Individiety and Socividual

We tie ourselves in knots made of sinew and sweat, stress and seclusion, sincerity and suspicion. Nothing is its own thing anymore; everything belongs to something or someone else. Community, insatiable in its allure, topples the towers of individualism, releasing the utopia that togetherness promises to bring. Together, we promise to think and act and wish for the greater good, the genuine sublimity of ego erasure. Egos were meant to be fed a steady diet of hunger; fed, not starved. The starved ego recoils at communalism, for it represents famine; the hungry ego clings to community, for it offers opportunities to partake of readily shared sustenance. Individualism is self-responsibility taken a step too far, a step beyond non-reliance into selfishness and penurious thrift. Where, then, is the proper balance? Where does the individual end and society begin? Every answer is a truthful lie, hidden inextricably inside a kernel of truth sheathed in a web of deceit and ignorance.