The Myth of Going it Alone

A month-long dive into interdependence and the crowd behind your come-up.

Hi Friends!

It’s a new moon this week… so a new theme to practice with this month 🙃

With Canada Day and the Fourth of July coming in hot with fireworks and flags, it feels like a good time to counterbalance the culture’s independence fetish with a truer flavor: Interdependence!

We’re surrounded by myths of sovereignty. Self-made people, self-contained nations, solopreneurs, solo awakenings. And it permeates our inner narratives too. It’s that guilty lil voice that berates you for burning out, needing help, or relying on the kindness of others.

Pop culture is saturated with the tired trope of the self-made success.

I often think of a night back in 2013, sitting at my friend Oli’s bar (Cold Tea, here in Toronto) when the DJ blasted Drake’s new single, All Me. The place erupted, everyone singing along:

“Came up, that’s all me / No help, that’s all me / All me for real.”

I looked around and I thought… bruh, for real?

This was a room full of culture-makers, people who were integral to Drake’s rise: The journalists who wrote his good reviews, the DJs who spun his tracks on radio and in the club, the producers and songwriters who created with him, the promoters who kept his name in their mouths. We ran in the same circles, so I watched that scaffolding of community build itself around him in real time.

Yet here they were, these builders of the zeitgeist, chanting along with an anthem that literally denied their contributions. The irony was dizzying (or Drizzying? 😎). I wondered if Drake really believed those lyrics. I wondered if I wasn’t maybe in the wrong industry…

Illustration by Prakasit Khuansuwan

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Of course, there is no such thing as a self-made person. From your mother’s womb to your bestie’s generous laugh to your therapist’s emergency availability, literally nothing you do is independent.

When we transcend capitalist narratives of hero worship, we begin to see that we are the living result of lineage, luck, love, circumstance, timing, even the hard-earned wisdom from hardship and heartbreak.

Somebody stayed for you. Somebody vouched for you. Somebody forgave you. Somebody gave you a second (or third or fourth) shot. Somebody gave you their labour or time for free. Someone helped your ancestors immigrate somewhere new (maybe to a country that is now icing out foreigners?)

And none of that is particularly extraordinary… It’s the basic blueprint for being a living thing! Interdependence is the structure of reality! What a relief!

Even the freedom that so many of us are fighting for (in our cities, our identities, our spiritual paths) only becomes real through relationship. No one gets free alone. The freedom we seek is belonging.

So all month, we’ll be practicing with Interdependence as root, path, and liberation.

Here’s what’s coming:

• Next week’s Roam post with creative & contemplative prompts

• A live

  Consciousness Explorers Club
  practice on Freedom (July 7)

• Moonlit Sit - The Living Lineage (July 10, deets below)

• A recorded meditation to take with you into the wild (July 17)

Come sit, reflect, play, belong 😌

❤️ Lama Tasha

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Moonlit Sit

DATE: Thursday, July 10
TIME: 8-9pm EST
LOCATION: Online (Zoom link will be emailed to you on registration)

TOPIC: The Living Lineage
In this practice, we connect with our own personal lineage tree. We root into the earth, rise through the spine, and open to the vast canopy of those who came before us: teachers, ancestors, loved ones, and guides. Through a vivid vajrayana-style visualization, we rest in the living stream of interconnection and wisdom.

DANA: This session is open to all, by donation. You can support during registration or become a paid subscriber on Substack.