A quote from Charles Sanders Peirce, said to be America’s greatest philosopher, but whose name is seldom heard.

[aeon.co]

“A further foundational contribution from Peirce was his doctrine of synechism, the idea that everything in the Universe is connected, that nothing can be understood in isolation, not even people. This is expressed well in statements such as the following from his paper ‘Immortality in the Light of Synechism’ (1893):

Nor must any synechist say: ‘I am altogether myself, and not at all you.’ If you embrace synechism, you must abjure this metaphysics of wickedness. In the first place, your neighbours are, in a measure, yourself, and in far greater measure than, without deep studies in psychology, you would believe. Really, the selfhood you like to attribute to yourself is, for the most part, the vulgarest delusion of vanity.”