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The Fallacy of Self‑Sufficiency

Some people will tell you — quite loudly, usually — that they are enough. They need no one, thank you very much. Entirely self‑made. A closed circuit.

I, too, fancied myself an island at one time. A small, sturdy principality of one. I paid my own bills. Made my own tea. I even spoke aloud to myself in the supermarket queue, which was meant to prove something.

But late at night, when all the heroic independence had been done for the day, there it was — a sort of homesickness without a forwarding address. You know the feeling. You’re supposedly sovereign, but you still wish someone would knock.

Self‑sufficiency is a word that weighs a bit too much. It sounds like an insurance policy or a piece of camping equipment. It promises freedom, but only the kind you can fit in a box. Like eating an entire birthday cake alone — which, I confess, I’ve done.

Because the truth (and it arrives, as truths tend to, when you’ve just burned your toast) is that we are made of others. We are essentially a committee. You may pay your own rent, but who taught you to spell “rent”? Who showed you which way up to hold a fork? Even my most private thoughts come pre‑translated into a language I borrowed from someone else.

Even when you announce to the room that you don’t need anyone, you need someone to roll their eyes at you.

We’re stitched together by invisible strings, most of them tangled. We depend even as we swear we don’t. The silence you’re so proud of is full of everyone who walked through your mind to get you here.

Self‑sufficiency, then, is a dignified kind of delusion. Grand in theory. Utterly impractical in practice. It doesn’t keep the rain off, and it’s rubbish company when you’re ill.

Eventually — usually on a Tuesday, when the kettle’s broken — the illusion collapses. You realise you are a little bit of everyone and everyone is a little bit of you. This is mildly disappointing, of course. But also, strangely, a relief.

And your heart, having finally stopped its exhausting attempt to be a fortress, sits down quietly and asks for a biscuit.

And perhaps — perhaps then — you’re free enough to laugh at yourself. Which is, in its way, a beginning.

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