I ask for help

I ask for help.

I ask for help from the world and everything and everyone it contains.

I can do nothing alone.

Independence is an illusion.

Agency is not an illusion - but agency happens in a context of dependence.

The fact that I am able to write these words and send them out to you. The fact that you are able to read them. The fact that every day we are able to eat, sleep, shit, and survive. The fact that we are alive at all. For the truth of all these facts we depend unavoidably and irretrievably on other people and on the world beyond us.

As soon as I name those facts, they appear obvious to me. Why then are so many of us so ashamed about asking for help? About depending on other people? About needing the world? Why is it so difficult to admit that we do not have all the answers? That we do not have - by ourselves - the strength to carry on?

Every day, I am sustained by others. And not just people, but the world, too. The air I breathe - I did not make it.

This is such an obvious thing.

Every day, I am helped. Every day, unseen and unthanked people, processes, and forces - the planet itself! - hold me and carry me and let me live.

What is the point of all of this?

I am not sure. But these are truths that we must live.