Today is American Independence Day and there’s lots of celebrating going on (not to mention the volatilizing of hundreds of millions of pounds of different chemical compounds in the atmosphere). So it’s a big day in the USA today. But truthfully I’d rather wish everyone—American or not—a Happy Interdependence Day!
So instead, I wish you all a day to celebrate our Interdependence with countless other species—with the blue-green algae that make the oxygen you breathe; the bacteria that make up more of you than you do; with the plants that make up your food (either directly or indirectly); the animals that are sacrificed so many of us can eat (or wear) them; the ancient beings that made up the coal, gas, and oil that we’ve become dependent on (in the bad sense); the future beings that will care for us when we’re old and that will inherit (and hopefully heal) the horrible ecological and societal wounds we’ve inflicted; and last but not least, our family, friends, extended communities, and the millions of people we don’t know who provide us with food, medicine, energy, goods, and services. In this complex civilization we live in, we are all deeply interdependent—interwoven with countless lives day in and day out.
https://mailchi.mp/b3d178a4b556/happy-interdependence-day?e=d41c59ca34