Primordial Debt
After all, we do owe everything we are to others.
This is simply true.
The language we speak, and even think in, our habits and opinions, the kind of food we like to eat, the knowledge that makes our light switch on and toilets flush, even the style in which we carry out our gestures of defiance and rebellion against social conventions – all of this we learned from other people, most of them long dead.
If we were to imagine what we owe them as a debt, it could be infinite.
The question is: Does it really make sense to think of this as a debt?
After all, a debt is by definition something that we could at least imagine paying back.
It is strange enough to wish to be square with one’s parents – it rather implies that one does not wish to think of them as parents anymore.
Would we really want to be square with all of humanity?
What would that even mean?
From pg62 of Debt by David Graeber