Independence is an Illusion

How a Pencil Reveals an American Myth

Nothing is more American than thinking of ourselves as people who pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps and made life work. We all admire the “self-made” man or woman, so called. Inspirational films are filled with storylines of people who pushed against the tide, did things their own way, and won out in the end.

There is something valuable about our desire for independence. Becoming dependent from our parents is a natural part of the creational order: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” (Genesis 2:24). So the problem is not independence per se. The problem is with our radical independence. The same God who declares independence a good in Genesis 2:24 also says 6 verses earlier: “It is not good for man to be alone.” This is a remarkably balanced view of human nature: we all need a measure of autonomy, as well as dependence on healthy human communities.

This is where, in our American context, we sometimes go to extremes in thinking of ourselves as “independent” people. This sense of radical independence has two major flaws. The first is this: total independence is an illusion. Total independence is an American myth.

Let’s just start with the basics: you were born. That means you have a Mother and a Father. Your existence is contingent on two other human beings.

Now, let’s think about where you’re sitting right now. Look around the room. How many people do you think it took to create the items in the room you’re sitting in? Dozens? Hundreds? Thousands?

The Pencil Test

In his famous essay, “I, Pencil,” Leonard Read argues that if you simply examine a pencil, you’ll find it requires not the work of dozens, or hundreds, or thousands of people to put that in your hands…but it actually requires millions of people. He asks us to consider:

• A pencil is made from a cedar tree growing in Northern California and Oregon.

• We chop a cedar log through “saws and trucks and rope and the countless other gear”.

• Who made those tools? They mined the ore, made the steel for saws, axes, motors, grew hemp and twined it to create strong rope, etc. Thousands more people.

• Who is feeding the workers who sawed down the cedars? Who is making their coffee? Farmers in South America grew those coffee beans. Who’s cooking the food to feed the workers? Thousands more people.

• How are the logs transported? Through people who created trains and railroads and trucks. Thousands more people.

• Then the cedar logs need to be shaped: “Consider the millwork in San Leandro. The cedar logs are cut into small, pencil-length slats less than one-fourth of an inch in thickness. These are kiln dried and then tinted for the same reason women put rouge on their faces. People prefer that I look pretty, not a pallid white. The slats are waxed and kiln dried again. How many skills went into the making of the tint and the kilns, into supplying the heat, the light and power, the belts, motors, and all the other things a mill requires?” Thousands and thousands more people.

The essay goes on to detail the creation of graphite, shipping the final product to the store, the packaging, the marketing, etc. He reflects on a common phrase at the time: “Only God can make a tree.” He concludes:

I, Pencil, am a complex combination of miracles: a tree, zinc, copper, graphite, and so on. But to these miracles that manifest themselves in nature an even-more-extraordinary miracle has been added: the configuration of creative human energies — millions of tiny know-hows configurating naturally and spontaneously in response to human necessity and desire and in the absence of any human masterminding! Since only God can make a tree, I insist that only God could make me. Man can no more direct these millions of know-hows to bring me into being than he can put molecules together to create a tree.

The point of the essay is this: it takes millions of people to bring you the pencil you’re holding in your hand. A pencil is a simple demonstration of how our sense of “independence” is, in many ways, an illusion. Based purely on all of the many millions of things that must go right for you to be holding this pencil, Read concludes: only God could be directing this process.

In other words: we are creatures who are not only dependent on millions of others. We are creatures who are totally dependent on God’s providence to direct all of them. Total independence is a hallucination of living in a wealthy society and a depersonalized workforce. If we simply examine a pencil, we can see right through the myth.

Independence and Research

Second, total independence is not only impossible… total independence isn’t even something desirable. None of us are created to rely on ourselves, or to be alone. NYU professor Jonathan Haidt, in his book, “The Happiness Hypothesis”, shares loads of research showing that while some independence is a good thing, total independence - what he calls an ethos of “extreme personal freedom” - is actually self-destructive. He shows studies demonstrating clearly the number one predictor of long-term happiness is long-term relationships. But everything in our American mythos encourages us against the very thing that, statistically, makes for a satisfying existence in the first place:

An ideology of extreme personal freedom can be dangerous because it encourages people to leave homes, jobs, cities, and marriages in search of personal and professional fulfillment, thereby breaking the relationships that were probably their best hope for such fulfillment.

Haidt, who doesn’t claim Christian belief, is simply making the point that trying to be totally independent - “an ideology of extreme personal freedom” - is not only not good for us…in his words, it’s actually “dangerous.” So, ironically, the thing we are trying to get away from - dependence on others - is the key to human happiness.

What if Haidt is right? What if radical independence isn’t the the key to human happiness, but a healthy sense of dependence (and a healthy sense of autonomy) in a rich, lifelong community?

And what if this sense of deep, abiding dependence was the key to our spiritual lives as well?

Dependence and Spiritual Thriving

According to Jesus, it’s just so: the key to our spiritual life, Jesus tells us, over and over again, is cultivating a rich inner sense of dependence on God as our Heavenly Father. In the Gospel of John, Jesus’ famous “I Am” statements all point us toward seeing Jesus as the source and Skeleton Key of our spiritual lives:

• Jesus is the “bread of life” (John 6:35). We are spiritually starved without Him.

• Jesus is the “light of the world” (John 8:12). We are spiritually blind without Him.

• Jesus is the door/gate of the sheep (John 10:7-9). We are alienated from God without Him.

• Jesus is the good shepherd (John 10:11, 14). We are wandering and lost without Him.

• Jesus is the resurrection and the life (John 11:25). We are spiritually dead without Him.

• Jesus is the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6). We are hopeless without Him.

• Jesus is the true vine (John 15:1). We cannot experience true spiritual vitality and joy without Him.

Jesus, in other words, is inviting us to rebel against our rebellious sense of total independence. If we want to have a thriving spiritual life, we need to become as dependent on Jesus as little children are on their parents (Matthew 18:3).

In fact, Jesus, in his humanity, not only invites us into this deep sense of dependence... He demonstrates this dependence in his relationship to His Heavenly father:

“Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.” - John 5:19.

Jesus is saying: if you want to see what it looks like to be a happy, flourishing human, look at me. Jesus models a life of trust and dependence on His heavenly Father. And he invites us into the same life: to live our lives in total dependence on God, our Heavenly Father.

The Sermon on the Mount

Finally, when Jesus teaches the basics of becoming a disciple of his, dependence is at the forefront of his teaching. Notice, for example, in the Sermon on the Mount, how many times Jesus invites us to think/act/pray like God is our Heavenly Father that we can depend on:

• “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” (5:9)

• In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. (5:19)

• “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor[i] and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.” (5:43)

• “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (5:48)

• “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven..But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. (6:1,4)

• “But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

• This, then, is how you should pray:

“‘Our Father in heaven,

hallowed be your name…” (6:6-9)

• “For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” (6:14-15)

• “But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” (6:17-18)

• “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? …So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. (6:25-27, 31-32)

Do you hear it?

The world tells us the key to happiness is “extreme personal freedom”, a world where we don’t depend on anyone for anything. But Jesus says the key to a flourishing life is “extreme personal dependence” on God, our Heavenly Father.

As we saw with our pencil illustration, extreme personal freedom isn’t really possible. It’s an illusion. As Jonathan Haidt’s research shows, this extreme personal independence isn’t even good for us. Jesus says that if we want true freedom, we need to be people who have a close, intimate and totally dependent relationship with God as our Heavenly Father.