The Myth of Self-Reliance - The Paris Review

“I’m just thinking that ... nobody goes for a walk without there being something that supports that walk outside of ourselves. And that maybe we have a false idea that the able-bodied person is somehow radically self-sufficient.”

My sense is that what’s at stake here is really rethinking the human as a site of interdependency. And I think, you know, when you walk into the coffee shop ... and you ask for the coffee, or you, indeed, even ask for assistance with the coffee, you’re basically posing the question, do we or do we not live in a world in which we assist each other? ... See more