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> When we choose to go through a life transition without the help of others, we steal away from those around us the profound joy of... There is no work that do

> When we choose to go through a life transition without the help of others, we steal away from those around us the profound joy of... There is no work that does not contain an iota of it's author. To allow others to be involved with you is also to allow them to change you - and you to change them. This is both a threat and a promise. If your identity is intimately aligned with the people who are helping you, this is great. If your identity is not aligned, this is terrible. Individualism is an alternative, and it's an alternative to collectivism. One of the things collectivism depends on is a unified identity, often times touching the religious, cultural and familiar. Thus collectivism works well for the Amish who don't tolerate breaks from their hegemony - even choosing a different barn design can become a pitched cultural battle.

kelseyfrog 4y ago
This framing, individuality or collectivism, is a false dichotomy created to reenforce the idea of the superiority of individuality. It's an malignant simplification that requires the effort of critique to realize how it functions as part of a larger assemblage of social machinery. Nearly all of us operate in a patchwork plurality of social relations formulated on any number of identity perspectives. Sure, some people may read this and go full Amish, but the call to action doesn't seem to be that. The call to action is to take a risk, reach out to that acquaintance when the time is right, and ask, "I know we aren't that close, but I might need some support. Can I count on you?"