responsibility

During our childhood a lot of things went automatically. Other people, like our parents, organized things for us which were far to difficult for us to arrange. When we got older some people, teachers for example, began to warn us. They said in the future not everything will always be arranged. Of course we laughed about it. It wasn't very likely our parents would suddenly put a stop to the food supply if we got a bad mark. Also, school was pretty easy. Even if things would get a little bit more difficult, we would still be able to manage things without too much effort.

Of course we ended up as a bunch of lazy bastards. Even though we could still permit ourselves to be lazy, a certain disquietude undermined our whole way of being. As we got older external factors stopped arranging things for us. Being lazy was most of the time a lot of fun. Someone said you should do something very good, work very hard for it. Of course you did the job, but at absolute minimal capacity. The absence of a penalty was always comforting. No one there standing with a whip to beat the lazyness out of your brain.

In a certain sense we hated this system. It made us do certain things we didn't like to do. But we loved it also, because we could play with it. The system didn't seem to object fundamentally to our behaviour. It still supported us wholly. At some point the system seemed to dissappear. Fewer and fewer people told us to work very hard. Sometimes things went really wrong. We weren't used to be fully responsibile for our actions and we also discovered lazyness was just lazyness. It wasn't enjoyable anymore, because lazyness meant that problems would stay. And secondly, lazyness seemed to define our way of being. We had not accomplished anything of value. Our whole way of being radiated minimal capacity. Or rather, it radiated nothing really.

It wasn't all our own fault. Of course we could have shown some willpower. It's not too hard to develop some personal interests. Things you do because you like to do them. Fortunately a lot of people actually do have this kind of willpower. Some even have great amounts of willpower. Still, this childhood system haunts us. The system was far too reluctant. We could toy with it. It's borders were like paper tigers. They attacked sometimes, but the attack was laughable. We ended up being pretty naive. This attitude choked us later in life. We weren't really conscious of our own identity; If people never had to struggle for it on a continuous basis, they end up being pretty lethargic.

Humans can develop a kind of fighter-spirit. The consciousness is much more alert, the eyes stand sharper, the person is more critical. Also such a person (and this is the remarkable thing) experiences and gives more affection.

Developing this is not easy because of the aformentioned state modern society tends to put people in. That way of doing things has some nice side-effects, but it's overal effect is pretty negative. People do not develop willpower because they do not really fear the consequences of doing things halfheartedly. On the other hand they do fear the consequences, but it is a superficial 'background' kind of fear. It is not the kind of fear which propelles one to actually do things. This background fear drowns people of strength, because it's always there. The work is never really finished.