Cicles, Not Triangles
Rethinking Maslow, Community, and the Myth of Independence
Today is my 53rd birthday.
And instead of climbing toward something, I’m turning toward something—something softer, rounder, and more rooted in truth.
We’ve been taught to measure life like a ladder. Always climbing. Always optimizing. Maslow’s famous hierarchy fits neatly into this story—needs stacked like rungs, self-actualization waiting at the top like a prize. But the Blackfoot worldview, as shared in an article by Teju Ravilochan, reminds us: life isn’t a straight line upward. It’s a circle. It’s a web. It’s a collective breath.
The Blackfoot don’t define success as individual arrival. They practice what Dr. Cindy Blackstock calls community actualization—a culture where meeting needs isn’t just personal, it’s communal. Where no one’s left to fend for themselves. Where poverty doesn’t mean a lack of money—it means being without family.
That reframe hit me hard.
Because I’ve spent most of this past month in a state of profound interdependence. My mom’s death cracked my world open. And I didn’t patch it up with grit or solitude. I fell into the arms of my sister. I leaned on friends who cooked for me, texted just the right thing, or simply let me cry without fixing it. I cancelled projects. I showed up when I could. I rested when I couldn’t.
None of that would’ve been possible if I still believed in the myth of independence.
And honestly, it is a myth. Because no one is truly self-made. Every one of us is fed, clothed, raised, housed, and healed by the labor and love of others—whether we recognize it or not.
But we live in a culture that hides that truth. It tells us we should earn everything we receive. That asking for help is weak. That needing each other is something to outgrow.
And who benefits from that story?
Certainly not the people struggling to access health care, housing, or safety.
Not the people grieving. Or disabled. Or raising kids without support.
Not the ones who give generously and receive little.
Not the ones holding up whole communities on exhausted shoulders.
The illusion of independence keeps us isolated. Keeps us exhausted. Keeps us competing for scraps instead of building shared abundance.
But what if we returned to the truth of circles?
Circles that let everyone belong.
Circles that hold grief and joy.
Circles that redistribute—not just wealth, but wisdom and care and responsibility.
That’s the vision that’s been pulling me forward lately. Not self-actualization as a peak to summit alone—but shared actualization as something we co-create, together.
And that’s how I want to move through this next year of life.
Less proving, more trusting.
Less striving, more circling back.
Less climbing, more gathering.
So. Let’s talk. Where are you being held right now—by friends, family, chosen family, neighbors, coworkers, or community? Where might you offer that same kind of holding in return?
I came across an article recently that stopped me in my tracks. It’s called “The Blackfoot Wisdom That Inspired Maslow’s Hierarchy” by Teju Ravilochan, and it shook loose something in me—something ancient and aching and deeply hopeful. For the rest of July, I’m sitting with it, letting it move through me, and sharing what it stirs. This is the third post in a four-part series on worth, belonging, and what it means to care for one another well.
