When you write, sometimes things turn on you.
That’s the power of the pen.
I wrote a piece last week that I didn’t end up posting. I tried to defend a notion of personal responsibility that I had, but it didn’t hold up the way I expected.
I tried to start with a relatively benign aspect of personal responsibility before I dove into the more contentious.
If it looks like it’s going to rain, do you bring an umbrella…?
If you’re going into the mountains or onto the ocean, do you take time to prepare?
If you’re going to ride a motorcycle or travel, do you take special precautions?
I questioned the relationship of personal responsibility and drinking alcohol.
I looked at personal responsibility with regard to ethnic minorities, homosexuality, bigotry, and prejudice.
I suggested personal responsibility could play a role in limiting the difficulties, trauma, and negativity people encounter.
I’ve had enough conversations with people to know I was on shaky ground.
This was a touchy subject. However, I really thought I had something.
After setting up this idea, I tried to defend it by asking if human violence is natural.
All evidence suggests it is part of our natural world.
I thought, if it is, why is it that we feel so strongly about avoiding the topic of personal responsibility when someone is victimized by another person? I found it odd that most people aren’t averse to discussing personal responsibility when someone is hurt by something like an avalanche or a motorcycle accident. But, personal responsibility seems to be a taboo subject when a human enacts violence on another human.
I understand, there is no excuse for violent crime!
It’s bewildering when a human hurts another human. We desperately want to make sense of the assailant’s behavior.
They broke the most basic and fundamental laws we set for humanity.
A tight dress doesn’t mean “touch me.”
Diamonds and jewelry don’t say “rob me.”
Yet, violent crime happens.
On the Serengeti, it is the weak and infirm that are the most vulnerable.
We as humans are not immune to this biological truth.
That’s the way of the jungle.
So I had to ask is there any room for discussing personal responsibility in “the jungle”?
Predators are looking for weakness, vulnerability, and opportunity.
Our body language, the way we dress, the people we are spend our time with, all communicate something to the outside world.
The outfits we wear present an identity.
A priest collar or a motorcycle gang patch…
A business suit or Carhartt’s…
A burka or Birkenstocks…
A tube top or a fur coat…
They all say very different things about the person you project into the world.
Recognize what you are transmitting into your surroundings.
Listen, learn, adapt.
I suggested to teach your children that the world isn’t fair.
Teach them that they cannot control their environment, but they can control the way they respond to it.
Teach them that there is pride and strength in personal responsibility.
Teach them that personal responsibility, integrity, and self awareness are of the highest value.
I felt like I had defended this idea of personal responsibility in relation to violence in a novel way.
But, it wasn’t the answer I thought it was.
It’s not that simple
There is another side to this argument.
Something that can’t be resolved.
Really bad things happen to people who seem to do everything right.
This idea negated the argument I was trying to formulate.
Personal responsibility will not protect you.
Life is a bit more like a slot machine.
Sometimes we wear our lucky hat when we pull the lever…
Personal responsibility is like a lucky hat.
You can do everything right, but in the end,
No one is immune from violence.
Bad things can happen to anyone, at any time.
I got caught up in some self righteous ideas.
I was wrong.
Evil is a subjective reality.
Life is akin to the ouroboros.
The snake that’s consuming its own tail.
Blind to the source of its nourishment… It’s very own decomposition.
It’s the nature of things.
A biological truth, a biological imperative.
This thing we judge as evil and good, happy or sad, that’s a misunderstanding.
Good and evil are subjective realities. Stories that conscious beings who developed the ability to communicate, share with each other. Subjective reality is egoic.
There is no ego in objective reality. Interestingly, it can also be seen as a metaphor for compost. The source of beauty and harmony disguised as entropy. A compost of rot and decay that sprouts fruits and flowers. The fruit and the filth are of the same source. We don’t want it to be, but it is. The beauty you see, is death and decay transformed. Just as the rot that makes you retch is the source of everything you love.
I lost sight of that with this piece.
I forgot that no amount of control will remove you from the snake’s mouth.
Good and evil are an illusion.
What you think you are, is an illusion.
You’re the monster you demonize.
You’re the saint you canonize.
You can’t escape evil, because you are the evil you see.
You can’t find love, because you are love.
Subjective realities are not objective realities.
You can’t dodge the reaper. You are the reaper.
You are the care taker and the saint.
You’re the murderer and the thief.
This is all to say, nothing can protect you.
Do you get it?
You are nothing.
No-Thing…
Don’t understand?
It’s the ego, the story you’ve told yourself, the thing you so desperately want to believe. It isn’t true.
You’re no-thing.
Ooof, that hurts, but that’s the objective truth.
I guess, if you’d like to, you could look at it in a different way.
You’re everything.
Everything known and unknown.
A thing that turns over and into itself. A cauldron of rich compost that births hydrogen and humans and galaxies and glaciers.
You are the source, and of the source.
You are everything know and unknown.
This oneness, this everythingness, is the quiet we bump into. It is the quiet we fear. It is the deafening silence that swallows us whole.
It’s the primal void.
It’s pure darkness and pure light.
It’s everything and nothing.
Every little bubbling urp that percolates up from the primordial compost is consciousness.
Humans, an aspect of primordial consciousness.
An aspect of consciousness that has the ability to recognize itself.
A self that it can see as separate,
With a separate path.
Paths clouded in self-righteousness.
Forgetting that your role is not only of a purposeful life but also of a purposeful death.
Birth, life, and death, a cosmic fusion.
You are simultaneously that one thing.
You are the compost that life sprouts from.
From you, galaxies will be born.
From you, the universe was, and will be.
The source of the trees and symphonies.
The you,
And the me.
Although, that’s not to say personal responsibility is an entirely bad idea.
Wink, wink…
Addendum: The reason I chose personal responsibility as a topic is because it played a pivotal role in resolving personal issues that I carried with me for years. It was such a powerful tool for me I thought it would translate into the topic of empowering people and deterring victimization. It didn’t hold up the way I thought it would. Such is the power of the pen.
