Independence

Independence. Surprisingly, the word in itself carries a strange paradox. Independence is a positive concept and a very powerful one. Yet the word is grammatically negative and it has its meaning only by negating ‘dependence’ ! That means it is utterly dependent itself !

Here lies the catch. As a general rule of Nature, dependence is more fundamental than it’s opposite. That explains its prevalence and dominance over the other. We are all born and created to be dependent. We ‘fight’ for freedom. But we depend for our own ease and comfort. No preparation is required if we want to take help from somebody, but analogically to make ourselves self-sufficient and complete (though I believe no-one can be entirely complete in himself) it requires a lot of planning and hard work.

We don’t realize that we’re dependent until and unless something hits bluntly in our face and rudely refuses to comply with our wishes. For example, people go to work to earn a living. But they have personal hobbies and passions too. Who the heck wants to go to work everyday? If given the choice and the proper resources I’d rather roam about the whole world, make friends with different kinds of people… or maybe read books on the windy beaches of a sea-side and spend the nights hearing the sounds of insects and staring at the moon… instead of going to college and reading about stuff that has no connection to our daily lives by any means.

But here also, comes Habit. Habit is a characteristic of all living beings that makes them dependent unknowingly on itself. In fact, habit is the most responsible factor that makes us go in a straight, pre-determined, methodical and ordered line. As it has become our habit to earn for a living and be occupied with something, that after maybe a couple to months of vacation we want to get back to where we were, no matter how monotonous and painful it was. We would forget all about freedom and voluntarily want to be in the cage again!

But again, as all students of physics might know (Second Law of Thermodynamics), to nature Chaos is more fundamental than order.

Hence, as we see, this is one of the greatest examples of how the nature maintains its balance with the help of the opposites. On one hand it wants to be chaotic, but at the same time it remains ordered by becoming dependent on its instincts and also on the surrounding influences. Yin & Yang !

Just as light has no meaning without darkness, just as a woman finds her completeness in the company of a man, just as a vacation finds its meaning after a long period of pre-occupation and hard work; similarly independence is here only because there was dependence once upon a time. The phase of dependence is equally significant. Not only it has helped us to thrive but it has pointed out what could have been better, where the holes in the cloth are, where we actually stand.

I do not see independence just as freedom from a habit or a superior power, but I see it as a realization, a motivation, a cause that brings integrity among the diversified elements. But at the same time I also do not look down upon the earlier phase of dependence. It is the cause that brings the awareness, it is the foundation where the structure stands, it has taught us to dream. It is the other half of nature’s Divine Cycle.

Let us not be ashamed that we were dependent once, but let us be grateful that it gave us enough reasons to not to be.