There is no feeling in the emotional spectrum more wholly frustrating than powerlessness. When your circumstances don't allow for you to take action, when you must "take it on the chin," when you are left with no recourse; you can only sit and wait for an actionable moment. While there are folks out there that are perfectly happy to let life happen to them, my philosophy is that it is my duty to impact life. I believe we are each here to fire up an iron and leave a scar on life; make our mark; impress our brand so that all others see that we've been here.
Martin Heidegger is my home boy. Heidegger would argue that a being must make a choice (take action) in order to be an authentic being. It's not necessary that the choice be the right one, just that a choice is made. I aspire to authenticity, to include making good faith choices. Not just on a whim, I attempt to make carefully considered choices. What my home boy hasn't really discussed is situations where there is no choice available.
See? There's the catch. Rare as they are, some situations provide no choice for the authentic being to make. I find these situations frustrating beyond comprehension. Asking me to sit on my hands, as it were, would be tantamount to asking the Devil Beagle to wait patiently for the squirrel to cross the yard. I am pulling at my collar. There is no slack on my leash. I am howling and yarping and baying. But I am not breaking free and chasing the squirrel. I am being a good dog.
Which, I suppose, is a choice.
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"... some situations provide no choice for the authentic being to make."
ReplyDeleteExample, please.
Discretion prevents me from revealing details at this time as to what I reference specifically, however...
ReplyDeleteI believe a good example of the frustration of powerlessness due to a lack of choices is Jimmy from Look Back in Anger (the Branagh performance, not Dick Burton).
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ReplyDeleteListen up, Paul Earl Tesch Bitzan--I don't know your reference and I'm not going to look it up, but I'll tell you this: everyone gets their ass kicked all the time. Sometimes you have some power over the situation and sometimes you don't. When you don't, you have to AVOID being a sniveling bellyaching snit and do the best you can.
ReplyDeleteHere are some guidelines:
Knowledge is power If you know more about the Dark Forces, you will usurp some of their control.
Truth is power When you shine a light on the bad guys in an honest and forthright way, this fucks them in the ass (note my use of forthright accessible language that everyone can understand). If they don't like what you're doing, your doing something right.
And finally, I invoke the Erin Commandment.
Don't be an asshole. If you keep your karma fluffy and just-shampooed fresh, you'll have a lot less grief in general.
That is all.
Love, Erin
ps: You know why I deleted the previous comment and I know why I deleted the previous comment. You want to tell the people why I deleted it, go ahead and tell the people. I got shit to do.