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Hi all-

A further thought about responsibility, from an existential and spiritual point of view.

There are many voices allocating blame for individual outcomes on others. The others may be people, like one's parents, teachers or schoolmates, or institutions, like government, church, schools, society itself. Sometimes it is a circumstance- an amputation, paralysis, illness.

None of these things can be changed. Our parents are ours forever. Unless we are going to change schools, we must accommodate to our environs. Institutions, society itself, have agendas and needs that are not directly related to the needs of any particular individual.

Blaming these forces accomplishes nothing for the individual. Blame does not achieve anything worthwhile for the individual or for society. Each person must learn to live and work within the parameters of life, and life is dirty, unfair, violent, competitive and worse. Simply saying it shouldn't be that way and blaming conditions for outcome is a waste. Sometimes the accommodation made is to try and change or improve society or institutions. That is a noble pursuit, since it is slow, often fruitless and exposes the person to even more grief than usual. 

For the most part, external conditions are irrelevant to our internal intellectual and spiritual environment. People will often complain about the weather, but the weather does not make a day good or bad, productive or wasted. The person does that, blaming the weather. Like so many other issues, the solution, and the problem are found within.

This is the value of philosophy and spiritual activities, whether church or meditation or whatever. These activities give the time and tools for a person to overcome external obstacles.

A terrific book about this is 'The Consolation of Philosophy'. It was written by a Byzantine man in prison, and makes a great case for external irrelevance, and describes how he came to that point of view.

Ted

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