(no subject)
I've been pondering personality recently. This is motivated by a person in my life who I respect and admire and by a job interview I had. I greatly admire the both the personality and action of people who work in social and humanitarian fields. I believe it's necessary, laudable, and valuable. It definitely takes a special kind of person. A person that I am not and don't know if I could be.
It gets a bit into the nature/nurture question. How much of who we are is innate and how much is learning and choice? Can a person choose to feel validated by something, can they learn to be? Is it better to pursue your own gifts to the fullest or aim for your mediocre best in an area you think has more value? Is societal good more important than personal satisfaction? I'm sure for some people the course of action is the same for either one and the path is simple. All parts of society are important to making it a vibrant whole. But, is some who makes it their life to help the homeless more important than some who creates art? To be sure if everyone goes in to social work, we live in a dull world with no food.
Maybe it's not really about society but personal value systems. How do you reconcile placing more value on the life work of others than your own? Not everyone is wonderful, not everyone enriches our world... What if you can't be the kind of person you value? Self centered navel gazing idiots are far to plentiful in this world. How do you balance being your self against "contributing"? If some breeder goes out and lives their life for their own enjoyment; car, house, kids, career; what did they bring to society? Is it the kids? Did they serve society by raising great kids, average kids, any kind of kids? They sat in their unimportant jobs and got paid for what? They helped run the servers for one more cookie cutter e-commerce site? Was this a life well lived? Oh but they had a hobby... they painted... they were and "artist" but no one ever saw the paintings, they were average boring painting, dumbed into a thrift store when they died... now did they contribute? They gave some money to a charity, so long as it didn't impact their way of life.... did they contribute? They made a grand gesture of serving at the soup kitchen when little Joey didn't have a little league game and they didn't have errands on the weekend and they weren't on vacation... how about now?
What makes a life well lived? What makes it something that improved the world they lived in? If you care and never make an impact did that fact that you care matter or was it just meaningless twattle that helped you feel better about yourself? "But at least I care." Yeah but what did you do about it?
What if I just don't care about some of the things I say I value?
It gets a bit into the nature/nurture question. How much of who we are is innate and how much is learning and choice? Can a person choose to feel validated by something, can they learn to be? Is it better to pursue your own gifts to the fullest or aim for your mediocre best in an area you think has more value? Is societal good more important than personal satisfaction? I'm sure for some people the course of action is the same for either one and the path is simple. All parts of society are important to making it a vibrant whole. But, is some who makes it their life to help the homeless more important than some who creates art? To be sure if everyone goes in to social work, we live in a dull world with no food.
Maybe it's not really about society but personal value systems. How do you reconcile placing more value on the life work of others than your own? Not everyone is wonderful, not everyone enriches our world... What if you can't be the kind of person you value? Self centered navel gazing idiots are far to plentiful in this world. How do you balance being your self against "contributing"? If some breeder goes out and lives their life for their own enjoyment; car, house, kids, career; what did they bring to society? Is it the kids? Did they serve society by raising great kids, average kids, any kind of kids? They sat in their unimportant jobs and got paid for what? They helped run the servers for one more cookie cutter e-commerce site? Was this a life well lived? Oh but they had a hobby... they painted... they were and "artist" but no one ever saw the paintings, they were average boring painting, dumbed into a thrift store when they died... now did they contribute? They gave some money to a charity, so long as it didn't impact their way of life.... did they contribute? They made a grand gesture of serving at the soup kitchen when little Joey didn't have a little league game and they didn't have errands on the weekend and they weren't on vacation... how about now?
What makes a life well lived? What makes it something that improved the world they lived in? If you care and never make an impact did that fact that you care matter or was it just meaningless twattle that helped you feel better about yourself? "But at least I care." Yeah but what did you do about it?
What if I just don't care about some of the things I say I value?