Independence Day [my 4th July !]...

Independence. Independence, like many ideas in life, I thought I understood. It is only when you get older , your experience things, you experience people and all that culminates into a realisation of how little you really know and how little you really understood. I guess Shakespeare's proverb holds water in this case, in that:

'A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool'

You LikeIt. Act 5:Scene 1

I ask you a simple introspective question of: how independent are you?... I give it a second, and then ask you to think again, how independent are you, really? We all love the idea and rhetoric that we are in fact independent. Independent from what? Independence from your family? well, for those who are at university then you feel moving to a new place, with new people, no longer relying on your mother to cook for you. Is that independence? Its a form of I will agree. The notion of independence also sits neatly with positivity. we like the idea that we are or could be independent. Its a positive trait...is it? Too often than not I see people who consider or view themselves and quote unquote independent. Free men they say! well... yeh... cool mate. I can perfectly understand that view point, and it is one I used to take. After all our teenage and adolescent years were all about establishing such a thing. It was the golden years of rebellion, of pushing away those who control you.

My view on independence is that its something far more fluid than a simple, I am or I am not. Dependence more often than not, just shifts. Back to the university example, dependence arguably has simply shifted from your close family, to the government paying for your tuition fees. The institution you study at becomes your new mother, and the peers around, your housemates, become a myriad of dependent connections. Independence isn't established at all. Dependence is dissolved amongst a large series of partnerships giving the illusion of independence. Independence used to be something I sought after. Now I consider it an undesirable outcome in many respects but a necessity in others. Recent events in my life have thrown my independence into perspective. I have realised that I had put my eggs into one basket so to speak. Despite my youthful intentions, I had become all too dependent on a small number of entities, people mainly. It took someone with a considerable level of dissolved dependencies for me to realise that I should revert back to that idea of 'independence'. Canada, good friends, and a series of events have lead me back to an exciting time in my life whereby the status quo is questioned, and once again life asks 'what do you really stand for, and what do you want'. Of which the answer is one I still find unnatural...independence. I feel in many respects I have constantly tried to grow up faster than I ever should have done. I take life too seriously at times, so here is a testament to a new dowling. A dowling a bit more like dowlings have historically been rather than 'should be'. I feel a little regression is on order and to revert back to that great pursuit of something I thought I understood, but now realise I know nothing about. Its time for an adolescent mind I feel, a bit of fun, roll on the good times and once again pursue independence...

x9