The ‘turn to self’ is often justified by individuals on the basis of the difficulties that they faced while dealing with or encountering others. Often, most of these experiences are negative, disappointing and non-encouraging, leading to distrust and cynicism. And so, we want to be alone, to focus on our interests and concerns, and to keep off from the concerns and worries of others. We find the act of loving others too hectic and too burdensome, we find marriage and relationships too difficult to bear, childbearing and parenting are also too much of a challenge that we just want to be left out of all these. But the question is: how much can we survive alone? The dress we wear, the cars we drive, the house we live in, the internet we use, are all made, constructed or serviced by others. In everything we use or enjoy in life, the signature of others is implied and implicated. As such, our lives are entangled with that of others. Why then should we not seek the interests of others as well?

The saddest thing is that the ‘turn to self’ while it rests on the quest to ‘know one’s self’ (which is very important), when stretched to exclude others, becomes toxic to everything community – from the family, to the society, to the church. It leads to the fragmentation of not just the self but of the human community. Without community our support systems break apart and crumble. Jesus came, suffered and died for us, and left us a community that we might bear witness to the God who is always there for us. The best way to bear this witness is to always be there for others – to always seek not only our individual interests, but equally the interests of all.