This definitely speaks to my heart. I personally feel that so much of our relational, human ways of being with one another have been pathologised in our intensely individualistic culture. "Co-dependence" is a term that's become so laden with negative associations (even shame). I'm suspicious how much that serves an ever expanding capitalist agenda too. Our overweening cult of individualism has left a lot of people exhausted and isolated. And so many don't have the capacity to follow the hero's journey (such an emblematically individualist trope hey? A mostly linear, boot-strapping, ableist trajectory). Interdependence, and co-dependence are possibly the truth of the root systems that have long nourished us - with all the nuanced discomfort of these as well as their safety and support.
Because even the potted plants (especially them) depend upon the often invisible hands that water and feed them. So perhaps we're not at all functional without a village, we've just deluded ourselves that we are. The village is at more of a distance, faceless, but it's still there providing us with what we need to survive even in isolation if we pay for it (water, power, food, housing). Our ability to outsource is perhaps part of the hubris & delusion. Because in this recoiling from "co-dependence", this alienation from inter-dependence that we have makes me think of that Buddhist quote "everything good—every form of happiness, all positive qualities and so forth—comes through the kindness of others".
Sorry - long comment. Thankyou for such a great post.
This definitely speaks to my heart. I personally feel that so much of our relational, human ways of being with one another have been pathologised in our intensely individualistic culture. "Co-dependence" is a term that's become so laden with negative associations (even shame). I'm suspicious how much that serves an ever expanding capitalist agenda too. Our overweening cult of individualism has left a lot of people exhausted and isolated. And so many don't have the capacity to follow the hero's journey (such an emblematically individualist trope hey? A mostly linear, boot-strapping, ableist trajectory). Interdependence, and co-dependence are possibly the truth of the root systems that have long nourished us - with all the nuanced discomfort of these as well as their safety and support.
Because even the potted plants (especially them) depend upon the often invisible hands that water and feed them. So perhaps we're not at all functional without a village, we've just deluded ourselves that we are. The village is at more of a distance, faceless, but it's still there providing us with what we need to survive even in isolation if we pay for it (water, power, food, housing). Our ability to outsource is perhaps part of the hubris & delusion. Because in this recoiling from "co-dependence", this alienation from inter-dependence that we have makes me think of that Buddhist quote "everything good—every form of happiness, all positive qualities and so forth—comes through the kindness of others".
Sorry - long comment. Thankyou for such a great post.