T-705: The Price of Freedom

You know it's bad when you are the architect of your own oppression.  I certainly have been and it causes me endless consternation.  The person who set up the particular trap that I find myself in is me.  It is true, so true, that worst oppression is self oppression.  What made me set up and maintain this particularly binding set of snares?

As I try to untangle this particular Gordian knot, I see several strands.  Part of it is the legacy of my family culture, in which we were taught, over and over, not to seek or trust help from "outsiders."  Family business was family business.  Of course, this is a typical protection tactic for families with something to hide.  One of the messages I remember clearly---and fight to "unhear"---is that no one cares about you or your concerns. I distinctly remember being told that people did not and could not like me.  I was on my own.

Wes got a dose of this message as well, though delivered in a different fashion.  His family's meta message was that his family owed him nothing, not even attention.  When he was 18, he was to leave and not come back.  His parents conveyed to him that they would feed and clothe him until the age of 18, then they were done.  One of the amazing...and to my mind, sad...facts of Wes' life is that his parents never saw one--not one...of Wes' plays.


 So from our family culture, we both got too big a dose of  "Don't ask nobody for nothing never."  This combines with the general Western ethic of  strident super individualism.  Throughout the West, and very strongly in Wes' family, is a strain of libertarian anarchism.  This version distrusts systems and the people in them.  It has meant that 3 of Wes' five brothers cannot bear to work for someone else and in fact have disdain for people who subject themselves to the workaday world. 

It is less pronounced in my family, being as they were Roosevelt (said like choosevelt) democrats.  While there was volunteerism and even political engagement, there still was a strong ethic that you make your own way.  Seeking help is a sign of weakness.  Giving help is required.  Asking for help is unacceptable.

Now match those system strictures with a chosen profession that absolutely requires collaboration and public engagement.  This is certainly the case with all not for profits, which are after all, public entities which exist to provide public benefits.  It is built into the DNA of not for profits that there will be multiple publics: those that give and those that receive.

In the ethic of the West, standing alone is standing free.

How many times would another person, with a  different internal makeup, have sought the help of others---of volunteers, of donors, or funders---to achieve a specific company goal.  All too often, Wes and I have defaulted to the "if we want it done, we'll have to do it ourselves" position.  

Because we are "strangers in a strange land"---despite living in Michigan for 25 years--we haven't had the regular and reliable social structures many people and organizations use to build social capitol.  We don't have family, or school, or historical connections to serve as scaffolds of support.  That we have built relationships rooted in neighborhood and ethics and social engagement is a greater tribute to the rich culture of community life in Detroit than it is to our organizational ability.

So it turns out, we have been trapped by our own freedom.  We run our own lives, it is true, but it is also true that our lives run us.  As we look to travel again, it is necessary to give up the freedom of self determination to gain the freedom of self determination.  Transferring the power of choice and yet not expecting anyone else to bear the self imposed burdens we created for ourselves is the trick I am trying resolve right now.  I am confused by this, and so I am going to do what I so seldom do...ask for help.  What would you do?  What would you suggest?