Dear Marlboro Man,

It’s time to retire. You have held up so beautifully, waving the flag of individualism for sixty years. You have reminded us to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps and valiantly embodied an ethos of self reliance. You have graced us with your iconic stature as the Man on Top. You are toppling. You can either step down graciously, or not. But you are toppling.

It was inevitable that things would end this way because your message was fundamentally flawed, built on bad information. You were never independent. You were brought into the world by a mother and a father. Your ancestors reach far back in time, affecting you now. You were fed and sustained by food grown by another. The growing of that food was dependent on a vast and interconnected ecosystem. You were inculcated into the culture by your people and offered some skills in order to survive. Someone taught you to ride that horse. Someone helped you learn how to care for that horse.

The story of separation that you perpetuate is a tragedy. Ironically, you probably don’t know this. Having lived this story for several generations you feel separate. As a result, your myth is experienced as fact.