Yesterday I thought of the indigenous phrase, “It takes a village to raise a child.” My thought was, “It takes a village to do anything.” As physicist David Bohm, who developed a fascinating method and theories about dialogue said, “We are not meant to think alone.” We are meant to think together. It takes an assembly of perspectives to get the whole picture.

Lately I have been experiencing my need for others to do almost anything, like think through a question, or get through grief, or to manage some of the most basic practical issues in life. I have been alone a lot in the last six years. It is not working. I need others in my life, more and differently. We really do need each other. Regarding the heroic Western model of the solitary individualistic pioneer, I think we have developed out of tribal life in certain ways by following such a concept, but at its root it is insanity. I know it.