#obligations

[philosophybits]

It is only up to a certain point that possessions make men more independent and free; one step further — and the possessions become master, the possessor becomes a slave: as which he must sacrifice to them his time and his thoughts and henceforth feel himself obligated to a society, nailed to a place and incorporated into a state none of which perhaps meets his inner and essential needs.

Friedrich Nietzsche, Assorted Opinions and Maxims, 317

[pratchettquotes]

"All right, this is the Watch! Bucket chain!" he shouted.

"Aw, must we?" said someone in the crowd.

"Yes, you must," said Captain Carrot. "Come on, everyone, if we form two lines we'll have this done in no time at all! What d'you say, eh? It might even be fun!"

And they did it, Vimes noted. Carrot treated everyone as if they were jolly good chaps and somehow, in some inexplicable way, they couldn't resist the urge not to prove him wrong.

Terry Pratchett, The Fifth Elephant

[fatchance]

Thoughts I Have Thunk

You can't get blood from a turnip, but you can destroy the turnip trying.

[todaysrecipe]

How Double Income Households Became an Obligation

I'm posting this so I can find it on my own blog. It struck a chord with me, now that I'm old and wiser. I always worked. We have no kids, not by design. But we always lived simply and on one income. My income paid for extras and for saving.

My neighborhood has grown into these huge homes that must take two incomes to support. Gone are middle-class homes from the 50s, 60s, and 70s. We really have grown into a society of obligations. We need credit debt, large houses, fancy autos, technology up the whazoo, college educations, fancy vacations, stress, and big divorce rates. We need our children in therapy because they can't cope. We hand them a tablet and make it acceptable to cheat in school using AI. Obligations have changed our social fabric. Obligations have set us up to accept control because we can't afford to lose everything. We cornered ourselves into a lack of options because we were too quick to say yes.

This is for me. Monday afternoon musings. Something I couldn't put my finger on, but now this helped turn on a light to how did we get here. This was one of the paths chosen.

[rubypomegranates]

"[T]hat old September feeling, left over from school days, of summer passing, vacation nearly done, obligations gathering, books and football in the air ... Another fall, another turned page: there was something of jubilee in that annual autumnal beginning, as if last year's mistakes had been wiped clean by summer."

Wallace Stegner "Angle of Repose"

[stoicmike]

Manipulation consists largely of trying to convince people that they have obligations they don’t actually have.  -- Michael LIpsey

[trailofleaves]

"A man left alone in the universe would have no rights whatever, but he would have obligations.

[...] Obligations alone remain independent of conditions. They belong to a realm situated above all conditions, because it is situated above this world."

— Simone Weil, The Need for Roots