Post-individualism

That’s the thing about attachment—you need to depend to be independent. You need a stable base to venture out. Something to rely on to take risks. Some stability to cope with chaos. Otherwise you can’t explore with confidence. If you fear abandonment, you won’t risk romance. Words will feel traumatic. You will stay stagnant, afraid to move. Maybe

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There is a Zulu phrase, ‘Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu’, which means ‘A person is a person through other persons.’

someone who has low self-esteem is really a narcissist in disguise, because both share the obsession with the self, no matter if it’s awesome or awful.

So we all know that the hard boundary we place between ourselves and the world is somewhat artificial. Sure, on one level you are a separate being, different from any other. You can move your own arm, you probably can’t move my arm. On the other hand, your life is a product of an incredibly complex enmeshment of influences that can be traced back

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All this to say, being abandoned is not trivial. Not only having divorced parents, but being cut off from community, from culture, from all sources of support. Maybe it means more to you than you are letting on. Feel it, grieve it. Then turn that disappointment into determination. Nothing’s guaranteed, but we can take the pain and put every inch of

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