A Bit More Serious, Perhaps
At what point are we responsible for ourselves as opposed to a product of the environment which our parents created? Yes, I have compassion for people who have had difficult lives. I am impressed and humbled by the various challenges people my age have encountered while they are/were so young. After a certain point, however, you are responsible for yourself. It's a crime and a shame that someone would be beaten as a child, but by his (universal his) early twenties he should be mature enough to start really facing these facts and handling them - seeking counseling, resolving issues of self worth, and taking charge of his mental health.
Physical health is something many people (although not enough, Fast Food Nation) take for granted. Mental health is often ignored. But what kind of productive society member can you be if you are metaphorically wounded?
Physical health is something many people (although not enough, Fast Food Nation) take for granted. Mental health is often ignored. But what kind of productive society member can you be if you are metaphorically wounded?
posted by The Grave Digger at 3/05/2005 05:39:00 PM
5 Comments:
Is this about me? I think there's a definite line to be drawn. If someone hurts someone else and blames it on others, then they need to be sent to prison without parole. But I think people should be free to hurt themselves all they want, whether they can blame it on others or not. Psychology is a very complicated thing.
As for your post on my blog, that has to be the nicest thing you've ever said to me, and perhaps among the nicest anyone has ever said, period. You even inspired me to poem - and I don't poem much anymore!
Anyway, I will stop whining so much. Hope your weekend is going OK. The past two weeks, I come out of class and for a split second I look for you near the Bridge. :-)
I disagree. Blaming others may help you cope - you are at liberty to blame who you like. However, you (universal you) are supposed to take care of yourself, in every aspect, to the best of your abilities. Why is jaywalking illegal? You could kill yourself. Gotta look out for number 1.
While reading your blog lead me to write this comment, it is directed at someone that is not you.
I don't know if I agree so much. I mean yes it would be good if people got off their ass and stopped blaming other people for their misdeeds.. but say if someone cut off your right arm and you were right handed. Now for the rest of your life you have to struggle to become left handed. Say you fucked up while driving and got into a car accident. Now I would think someone would A.) have to take responsibility for their actions b/c thats the society we're in, but more importantly B.) have every right to curse the person who cut off their right arm. Now clearly a one armed person can't go around causing accidents and blaming the person who cut off their arm, but what if you just never quite master being left handed? It's not your fault, its not like you asked someone to cut off your arm. I think its the same with people who are emotionally scarred. They do want to be a better person, they're struggling to be a better person, but some people can go through life never mastering how to do that. And with adolescence extended until the early 20s (college, extended parental support, etc), i feel its hardly a time for people to have their act together these days. Like they say, 30 is the new 20!
More often than not, I think the logic goes round and round, but in a larger context -- first off, what's done is done, and second, if everybody else has got over their shit maybe universal-you should get over universal-yours. I mean, when universal-you're mature. Particular-I've got no plans on that yet.
Each of us has to play with the cards she's dealt, but after you've been playing long enough, the way you play says more about you than it does about your cards.
We all, with the exception of those who are so disabled that we consider their situation extraordinary, have a responsibility to surpass some low threshold of decency, respect, and compassion in our interactions with others. Shit happens to people, but at some point people have to become agents of their own relationships. I and Thou, man.
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