The Myth of Independence

Freedom from Tyranny was Never Meant to Become Isolation

Adolescence is an interesting time. After depending on your parents for as long as you can remember, something arises to become your own person. It’s a slow process that begins around puberty and takes many agonizing years before reaching adulthood.

When the adolescent finally does break away, he finds himself, not alone, but immersed among his peers, navigating countless networks of relationships. The initial concerns of “Can I be free?” becomes “Will I be accepted?”

While independence is the initial thrust of adolescence, its conclusion lies in a realization of interdependence – that we are free agents, yes, but in a larger field of relationships, intricately woven in endless loops of exchange.

This is the process of becoming an adult—the hallmark of maturity.

Nations are no different.

America broke away from its English parent 250 years ago, establishing itself as a melting pot of many nationalities sharing a common identity: Americans.

Breaking from the Mother country and the stern rule of the Father, this new land was founded on a rugged individualism, from free thinking to free markets. Here was the freedom to make your own way, to live as you wanted, with a Declaration of Independence declared our rights to replace an abusive parent government and rise up with something better.

It was a noble, evolutionary move that created a powerful country, one that led the world in innovation, if not with a shadow of domination.

Are We Still Adolescent?

I’ve often said that humanity is collectively going through its adolescent initiation into its planetary adulthood. Our initiatory challenges are the circumstances that plague our world: climate change, the decline of democracy, ecological imbalance, and really, all parts of the poly-crisis that are forcing new ways of living, sharing resources, cooperating and collaborating.

This is interdependence at its best.

Evolution proceeds by creating ever more complex bodies of interdependence. After three billion years of individual cells multiplying and spreading across the globe, those ancient cells finally learned how to put themselves together. Within 800,000 years, the first multi-celled organisms evolved into forests, whales, elephants, and eventually upright humans texting on cell phones and flying to the moon.

All because of symbiotic interdependence.

Now those upright creatures are learning how to create a global civilization. From villages to cities to countries and now encompassing a whole planet, we are creating ever larger bodies of interdependent organization.

Nothing great has ever been accomplished alone.

Every symphony, every civilization, every scientific breakthrough, every child raised into adulthood emerges from networks of exchange—giving and receiving, acting and listening, teaching and learning, co-creating.

As we celebrate the 250^th anniversary of America’s adolescent rebellion, can we now mature into the realization of how deeply interdependent we all are? That migrants enrich the societies they join, that the earth and all its species form a miraculous web that supports life, and that individualism is only one stage of human development—and not necessarily its highest expression.

The Declaration of Independence sought freedom from domination, not freedom from one another. Independence from tyranny was never meant to become independence from community.

We become independent to find ourselves, but once we know who we are, we realize our purpose is to contribute to the elegant, living web of which we are a part.

On this 4^th of July consider these questions:

“What am I interdependent with and do I feel gratitude for how it serves me?”

“What is dependent upon my actions, and how do I serve those relationships and the greater whole?”