Mondays of Meaning

Beyond Order: Rule IV (Notice that opportunity lurks where responsibility has been abdicated)—Page 134.

What is the antidote to the suffering and malevolence of life? The highest possible goal. What is the prerequisite to pursuit of the highest possible goal? Willingness to adopt the maximum degree of responsibility—and this includes the responsibilities that others disregard or neglect.

You might object: “Why should I shoulder all that burden? It is nothing but sacrifice, hardship, and trouble.”

But what makes you so sure you do not want something heavy to carry? You positively need to be occupied with something weighty, deep, profound, and difficult. Then, when you wake up in the middle of the night and the doubts crowd in, you have some defense: “For all my flaws, which are manifold, at least I am doing this. At least I am taking care of myself. At least I am of use to my family, and to the other people around me. At least I am moving, stumbling upward, under the load I have determined to carry.”

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“It's also very different to say that institutions are corrupted or tempted by the willingness to use power, the motivation to use power. And that one of the manifestations of that is various forms of arbitrary oppression and to claim that that's the central guiding principle of the institutions and the societies. And then that also begs the question, well, if you criticize the west, let's say, for its grounding in willingness to use arbitrary power and compulsion. What do you propose as an alternative and why do you believe that alternative exists?”

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