Dependence.

My good and blessed friend B. can no longer drive on account of his near blindness.

He recently e-mailed six of his good friends with a request that one of us would drive him to an appointment.  He added these words "I hate to be dependent".

I responded by saying that I and his other five friends like him so very  much,  that we are more than pleased to be asked to drive him hither, thither and yon, and that  we would do  so even if we did not like him!

I added:

"I too hate to be dependent  -  until  I remember I an dependent every single day. 

Water flows freely from my faucets, my home is supplied with electricity, and the trash and garbage are collected. Life would be entirely difficult or unmanageable without such services upon which I depend".

I could have added so much to this list of daily dependencies. For indeed our lives would be impossible without all those dependencies which we take for granted.

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I know that these  dependencies (in truth they are inter-dependencies ) go against the grain of much of our "I did it my way"  culture.

But until I am able to dig my own well, or generate my own electricity, or recycle  my own trash, or grow my own food I will opt for the vision of inter-dependency  -----as opposed to the bogus ideology of rugged individualism.



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