That sounds like an interesting topic.
Let’s see if I get back to it.
First, today’s vid, which is very vloggy :
I rather like that vid. It’s far less ambitious than my usual vids and yet I feel there is a warmth and charisma and vulnerable charm to it that I am going to try hard to remember for future vids.
Maybe I have been trying too damned hard and I should just relax and be myself.
Hmm, where have I heard that advice before? Oh, that’s right…. everywhere.
It would save me a lot of stress and toil if I just concentrated on making one little vlog type entry a day, TikTok style.
Oh right, TikTok! That’s the app I need to download and install on my phone. That would make vlog type vids much easier to make.
I might even do more than one a day. Shocking!
Heck, maybe instead of a YouTube star, I could be a TikTok star. Become known on that platform for my charming candor and wit and, presumably, somehow make money.
Okay, just verified that you CAN make money for TikTok views – if you have at least 1K followers. Which seems like a lot.
Then again I already have 535 followers. So maybe it’s not that crazy. Maybe people on TikTok are way freer with who they follow than YouTube folk.
So who knows. If I keep making enjoyable content, I might get there.
And it does seem to be my more personal and revealing work that gets comments. The songs and rants and such are probably a lil too “out there” for people to relate to.
Maybe I should worry less about entertaining and concentrate on connecting instead.
Pretty sure I can handle that.
Anyhow, back to the topic. (I did make it back! I did, I did!)
What exactly is our moral obligation to ourselves? What do we owe the person we see in the mirror? Is it a sin to treat yourself badly?
It’s a hard question to even contemplate because of the sort of mental feedback loop that such a self-referential topic creates.
Plus a lot of us do not wish to think along those lines because we correctly suspect that if we applied ethics to how we treat ourselves, we would not come out looking too good.
I know that in my own situation, I treat myself very poorly. I get almost no exercise, I stay seated in the same position for way too long, my sleep schedule is a total mess, and I can only shower once a week.
Well, actually, I could probably do it more but I lack the motivation.
WHICH PROVES MY POINT.
If I was my own zookeeper, I would have gotten fired for laziness and gross incompetence a long time ago. If I saw someone treat an animal the way I treat myself, I would be outraged.
But is how I treat myself legit morally wrong? I don’t see how it could be anything else. There is no room in ethics for a self-justifying personal exception. If it’s wrong to do it to anyone else, it’s wrong to do it to yourself too.
How to we atone for sins against ourselves? Through the only true cure for guilt out there – right action. Do better. Treat yourself right. Do what you know you should do.
But that sounds hard and like it might be a lot of work. Way easier to just keep abusing ourselves and not deal with any of our problems.
Why cope when you can avoid?
More after the break.
The Council On High
What if there was some kind of cosmic council that judged your soul after death and all it cared about was how you had treated yourself.
How many people would do well on that exam? We abuse and misuse ourselves in so many ways, it’s hard to imagine scoring well.
Because remember, this is not a test of how well we lived, or how happy we were, or how good a person we were to others – it’s strictly about judging you for how you treated yourself exactly as if you were being judged on how you treated others.
Did you take good care of yourself? Were you a responsible owner of yourself? Did you keep yourself healthy and hearty and robust? Did you feed yourself the healthy, wholesome food you knew would lead to a happier and healthier you? Did you give yourself enough deep, restful sleep? Did you keep yourself well groomed and clean?
Were you kind to yourself? Patient? Forgiving? Did you parent yourself well? Did you give yourself structure and discipline tempered with mercy and compassion? Did you show yourself you cared? Were you gentle and warm towards yourself? Did you allow room for your being human and thus imperfect and flawed?
As you can see, no amount of wealth, status, success, or fame can improve your score on this test. You might be king of the world and still hate yourself, internally verbally abuse yourself all the time, and wreck your body pursuing short term pleasure.
I’m not saying one’s score on this test is particularly important or reflects on your value as a human being. This is just a thought experiment to see where this notion of one’s ethical obligation to oneself leads.
Many uncomfortable places, as it turns out. It’s possible that if, somehow, we were all to embrace this view of ourselves, our behaviour would radically change and we’d end up living much cleaner, happier, and more sensible lives.
Sounds kind of boring, doesn’t it?
And it would involve taking on a lot of adult responsibility. Which is a funny thought – actually taking responsibility for ourselves, in full, is a scary thought.
And yet, we’re the only ones who can do it. So you either live a life where you’re bouncing off the walls blindly and thoughtlessly all the time, or you take control and start steering towards what you want.
Easier to just keep bouncing, right?
Not better. Just easier.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.