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The Independence Myth
A Common Ground Column
by Loree Cook-Daniels

One of the myths Americans prize most highly is the fantasy of personal independence. We are, supposedly, a lone cowboy, I-depend-on-no-one-but-myself society. Dependence, the myth goes, is for weaklings. Children. Emotional cripples. True Americans stand on their own two feet and need no one.

This fantasy costs us. Working in the field of aging, I commonly see it in older persons with disabilities who are devastated by their increasing need for personal assistance. But the pain is not just older persons': one of the reasons people of all ages have a morbid fear of growing older or developing a serious illness or injury is the fantasized "loss of independence" that old age and disability supposedly brings.

Besides making us dread our own future, the independence myth poisons our relationships. It makes it hard to ask for help even from those we love, and it creates stingy and resentful givers. Politically, it allows us to demonize, marginalize, or ignore people who don't seem to have our same interests. After all, the independence myth tells us, we don't need anyone but ourselves.

The independence myth is wrong. We can't help but be involved in each other's lives, in a literally uncountable number of ways.

Let's start with the paper you hold. Who cut the tree it's made from? How many people were involved in transporting that tree, making it into paper, shipping it here? Who made the trucks, the machines, the roads or rails or ship or plane on which this paper traveled? Who mined the ore and shaped the tools all these workers used? Who grew, who harvested, who sold the food that fed these workers? Who planted the cotton or raised and sheared the sheep, wove the cloth, sewed the clothes they wore? Is there any way this page could have come to be in your hands
without the help of literally hundreds of people, virtually none of them known to you?

But don't be fooled: this is not a paean to the wonders of "market forces." Our connections are not just economic. One does not need to be a "contributing member of society" (otherwise known as a paid worker) to connect to others in a thousand different ways. Our lives would be almost literally impossible were it not for the non-economic ways in which we depend on each other.

Besides the people you know -- the friends who help you through the hard times and add sparkle to the good times, the relative you can count on for a loan if you need it, the neighbor who is happy to feed your cat when you're gone -- your life is enriched by the actions of people you have never met. An unknown gardener planted the flowers you enjoy on your way to work. Some anonymous good citizen picked up the litter you did not see in your front yard. A stranger picked up the letter you unknowingly dropped and took it to the mailbox.

These connections span time. Do you know who planted your favorite tree? Or who brought out your first lover's first lover? Do you know who taught your favorite writer his love of words? Or who nourished courage in the Gay activists you credit with making your life easier? Even your life itself is probably owed to some stranger: who among us does not have at least one ancestor whose young life was saved by some doctor or healer or good Samaritan?

These connections also stretch into the future. Someday someone you do not yet know will squeeze your hand as you wheel into surgery. Another current stranger will parent your great-grandchildren. Someone now in diapers will write a book or compose a song that will someday give you great pleasure. One of these people may well be the illegitimate child of a teenaged, inner- city, single mother on welfare. Or the grandchild of a rabid homophobe.

The truth is, the people to whom we are connected can be any age, any nationality, any gender, any sexual preference. They might fit comfortably in our favorite political organizations, or they might be the guiding lights of a hate group. All of that is irrelevant. What matters is that, in some
trivial or extremely important way, their lives touch ours. We are, quite simply, a part of each other.

What would happen if we quit buying into the myth of independence and began to see ourselves as integral parts of an immensely complex web of interconnections? If we began to more fully acknowledge the ways in which our lives and actions matter, the ways in which all lives matter, I believe we would change in subtle but profound ways.

On a personal level, we would lose some of our fear of growing older or getting ill. We'd find it easier to ask for and offer help. We'd probably be less prone to low self-esteem and depression.

Interpersonally, we'd start valuing each other more. We would find it harder to write each other off, to avoid listening, to paint each other as enemies that must be neutralized or destroyed. We'd find it easier to see and build upon the bridges that already connect us. We'd have more patience,
more willingness to look at and work toward the long haul.

Because in the end, we're all in this together. Always have been. Always will be.

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Revised: 03/21/02