The Ravings: January 30, 2010 - The Philosophy of "Do What You Can"
This is not going to be my best piece, but I wanted to take the opportunity I have now to try to step through it.
Part of my personal ethic is that I always do what I can. What I am capable of may change from one day to another--being civil to someone, for instance--but if I can, then I do.
Inside the bound of my capability, though, I have options. That's the point where I start prioritizing and choosing one thing over another and so on. But that's not what I'm talking about here.
"Do What You Can" is a credo of impulse. Of getting off your butt and taking some action--any action--that makes any progress whatsoever. It's not a lazy man's ethic: indeed, the very opposite.
It stands as a mark of personal self-resistance. I am a lazy person, and the entire point of generating this ethic in the first place was a counterbalancing force.
And it also stands as a mark of who I am and why I need to resist my own laziness (though I make it a point to indulge it as often, as laziness has its own uses). To take a page out of Ledger's Joker, I'm an agent of chaos. I seek nothing short of change on a global scale. I want the ripples of my actions to still be meaningful and felt a thousand years from now (note the title of my friends page). I am, shortly, here to be an agitator.
But I can't do this. I can seek it all I like, but ultimately, I'm just an impotent boy writing essays into the wind. I have no significant political influence. My amusing notion of wishing the word "friend" meant "trusted minion" is fancy. My machinations have some impact, but they are small and undoubtedly peter out only a few degrees away from where I am. On the scale of centuries, I am nothing, and in all likelihood will always be nothing.
So I have a choice.
1) Call it futile and give up. This is tantamount to suicide (personally, not generally).
2) Do what I can.
Living is something I can do. So I do it. I do all those little tiny things that probably don't matter, but do matter to the people I do them for.
For my high school yearbook quote, I chose one that was unattributed, but that defined me so excellently that well... it was necessary to use it: "We, as individuals, have the ability to push a person over the edge--or to pull them back."
Sure, I have big dreams. I know they're dreams. I aqualgidize them as best I can, but my best is not enough.
So if all I have to give is a little fall of rain,
Then that little sprinkle is what I give.
Part of my personal ethic is that I always do what I can. What I am capable of may change from one day to another--being civil to someone, for instance--but if I can, then I do.
Inside the bound of my capability, though, I have options. That's the point where I start prioritizing and choosing one thing over another and so on. But that's not what I'm talking about here.
"Do What You Can" is a credo of impulse. Of getting off your butt and taking some action--any action--that makes any progress whatsoever. It's not a lazy man's ethic: indeed, the very opposite.
It stands as a mark of personal self-resistance. I am a lazy person, and the entire point of generating this ethic in the first place was a counterbalancing force.
And it also stands as a mark of who I am and why I need to resist my own laziness (though I make it a point to indulge it as often, as laziness has its own uses). To take a page out of Ledger's Joker, I'm an agent of chaos. I seek nothing short of change on a global scale. I want the ripples of my actions to still be meaningful and felt a thousand years from now (note the title of my friends page). I am, shortly, here to be an agitator.
But I can't do this. I can seek it all I like, but ultimately, I'm just an impotent boy writing essays into the wind. I have no significant political influence. My amusing notion of wishing the word "friend" meant "trusted minion" is fancy. My machinations have some impact, but they are small and undoubtedly peter out only a few degrees away from where I am. On the scale of centuries, I am nothing, and in all likelihood will always be nothing.
So I have a choice.
1) Call it futile and give up. This is tantamount to suicide (personally, not generally).
2) Do what I can.
Living is something I can do. So I do it. I do all those little tiny things that probably don't matter, but do matter to the people I do them for.
For my high school yearbook quote, I chose one that was unattributed, but that defined me so excellently that well... it was necessary to use it: "We, as individuals, have the ability to push a person over the edge--or to pull them back."
Sure, I have big dreams. I know they're dreams. I aqualgidize them as best I can, but my best is not enough.
So if all I have to give is a little fall of rain,
Then that little sprinkle is what I give.