Recently, I have noted again and again how much ways of being that I have long considered virtues seem to have fallen on tough times. Politicians and advertisements over and over again emphasize independence (and its corollary individualism) and self-centeredness (or in its brashest form, arrogance). What ever happened to interdependence and humility? How might our approach to our world and life choices be different if we placed these values/virtues at the center? Let鈥檚 examine each one in turn.
An understanding of interdependence is rooted in the scientific reality that all life on this planet is connected. Whether in looking at the effects of climate change, or gazing again in wonder at the delicate and remarkable interplay of species in the natural world, it is hard not to see connection everywhere.聽 Our very survival is dependent on the Earth.聽 Our ability to live in ways that are meaningful and fulfilling depend on our ability to relate well across differences that still threaten to tear the human community apart. Fear and anxiety and mistrust seem to be at all time highs. Anyone who not a family member or friend can be (and all too often is) cast as a potential threat.聽 The more we do this, the more we accept the narrative of fear, the further we recede into independence first ways of being.
This has led me to wonder lately鈥攚hat would it look like to see my interdependence as primary?聽 How would this change everything from routine interactions to how I spend my time to where I choose to give my money? The fact of our interdependence is a given; our acknowledgment of it far from it. Living as if our lives were truly dependent on others (and on the web of Life of which human life is just one part) would be a game changer.
In order to get to an interdependence mindset, we will have to let go of the stranglehold that self-focus has on us.聽 I am amazed by how often I encounter someone professing absolute certainty about their view or position or perspective. Whether or not they have any real expertise or experience or even knowledge of the subject at hand seems to have become irrelevant. It has become the loudest and most emphatically stated wins. I know from my life, however, that some of the most meaningful conversations I have ever had began when I said, 鈥淚 don鈥檛 know.鈥� or, 鈥淭ell me more.鈥� Having the humility to acknowledge what we don鈥檛 know, to hear about experiences and vantage points that are not ours is a critical ingredient in global citizenship.聽 One could even go so far as to argue that many of the problems we now face are rooted in the stubborn arrogance of leaders and others in the world who see their perspective as the perspective. It is only with humility鈥檚 help that we can see the complexity and nuance of situations that we might otherwise be tempted to flatten into simplest terms and lowest common denominators. If we have any hope of building connection rather than division we will have to listen more and speak less.
This Spring I came across these prescient words of Dr.Martin Luther King, 鈥� We must learn to live together as brothers [sic], or perish as fools.鈥�
We will need to find our way back to interdependence and humility if we are to avoid foolishness as a human community sharing this fragile Earth. May a way be found and made as we trod the path together.
Rev. Shana Lyngood聽is co-minister of First Unitarian Church of Victoria. She has loved and served in Victoria since 2010
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* This article was alos published in the print edition of the Times 91原创 on Saturday, Auguest 27.聽
