Dutiful Dreamer…

Hyperindividualism in society has brought us to a point where we misconstrue duty as something that takes away our freedom; that it takes away rather than informs our experience of life.

In fact, it is all too often that we seek life without duty. We may live in a community, but we strive towards a lifestyle geared more towards the self; that we owe our community nothing. Everything for ourselves.

What we fail to understand is that the individual cannot exist without a community, and the community cannot exist without the individual. A community is a population of individuals coexisting and informing one another in relating to one another. An individual for themselves is unable to exist just for themselves, as we have an internal community of identities each with their individual needs to interact with the wider world.

We have rights, that is, what we are all owed from each other in order to perform as our best selves.

And herein lies duty; it is to be of service to our other, to our community. To the world around us. And it does not give us shackles.

Let me illustrate.

I have a cat. A cat me and my wife decided to raise.

It would be so easy to just let him be. Not feed, not clean. It is a choice; I am not contractually obliged to do so.

But someone has to. We do not live on the open land. We do not have the benefit of a wide area they could just go out and hunt and come back or do their necessities anywhere. Cleaning him means we remain healthy and so does he. Feeding him means he remains healthy and so do we.  

I have a duty towards my cat, which overlaps the duty toward my wife. The more complex the “other,” the more complex the duties I have towards them.

But it does not oppress me; it liberates me. I chose the cat and I acknowledged the consequences I chose for myself.

I chose my friends, and choose to nourish the friendship by keeping in touch regularly. If none of us do, that relationship will inevitably die out.

With my wife, this goes on a different level as that choice was sealed with the pact of marriage. We accept them and vow to attend to the consequences wholeheartedly to the best of our abilities. There is no contractual obligation.

An obligation, on the other hand, is one that has an artificially, externally imposed penalty if it is not adhered to, be it legally or otherwise. “If you do not do this, you go to hell.” “If you do not do this, you get so much jail time.” “Time out.” “A fine.” And so forth. Coercion. If you do not adhere to something, you are denied access to a right.

I blame the inability to distinguish the two on our parenting and educational system in which we perpetuated a tokenistic approach to discipline; there is no such thing as learning from consequences but doing things in exchange for artificial rewards or penalties. Tokens. Making each action meaningless. Void of any truth. Conditional.

And by way of that, what is gained? A momentary jolt of dopamine. And then its gone until you need the next hit. Constant craving for validation or fear of denial, conflating it with control or even love.

I am not saying there is no place for it – there are places where these overlap, especially in legal marriages and so forth – but there have been unfortunate consequences to this. How many things do we do and try not to be seen doing in case we get penalized? Not necessarily legal action; even simply being disliked or disapproved! How many things do we do expecting validation?

What does that say about us?