Independence – Not What It Appears To Be

The Fourth of July got me to thinking about the idea of independence. What exactly does independence mean?

Several synonyms for “independence” are: self-reliant, self-sufficient, self-contained, separate, unaided, unallied. It doesn’t take deep thought to see that all of this has to do with the Self. And it doesn’t take more than a moment’s reflection to see that the Self described by these synonyms not only does not exist, it cannot exist. But before I look more deeply into that idea let’s see how the dictionary describes independence:

• Freedom from the control, influence, support, aid, or the like, of others.

True we don’t want to be controlled by others but the truth is to one degree or another, more or less, we are. Parents when we are young or we can’t survive; friends when we are older and are intensely dependent on being accepted in the world of our peers; and authorities of various kinds as we live out our lives.

• Not influenced or controlled by others in matters of opinion, conduct, etc.; thinking or acting for oneself; separate.

On the face of it if you have an opinion your opinion exists in a context and you either agree or disagree with that context. Opinions don’t emerge out of whole cloth. They are dependent on subject matter, your intelligence, your emotional capacity, your willingness to align or oppose---with what? That upon which you are dependent for your opinion. Think about it, if you had an opinion that was not help by anyone else alive you would not be a genius. You would be mad, and even then you would not be alone. Yes it’s true that you can formulate your point of view and your point of view may be novel even special but it cannot be unique in that it is your and yours alone without being influenced by the thoughts or actions of others.

On the Fourth we celebrate our independence from Great Britain. But in the thick of the war we were deeply dependence upon France. Several examples of that dependence are exemplified by:

• General Lafayette, was a French aristocrat and military officer who fought for the United States in the American Revolutionary War;
• In 1781 a French fleet defeated a British fleet during the battle of the Chesapeake Bay off Yorktown. The outnumbered British fleet had no choice but to surrender.
• Pierre Beaumarchais was at the center of an arms traffic to support American insurgents.

I am not making value judgements here as to what was better or worse but to say that no one stands alone completely self-sufficient---no one, ever.

Independence in the sense defined above, which is how most people understand it, is not merely an illusion. It is a delusion.

When I was working toward my psych degree I worked and a board-and–care for schizophrenics and paranoid-schizophrenics. The residents were locked deeply within their own imaginings and had no way out. Some were capable of having superficial conversations but whenever a topic triggered their inner fantasy life they would virtually collapse inward and were not reachable. They were compelled by their inner voices and the commands they received from their own distortions. In their way they were beyond the control, influence, support, aid of others. They were radically disconnected and absolutely separate.

It doesn’t take much to realize just how interdependent we all are and it is our very interdependence that stands at the base of our identity, our sense of self, our dreams, hopes, and yes, fears when the connections are broken.

Not long back Obama was pilloried for saying that some business man did not build his business alone. His success was part his efforts and part the interaction with the community in which he worked and lived. None of us either do or can stand alone.

The next time you think about independence take the time to do an assessment of how you have managed to get where you are. There are a lot of people, influences, support, aid, and care without which neither you, nor me, nor any of us would make it.

Yes we celebrate the Fourth of July and that’s a good thing but what we celebrate is the coming into being of a nation, a birthday of significance.

 (Photo Credit: Barry Yanowitz)

Jim Sniechowski, PhD and his wife Judith Sherven, PhD https://JudithandJim.com have developed a penetrating perspective on people’s resistance to success, which they call The Fear of Being Fabulous. Recognizing the power of unconscious programming to always outweigh conscious desires, they assert that no one is ever failing. They are always succeeding. The question is, at what?

Currently working as consultants on retainer to LinkedIn providing executive coaching, leadership training and consulting as well as working with private clients around the world, they continually prove that when unconscious beliefs are brought to the surface, the barriers to greater success and leadership presence begin to fade away. They call it Overcoming the Fear of Being Fabulous. https://OvercomingtheFearofBeingFabulous.com