Belly Button Lint

Feeling Lint-y?

Tag: responsibility

  • Theme:

    The blame game

    , , ,

    °

    1–2 minutes

    When we excessively shift fault to the negligence of others (by insisting they should’ve thought more of us or prevented hardship from happening to us), we create a space that disincentivizes responsibility and creativity.

    For example, automakers who fail to recall vehicles often intentionally mask profiteering as accidental negligence expecting only a harsh rebuke. Yet, the victim deserves total remuneration, and the false practice must be deterred.

    However, if we redefine “victimization” to a scale beyond any reasonable foresight and then punish makers for lacking Nostradamus-like predictive capacity, any intelligent creator will realize success makes you a target.

    If you are inventive, perhaps create, then take the money and run. There will no longer be responsible oversight or incremental advancement, but instead hit-and-run creativity to avoid a victimization mob.

  • Theme:

    How do you find worth?

    , , ,

    °

    1–2 minutes

    By being beneficial to one’s community.

    You must be of use, not because somebody else feels better or praises you, but because it is beneficial to others. (Being of use is not simply one’s actions or utility but derives from your worth.)

    Of course, one must first take responsibility for separating your tasks, and not seeking affirmation or praise from others. Aid must be given voluntarily, otherwise it is self-serving.

    From Alfred Adler

  • Theme:

    Seeking Likability: The Illusion of Safety and Authenticity

    , , ,

    °

    1–2 minutes

    The desire to be liked by others (likability), whether it’s your boss or strangers, can stem from a need for safety or a desire to be seen as a good person.

    However, seeking approval requires constant effort and doesn’t guarantee stability or assurance. Trying to please everyone is an impossible task, as people’s desires often conflict.

    Instead, being genuinely responsible and consistent in yourself can attract genuine “liking” from others. True liking, or respect, is gained from the recognition that you are working on yourself first, not working to please others.

  • Theme:

    The space necessary for self discovery

    , , ,

    °

    1–2 minutes

    I abhor the common refrain, often an excuse from responsibility, that we need to “find ourselves”.

    Yet, without a small gap or space in which to practice pointless tasks you will not find what resonates deeply with you. Without grasping what brings you joy without needing function, or utility, it seems unlikely you could ever be a “self.”

    You risk being a “being” produced by the society by not discovering, on your own initiative, your own priorities.

  • Theme:

    Influence or power?

    , , ,

    °

    1–2 minutes

    People don’t want power: they want to be heard.

    Consequently, because people want influence, they often mistakenly take on responsibility as the means to achieve it.

    The resultant power is the misguided attempts to gain influence.

  • Theme:

    victimhood as freedom

    , , ,

    °

    1–2 minutes

    You can find a type of freedom by exempting yourself from responsibility. By playing the victim, you can often convince others to release you of burdens. However, the ensuing trap is to lose agency.

    In a reversal of freedom, this “outsourcing of obligation” binds you to the other: in a master/slave scenario, you lose the burden of responsibility by incurring a guardian.

    The victim sees external circumstances align against them, which excuses them from fault and responsibility, but becomes deterministic in that they cannot control their fate.

    Freedom is the ability to create your own prison of responsibilities.
    This “frees you” from the need to heed the edicts of others but ensures you must vigilantly maintain your own dictates, and guard your own duties and virtues, which sounds not at all like freedom.

  • Theme:

    Social Policing

    , , ,

    °

    1–2 minutes

    People see you happy, being yourself, or feeling yourself, and the balancing mechanism is to apply their internalized burdens (“responsibility”) upon you.

    The common way is to offer disingenuous “help” while tripping you.

    The plea for conformity (or moderation) is subconscious leveling, but not-so-well-wishing busybodies often destroy the happiest (unique) person.

    Remember that this concern for social uniformity is crossing a boundary; it is not their responsibility to arbitrate control, unless you cross their boundary.

  • Theme:

    People pleasers

    , , ,

    °

    1–2 minutes

    When people set up barriers or boundaries with you, they are not attacking your person, they are rejecting your behavior.

    This is hard to hear, because we assume our behavior is why people like us, and we can modify our behavior to be loved.

    Setting up a boundary and showing where each person’s responsibility lies is the kindest form of love: it sets responsibility and can love even if you behave atrociously or perfectly.

  • Theme:

    Accountability and Forgiveness

    , , ,

    °

    1–2 minutes

    A friend brought up “the lack of accountability” in politics.

    In response, I brought up “the path to forgiveness,” suggesting we can hold people responsible, but allow resocialization. Otherwise, there is no reason for the “tyrant or abuser” to submit to rehabilitation and reintegration.

    They responded that they would “never forgive Trump.”

    In this situation, the impulse for accountability operates as a virtuous term, while smuggling in revenge-justice.

    What I fear is a system with no possibility of recuperation; only punishment and a lifetime of alienation. In such a system we create and enforce opposition: once one mistake is made, the only logical thing to do is go further afield and amplify your martyrdom, because you can never return.

  • Theme:

    Control and Responsibility

    , , ,

    °

    1–2 minutes

    This chained pair is inseparable.
    If we avoid responsibility, situations devolve into chaos, and if we claim control but do not delegate responsibility, negligent entropy ensues.
    Extreme ownership, either refusing responsibility or taking control, are possible, but at the extremes lies resentment.

    The question remains if a committed cadre can communally disperse responsibility while retaining control.