When I was a kid, I used to play various ball games outside, which inevitably led to broken windows. Dad was fairly understanding. He just expected me to help him repair it. We would remove the glass and chisel out the hardened putty from the wooden frame. We had to keep an eye out for these little metal pieces that held the window in the wood frame because they were so small, they could easily be lost. Then we would first put in the new window, then the little metal pieces, then the putty.This is just one of many skills that my parents had that most of us in present time do not. Dad did all the maintenance on the boiler. He repaired his own car. Mum was even more skilled. She made made and repaired our clothes and cut all our hair. And the food... where do even I begin? Well, the meat grinder is where: a cast-iron hand-cranked contraption that attached the end of the table, giant pan catching the minced meat as it came out. When we had chips, she made them from whole potatoes, oil and salt. Oh, and by the way, she was also a full time branch manager for the biggest bank in the neighbourhood.
But it's not like my parents were some kind of standout super couple. My friend's father literally built the house they lived in. He and his brothers dug out the basement foundation with hand tools! And his mother also did their clothes, hair, meat grinding, and she worked at the neighbourhood fish and chip shop.That memory of the adults from my childhood neighbourhood has me thinking about how today's society is so much more individually focused than it used to be. This is downright laughable when previous generations were so clearly more self sufficient than we are. But it is also within our time too: If we substituted me and my mates for their usual team mates, Cristiano Ronaldo or LeBron James would not be enough to compete against even a mediocre opponent. The individual is nothing without the support of the surrounding group.
Even in the midst of a pandemic, the dogma of individual independence is so unshakeable, despite evidence to the contrary right in front of us. Throughout human history, cooperation and collaboration has been our super power. I cannot take on a gorilla or a tiger individually. But as a group acting cooperatively, we can. And in case you are thinking: I could take on a gorilla or a tiger on with gun... that's just me against the animal, right? But is that really just me? Did I mine the ore, smelt it, and forge it into the individual pieces of the gun? Did I mine the minerals and mix them into gunpowder and make my own shot? But even if I did all that, where did the tools come from that I used to mine, smelt, forge and assemble? Did I make them, or did somebody else? And what about the energy to heat the ore? Did I produce the fuel for that, or did somebody else? And how did I get to be in the presence of the animal? Did I take a vehicle? Did I build that vehicle? Was there a road? Did I build that road?I am not denying unique skills and contributions that could only come from a particular individual. I am saying that these individual skills and contributions are often meaningless outside the support system around them. As someone who frequently struggles to follow social conventions, I am also not suggesting that acknowledging the interconnectedness of our existence rises to the level condoning enforced conformity.
I am simply stating that right from the moment I opened my eyes this morning that almost everything within my field of view came to be there because of thousands of people that I will never meet. Looking out from these opened eyes, I am finding it difficult that we attribute so much to the dogma of individual independence with barely a thought of where the constructed world we are immersed in comes from.
Photo Credits
Window: Allstate
Meat grinder: Etsy
Hunter: FASA Games
Nonconformist: The Radical Center
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