Interdependence: The dependence of two or more people or things on each other [Oxford English Dictionary]
i have just returned from an incredible few days camping at the Cederberg with an assortment of pretty amazing people.
Much fun and games and dam building [yup, we literally built a little dam and it made the one pool rise about a meter – impressive stuff] and time and reflection and food and words and Extreme Bocce Ball matches and fires and wind and great conversations and deep laughs.
But as we headed towards the New Year we joined our friends, the Stewart family, for an annual exercise they do where they pick a word for the coming year and share the significance of it with the group.
In previous years i have had the word ‘Intentionality’ as my word because i believe that both the having of an idea/plan/vision as well as the intention of using it/putting it into practice are important and feel like Intentionality describes that to me.
But for next year i chose the word ‘Interdependence’.
We grow up with the lie and smoke screen of dependence as if that’s the end goal of life.
THIS. IS. ALL. ABOUT. ME.
But that’s not true, and if you follow that yellow brick trail long enough and get to peek behind the curtain, you become sadly disillusioned and deeply disappointed by what you find there:
The emperor has no clothes.
Bruce Willis was dead the whole time [If you haven’t seen The Sixth Sense by now, you do not deserve a Spoiler Alert]
The ants always outnumber the crickets.
And more.
In a nutshell though, it turns out Helen Keller [and Jesus!] was right all along:
Interdependence: relying and depending on each other. Because we know that doing it any other way leads to an awful mess.
It leads to a 1 percent that owns as much as the rest of the 99% put together, or close enough to.
To me enjoying my expensive yacht, while you grovel in the sand for a leftover piece of chicken bone to suck the marrow out of.
And worse…
So part of my vision for 2017 is going to be seeking to replace areas/attitudes/practices of independence with Interdependence. Looking to work with, connect to, walk alongside, give a leg up to, play with, create together…
What is your word for 2017?
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