Autonomy isn't some libertarian fantasy or a luxury good for people who've already won. It's the baseline requirement for making actual choices instead of performing the choices someone else designed for you. I watch women in my office who earn decent money but still need permission—from parents, from spouses, from the social script—to decide where they live, what they do on weekends, whether they stay in a job that's killing them. The Bangalore commute that wastes three hours of my life daily exists because someone else optimised for office occupancy rates, not for my time. Real autonomy means I can say no to the family group chat, no to the promotion that requires my soul, no to the relationship that looks good on Instagram. It's not about being alone; it's about being the author of your own constraints, not a character in someone else's spreadsheet.
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