So Think
Think! The admonition, “think, god-damn it, think!” is the hardest, sharpest, heaviest, advisement that can be uttered and received. Many of us born to privilege, in the West, white and almost certainly male are relatively unconstrained by circumstances. A felt compulsion to think, that is, to consider that one’s lifestyle, the purchases, the use of objects, the disposition of time, — affects others. “No man/woman is an island,” wrote John Donne. But we’ve never felt that to be true,…
“Out of sight = out of mind,” could well be our tagline when we’ve been dealt a winning hand by the accident of fortunate birth, the benefit of a first rate education, propitious circumstances in the pursuit of livelihood, etc., etc.. If it seems that I perceive life as a crapshoot, a risky, informal, a chance laden matter — you’d be right.
Nevertheless, every decision, every path taken, with no exceptions affects someone else, as a ripple moves across the still surface of a pond. Since it is not reasonable to be aware of every effect caused by my actions, why bother to think, why care? The proposition is impossible. Even worse, action is imperative, one must act. Inaction is action. No one gets to “opt out” of the game…
If you are turning this conundrum
over and over in your mind, I do not need to compose a argument in favor of caring, a list of good reasons for living mindful-of-others, especially those out of sight behind the globally extended supply chains. Do not the subtle sensations of your being, of your body indicate to you, “this is the way” forward? That is what I feel, an argument more palpable, as real as the earth, whenever I consider my relationship to the whole.
