A Short Word on Self Reliance

Self reliance involves emotion and consciousness. Every example of one who is self reliant, is an example of one who must rely on things beyond them. But ultimately, if we count the whole human race, it's reliant on other life forms, and if we go deeper and count all life on Earth, that life is reliant on a broader stability of constrained possibilities; chemistry and physics and causality, etc. Self reliance leans on all of these things, taking them for granted, as if they just are.

There's nothing in existence that doesn't rely on the things it relates to, except the entirety of existence, itself. This is the SUBjective world. We all are only how we relate to other things. So when we single ourselves out as being "self reliant" we're not appealing to any line drawn between our existence and the rest of the world, we're appealing to the feeling and awareness that our survival is within our control.

Self reliance isn't an act of agency, but a PERCEPTUAL line drawn between the ways we're free, and the ways we're not. The "wholly self reliant" are people with a prejudice; an optimistic bias; they're those who focus primarily on the freedom and try to avoid recognizing the ways they're not.