We Also Need Someone to Snap Us Out of Our Illusion of Independence

Have you ever stopped to think about how very dependent we are? We here in America view independence very highly. But even those who we hold up as our greatest examples of independence still fall vastly short of true independence.

Think about our bodies for a minute. Every few hours or so, we need to eat food and drink water in order to keep our strength up. Not only that, but every few seconds, we need to breath in oxygen which our bloodstreams carry to our muscles to keep them functioning properly, and to keep us conscious in the first place. These three things - food, water, and oxygen - are things that exist apart from our bodies.

I'm not saying we aren't self-sustaining in a sense. We grow and manufacture the food we eat. We purify the water we drink. We plant plants which expel oxygen so we can breath. We can create systems to sustain ourselves, but the fact remains that we still need these external objects in order to keep going. We even make multi-vitamins with our essential daily vitamins and minerals because of that fact. Our bodies do not recreate them. Our bodies cannot sustain themselves.

In contrast, a car - which is a man-made machine - only needs to refuel about once a week or so, possibly less depending on things like the model of the car and how often one drives it. Our man-made machines can outlast us. They still need maintenance and refueling, but not nearly as often as we do. Not only that, but we build cars and then become dependent on them for our lives: we need them to get to work, to go grocery shopping, and so forth. We also become dependent on other man-made things: we rely on HVAC systems and clothing to keep us warm in winter and cool in summer. We rely on houses to shelter us from the elements.

I'm not even talking about other needs here. I haven't touched on our emotional or our spiritual needs. What about our need for companionship? Humans are not meant to live apart from other humans.

It seems to me that we are simply hard-wired to be dependent on something, like we weren't meant to be fully independent, like we weren't meant to think we can do anything and everything on our own.