At one point today, a graduate student from next door dropped by and handed a silver coin into James’s palm.
“A quarter?” I asked.
“No, a nickel.”
“You asked her to pay you back a nickel?!” I cried, incredulous.
But indeed, he had not. It seemed all foolishness at first, but then I realized how much she reminded me of myself. It is not the amount that matters at all – $10 or a five cents, all the same. There is the unselfish component of desiring justice and to be trustworthy to friends. But there is also a selfish component, the need to rid oneself of the dirtiness of indebtedness, the need to be independent and free. It’s something that’s very hard to explain, but I feel that it is analogous to philosophical independence: the thinker who is unbridled by the tugging ropes of borrowed thought. There is a certain type of thinker who wishes to sit cross-legged in the wilderness and arrive at conclusions through that kind of outward introspection, rather than reading book upon book on the subject or learning from this master or that. Even if he or she arrives at the same conclusion as everyone else, nevertheless the independence of thought makes all the difference.
I think that when you meet me, you probably don’t feel that I am a very independent person at all. But from within me, the hardest lesson has been to try to learn to be dependent on others. Even then, I find myself taking on many roles and participating in many clubs and hobbies because I want to be able to do it myself, to matter as an individual and to have the freedom to feel all of these things firsthand, rather than relying on others to do the job for me.
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