependent on a huge web of people, processes, resources, and economies. Each one comes into the world as the latest in a very long genetic line based on thousands of human relationships and whether from a perspective of the physical, emotional, mental, psychological, or spiritual, draws from countless others to sustain life, grow, and develop.
Owning one’s interdependence is perhaps to only way to be fully free to be this particular expression of the Universe in this place and time.
