Interdependence

a skill at risk

I love new years.

Sure it’s just another day in the calendar. Similar to yesterday. And probably similar to tomorrow. But there’s something beautiful about being able to reset, even if it’s only made up.

It allows hope to be renewed, and that can make a whole lot of difference.

2025 was not one of my best years. I made several attempts to do things, but I was met with more resistance than I ever have. I tried to find a job, I failed. I tried multiple career pivots, but nothing stuck. I did a lot of advisory work, but never got compensated for it or led to anything more meaningful. I tried to find collaborators for my work in AI, I failed. I tried to finish my manuscript, but life kept getting in the way. I tried to close a publishing deal, it stalled spectacularly.

Every attempt to create something new, find closure, seek support or make a difference was met with rejection, roadblocks, indefinite delays and silence.

And worst of all, my personal life suffered. My husband and I fought more than we ever have. We were on the brink of separating several times this year, and that shook not just us, but our kids too.

I found myself constantly looking for hope, or just some sign from the universe that this life was worth living, and all of my efforts weren’t in vain. And I found them occasionally. They may have meant nothing if 2025 was an ordinary year. But it wasn’t. And so these moments meant a heck of a lot, and taught me to be more conscious and more grateful.

I had a student who’d taken my happiness class earlier reach out offering to support me with teaching next semester. It felt nice that she still remembered me and my class. I had an old client heart-fully acknowledge me in her journey to finding love. It reminded me that not all efforts get acknowledged immediately. I had quite a few of my newsletter readers offer to give feedback on my book, and a few did too. This reminded me that not all acknowledgement is always explicit.

Most of all, what kept me going through 2025 was my writing. Every time I opened word to continue writing, I could forget everything else in the world, even if only for a few minutes each day.

This was probably my biggest learning this year - in patience and resilience because you write for hours, days, weeks, months and years before anyone else but you, can see your work. Even then, whether that work matters to anyone else but you isn’t guaranteed. There is no pay check, appraisals or even likes. It’s just you and your writing, all on your own. And that’s why loving to write matters more for a writer than anything else. And I am glad I do.

But that’s never enough. Having my family and close friends supporting and cheering me on mattered more than anything.

Which brings me to what I wanted to talk about today - interdependence.

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We can’t exist alone. We need others. We thrive in partnership. We thrive in collaboration. We thrive through trade. We thrive in communities.

But all of this needs skills in interdependence. Not just independence.

Trust, listening, communication, conflict resolution, collaboration, patience, resilience and learning to operate as joint entities, not as solo beings in vacuum are skills that don’t grow on their own, and not overnight.

When you’ve optimised your entire life for independence, it’s very hard to let someone else in. It becomes very hard to seek help, or support someone else. It becomes hard to stay and thrive as a couple or as a team or as a community.

This is a quiet struggle of a society that is becoming increasingly nuclear, and a generation that is becoming more individualistic everyday. You can’t help but learn to be independent in a society like this.

Unfortunately, it is a self-fulfilling prophecy - the more independent you are, the more isolating the society becomes.

Earlier this year, as I was studying human x AI interaction, the one thing I spent a lot of time thinking about is how AI is making us much more independent, isolated and disconnected from one another.

It’s not so much our ability to think, craft sentences or memorise that is getting atrophied, but it’s our ability to connect with one another as humans.

Through that phase, I realised that my work in human relationships probably matters more now than it ever did.

So, choosing to stop thinking about this or working on it, was a choice that didn’t hold the test of time.

I realised that if anything, my efforts in decoding interdependence and helping people build better human relationships is more important than anything I could do in just AI.

Frustratingly, I realised that AI is probably just another layer, but the foundation is still our humanness and our ability to connect with one another. And this means, I won’t stop talking about relationships. I can’t.

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I, for instance, was always uncomfortable asking for help. It made me feel incompetent, and even weak. But in 2025, I told myself that asking other humans for help is a skill, and not a weakness. So I asked for help several times. I asked people to refer me to jobs. I asked people for advice. I proposed potential collaborations.

A lot of these asks were met with lukewarm responses, or silence. Very often, I wanted to crawl back into my self-sufficiency shell, and chat with an LLM. But I didn’t. I kept trying to reach out to people even when I didn’t feel like, or worried about being judged. All because this is something I knew I sucked at, and the systems around me weren't helping either in actively getting better at it.

I have learnt, through all the asking, that sometimes, depending on someone else (real people) is not a bad thing. They may help you if they can, and if they don’t, that’s fine too. It’s not a reflection of my abilities or circumstances alone, it depends on their ability or circumstances to give too.

And that’s at the core of interdependence - how people come together, to support one another and build stronger systems, in all its messy human glory.

All each of us can do is try.

Maybe you had moments when you needed help too in the last year, and hesitated to ask, or you asked, and were met with silence. Maybe there were moments you wanted to support someone, but didn’t know how to and held back, or you offered support and they didn’t accept it. But I hope you learnt something from it. Something that will let you continue to try, maybe differently, but not give up.

2026 is going to be a better year for all of us. I believe that. And that’s the best part of a new year. You are allowed to hope. You are allowed to dream, like there is a tomorrow.

As for shapelygal, we’re starting afresh too, taking a new look at human behaviour, relationships and interdependence. So if you’ve enjoyed reading shapelygal so far, stick around, there’s going to be more.

And of course, don’t forget to share the love.

I could use more likes and followers too. Because, who doesn’t?

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More from Shapely Gal:

Some of the projects I will be working on this year are:

• Completing the manuscript and publishing my book

• Relaunching 1:1 matrimonial advisory in a limited capacity (DM if you care)

• Continuing my work as an educator, and scaling it through new collaborations

• Continuing my explorations with AI alignment

• Resurrecting my newsletter on travel

• Launching a new business (more about this later in the year)

If any of these projects resonate with you, drop me a note. I always love receiving thoughtful emails from you guys.

Otherwise, I wish you all a very happy new year, full of hope, full of energy to meet that hope with action, even if you don’t see any pay off for it this year.

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What I’m reading/ watching/ listening to:

Heartlamp by Bhanu Mustaq (actually I’m reading this one in its original form in Kannada. It’s called yedeya hanate). I’m not a native Kannada reader, so it’s taken longer than I would’ve liked.

Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari - I’m re-reading this because Aziz is so funny, and I could totally use some laughs and light heartedness in life right now.

shapelygal song: Mwaki by Zerb & Sofiya Nzau