I'll click on any headline that mentions Esther Perel, so of course I read her latest interview in GQ.
Her thoughts on the myth of self-reliance struck me:
You’ve offered interesting perspectives on a lot of the Western myths we have. What do you think are some of the American myths that undergird our society that were most exposed by the pandemic and by COVID?
Self-reliance, effort, optimism, "Roll up your sleeve, get to work. There is nothing you cannot solve, if you put your mind to it." This “it's all on you, try harder mentality.”
A pandemic will definitely highlight the notion of interdependence. Public health is a conception of interdependence. You do something not just for you—you do something because it protects others. That notion of interdependence has taken a beating over the last [several years].
It's all self-help, self-love, self-compassion. Self is in front of a lot of things, and that ultimately ends up creating a self focus. That doesn't mean self is not important. But it also comes to self and other. It's I and thou. We don't exist separately from our connections with others.
She captures why I find the concept of self-care to be simultaneously essential and irksome. So often self-care is offered as a solution to problems that we ourselves do not have the power to solve or even manage.
You have to zoom in pretty far before going it alone is an option.
To think we can’t do something on our own makes it seem like we’re incapable, reliant, beholden.
To view life as a collaboration is an entirely different matter.
Hopefully we’ve all had the experience of working together in a joyful process that connects us with our collaborators. That’s what I want more of in my life.
So many of you provide the unacknowledged labor that allows the world to run as it does.
All of us rely on the invisible labor of others. Someone is behind the scenes making our clothes, processing our food, maintaining the infrastructure we rely on.
Zoom out farther and there are the plants and animals we rely on and the ecological systems that allow us to live on Earth.
We can resent our interdependence. We can embrace it. We can do both in the same day, like most of us probably do.
Thank you to everyone who joined our private group connecting researchers to caregivers! You can join here if you’re interested.
As someone who finds the beeping of machines incredibly irritating, I loved reading about this project to make hospital noises less awful.
The Plan Institute is having a discussion on disability without poverty on August 12th at noon PST. It requires advance registration.
The Family Caregiver Alliance has a bunch of free events and classes coming up.
I’ve been having a hard time keeping up with the news lately. I’m finding it more rewarding to read books. They feel less ephemeral than the never load the same front page twice experience of the news. Maybe it’s the subtle influence of being in Alberta, where the view changes at a very different pace than it does at home in Toronto.
This is why the care work reads on our homepage are changing more slowly than normal.
If you come across a particularly thought provoking or insightful article on care work, please send me an email and I’ll add the link to our database so it’s easy for people to find.
As always, we’re happy to share guest posts if you’d like to publish your work on our site. You can submit articles via email or through the contact form on our homepage.
I love this article. Right now my husband with Parkinson’s is recovering from a fall and experiencing nerve pain in his arm. Life stops for no one and tomorrow I’m having skin cancer removed from the top of my head. My brother-In -law is coming over at 5:00 when our caregiver leaves to help his brother since I might not be able to. Also my friend is bringing over healthy food and some homemade cookies.