Hyper-independence

So I was prompted to think about my own hyper-independence again upon seeing this twitter post:

My mind original thought about “hyperindividualism”, but I suppose there might be a distinction between “hyper-independence” and “hyper-individualism”; for now I might use these interchangeably. I will not go into any sort of sociology structuralist perspective of western society creating hyper-individualism. For now, let’s focus on the trauma induced hyper-independence. I think about this because I think I am a victim to my mind in this regard as well. If this was shown to me one year ago, I might’ve had a more emotional, physical reaction due to some things being put together/clicking, but luckily I’ve had time in between then and now due to the help of other people, talking about things, and this is no longer a surprise to me.

What causes one to feel and see the world in this, besides natural predispositions, I think it’s obviously “trauma” or negative lived experience. I don’t think reading history is enough to push someone to be like that – there needs to be a more concrete, real world grounding as long as we live “mostly” in the world of atoms – although this seems to be changing and soon to be a world of bits. I would say for me it’s due to a combination of both lived experience and my own weaknesses that have shaped me in becoming wanting to do everything by myself and not asking others for help because I feel like they can’t help me or I wouldn’t be able to make use of their help, or whatever excuses I can come up with on the fly.

The number one thing that has helped me to become less hyper-independent is positive shared experiences with other people. That’s the number one thing, number two is probably time. The passing of time doesn’t inherently heal, but work across time accrues a lot of benefit. Even tiny amounts here and there, make a difference; I think it compounds/exponentials.

However, I must say that a lot of things seem very fragile when I think about them too much. It seems that for someone who might overthink but denies it publicly should kind of chant the mantra “think less, do more” but this sounds so stupid when I write it out and say it out loud. I think it helps, as long as you set up a good routine / plan / structure that projects yourself into a better person over time and just follow it. I’m not good at connecting with other people, let alone reaching out to others (another perhaps character flaw), but I think for problems like hyper-independence, the best solution is good shared experiences with other human beings. One delicious, god-like apple might just erase the foul taste of your last worm-infested apple…