Wednesday lunch break --> taken from somebody's Internet comment and edited by me
The first time we encounter a homeless person becomes a formative moment in our lives, and the explanation we hear from our guardians goes a long way in shaping our subsequent world view.
"Clearly this person needs help - who should help?"
You can plot different future political views from your guardian's answer. "The state should help" or "A charity should help" or "They should help themselves". But baked into each of these responses is permission to not care. "Don't worry, it's not your responsibility. It's somebody else's responsibility. Try not to worry about it."
Our souls cannot handle these "solutions" unscathed.
Especially in America, our radical individualism and fantastic mythos of meritocracy come at a spritual cost. It can be physically painful to imagine the plight of the least fortunate. We KNOW, deep down, that this childhood permission we've been given to ignore their plights is fraudulent. What we don't know, is any other way.
How we deal with this pain, collectively, carries a large weight on our psyches. Especially for the laptop class (which I -- for better or worse -- am a part of). You see this expressed in several ways.
Some become symbolic champions of the underprivileged. None of us are willing to give up our own place in society, but we will harp and harp about how the unfortunate are mistreated. Not by us - we who capture an outsized amount of the gains in tech-assisted human productivity - but by those inadequate others, the [state | charity | person themselves] hasn't done enough ... somebody should do something.
Knowledge of the injustice of this situation too unpleasantly gobbles up bandwidth from our internal operating systems, like bloatware that we can't for the life of us seem to pinpoint and eliminate ...
-----
This struck me as I'm thinking about my own personal responsibility for the state of the world and its inhabitants, as I rehearse potential retirement activities and try to figure out what best I can do until then.
What does it mean to take personal responsibility when you do not have the power to fix things on your own?
No one person can bring 2 billion people out of poverty -- the number of people living below their countries’ respective societal poverty lines, according to the World Economic Forum.
No one person can stop our species from further expanding our collective annual greenhouse gas emissions.
So, do you imagine the responsibility rests with somebody else? Or do you pick up your shovel and get to work? Then, what kind of "shovel", what kind of "work", and how much? This year my shovel is cash, and I'm giving 10% of my income to a variety of types of work. But as the end of April approaches, I'm thinking I could probably give more than 10% this year, instead of waiting until next year for 15% to kick in.
I was also thinking of picking up the shovel of virtually attending a monthly Green Party meeting, but that will not happen this month. Maybe next month. I tend to feel like my job already wears me out enough, I'm still feeling a little burned out from how busy I was earlier this month.
But on the other hand, no amount of effort on my part will create a utopia on Earth, so ... a line must be drawn. On one side of the line, my responsibilities; on the other side, my fun. Because I do not believe in a world without fun. And I can definitely make sure that I have fun, I have that skill set. That's one of my contributions to the universe, that this sentient entity right here does have fun, the universe is not only for toil and woe. And often I invite people to have fun with me.
At some point you have to say you've done enough. Setting boundaries. Yeah, back to setting boundaries and rules. This year the boundary was 10% of income, plus trying to squeeze in some sort of new social/service activity like Zen, or Green Party, or Animal Shelter. But today neither my work nor non-work To Do Lists are under control.
-----
Once upon a time, somebody told me that the definition of "stress" is having responsibilities but no power. But when it comes to taking responsibility for the planet and its inhabitants, each of us has some power. Some, but not enough. So your responsibility needs to have a sliding scale -- from each according to their abilities.
When I was younger, I figured it was enough to put my skills to work for the federal government as a civil servant, helping to bring the fair amount of taxes into the US Treasury. But working for a bureaucracy can put too much distance between effort and outcome. I'm certainly not in control of how these funds are spent, and it seems Congress doesn't care how much revenue we bring in, they're going to spend however much they want and give tax breaks to whomever they want. It seems "deficits don't matter" anymore, although perhaps this will change if inflation remains higher than the voters are willing to put up with.
I want to feel more of a connection between effort and outcome. Then perhaps I'll feel like I'm really taking responsibility, instead of just feeling burned out from my job.
"Clearly this person needs help - who should help?"
You can plot different future political views from your guardian's answer. "The state should help" or "A charity should help" or "They should help themselves". But baked into each of these responses is permission to not care. "Don't worry, it's not your responsibility. It's somebody else's responsibility. Try not to worry about it."
Our souls cannot handle these "solutions" unscathed.
Especially in America, our radical individualism and fantastic mythos of meritocracy come at a spritual cost. It can be physically painful to imagine the plight of the least fortunate. We KNOW, deep down, that this childhood permission we've been given to ignore their plights is fraudulent. What we don't know, is any other way.
How we deal with this pain, collectively, carries a large weight on our psyches. Especially for the laptop class (which I -- for better or worse -- am a part of). You see this expressed in several ways.
Some become symbolic champions of the underprivileged. None of us are willing to give up our own place in society, but we will harp and harp about how the unfortunate are mistreated. Not by us - we who capture an outsized amount of the gains in tech-assisted human productivity - but by those inadequate others, the [state | charity | person themselves] hasn't done enough ... somebody should do something.
Knowledge of the injustice of this situation too unpleasantly gobbles up bandwidth from our internal operating systems, like bloatware that we can't for the life of us seem to pinpoint and eliminate ...
-----
This struck me as I'm thinking about my own personal responsibility for the state of the world and its inhabitants, as I rehearse potential retirement activities and try to figure out what best I can do until then.
What does it mean to take personal responsibility when you do not have the power to fix things on your own?
No one person can bring 2 billion people out of poverty -- the number of people living below their countries’ respective societal poverty lines, according to the World Economic Forum.
No one person can stop our species from further expanding our collective annual greenhouse gas emissions.
So, do you imagine the responsibility rests with somebody else? Or do you pick up your shovel and get to work? Then, what kind of "shovel", what kind of "work", and how much? This year my shovel is cash, and I'm giving 10% of my income to a variety of types of work. But as the end of April approaches, I'm thinking I could probably give more than 10% this year, instead of waiting until next year for 15% to kick in.
I was also thinking of picking up the shovel of virtually attending a monthly Green Party meeting, but that will not happen this month. Maybe next month. I tend to feel like my job already wears me out enough, I'm still feeling a little burned out from how busy I was earlier this month.
But on the other hand, no amount of effort on my part will create a utopia on Earth, so ... a line must be drawn. On one side of the line, my responsibilities; on the other side, my fun. Because I do not believe in a world without fun. And I can definitely make sure that I have fun, I have that skill set. That's one of my contributions to the universe, that this sentient entity right here does have fun, the universe is not only for toil and woe. And often I invite people to have fun with me.
At some point you have to say you've done enough. Setting boundaries. Yeah, back to setting boundaries and rules. This year the boundary was 10% of income, plus trying to squeeze in some sort of new social/service activity like Zen, or Green Party, or Animal Shelter. But today neither my work nor non-work To Do Lists are under control.
-----
Once upon a time, somebody told me that the definition of "stress" is having responsibilities but no power. But when it comes to taking responsibility for the planet and its inhabitants, each of us has some power. Some, but not enough. So your responsibility needs to have a sliding scale -- from each according to their abilities.
When I was younger, I figured it was enough to put my skills to work for the federal government as a civil servant, helping to bring the fair amount of taxes into the US Treasury. But working for a bureaucracy can put too much distance between effort and outcome. I'm certainly not in control of how these funds are spent, and it seems Congress doesn't care how much revenue we bring in, they're going to spend however much they want and give tax breaks to whomever they want. It seems "deficits don't matter" anymore, although perhaps this will change if inflation remains higher than the voters are willing to put up with.
I want to feel more of a connection between effort and outcome. Then perhaps I'll feel like I'm really taking responsibility, instead of just feeling burned out from my job.