Dear Baya,

      Sometimes I feel very lonely. I have an Indian friend and she tells me how warm and close her family are. She also comes from a small town where people seem very bound up with each other. I get the feeling that she’s surrounded by a permanent group who care about her, whatever they are. .

      Of course she complains. She says she can’t make any real decisions without asking her brothers, parents and even cousins. She doesn’t feel a free individual. She may even have to marry the person they choose. So there are disadvantages as well.

      I really can’t decide which is better – my separateness and freedom, or being a member of a group, but subject to that group.

     This has set me thinking about where my own individualistic system came from. Surely most people have lived in groups? Are these what are called ‘peasants’ – a word I’ve never really understood?

     Could you explain how our kind of individualism came about? Why aren’t we peasants? Is it, as someone said, something very recent – the result of big cities and factories? Or is it as others tell me something that happened in the Renaissance when great individual artists emerged?

      If I understood how I am different, why I am part of a lonely crowd, it might make it easier to bear the separateness and also find it cool to have my own life in my own hands.

      I know you’ve written books about this and you often tell me of how your schools taught you to be a strong individual. You and I have always been close, so do explain this a little.

Lots of love,