Dependence starts when we’re born and lasts until we die. We accept our dependence as babies, and ultimately, with varying levels of resistance, we accept help as we get to the end of our lives. But in the middle of our lives, we mistakenly fall prey to the myth that successful people are those who help rather than need, and broken people need

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We’re not meant to be independent creatures, all alone. We’re meant to depend on each other. It’s an unsettling truth: the less we depend on each other, the more we depend on the market. We summon eggs to our apartment via an app instead of simply asking a neighbor. We hire a therapist—incapable of loving us back by design —and forget to call our... See more

I’ve been comforted and energized by this idea — which I first heard in this interview with the novelist Zadie Smith — that caretaking is a kind of liberation.

It’s liberation from the idea that we can self-optimize ourselves to the point of not needing anyone else. That if we work hard enough to survive in a competitive economy, we’ll be able to... See more