I think I was lucky to come of age in a place and time - the American South in the 1960s and '70s - when the machine hadn't completely taken over life. The natural world was still the world and machines - TV telephone cars - were still more or less ancillary and computers were unheard of in everyday life.
I don't watch television I think it destroys the art of talking about oneself.
Nothing else so destroys the power to stand alone as the habit of leaning upon others. If you lean you will never be strong or original. Stand alone or bury your ambition to be somebody in the world.