Own Your Actions

When we assess a value to another's action, belief or behavior (i.e. to say it is good or bad, should be punished or rewarded), we are actually attempting to place on that person at least a portion of-if not the sole-responsibility for the actions or our thoughts that we have chosen to exercise toward that individual.   

            No one can make you happy or angry. They provide a backdrop;

 and you, the emotional response of choice.

To say that our action "is because" of another or due to something external of ourselves is to claim that there can actually be some objective justification for our behavior, our "response".

Objective: not influenced by personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudice; based on facts; unbiased: an objective opinion.

If our response were objective, then we could expect that anyone would respond the same, given like experience/input. No doubt that we can always find a number of people who would be in agreement with virtually any behavior, opinion, predilection we might choose. Numbers of people in agreement did not, in the end, justify the actions/responses of Nazi Germany-nor has it justified the actions/responses of the Bush administration.

           Action defines only the initiator.

In fact there is nothing objective-unbiased, impersonal, completely externalized-about any of our actions or thoughts. We can function only from a unique and personal perspective. Accepting this as a given, it would be much more beneficial in our life (personal and collective) to fully consider just who we will use as models validating our responses. Would the Dalai Lama so respond? Buddha?

In fact, even "response" is a misnomer. "Response" implies that our action/thought comes about due to external stimuli. We are not an object that can be played like some musical instrument. Our nature is the only stimuli bringing about the resulting tune.

We collectively (as country, society, or other group) take actions claiming justified and objective response to some infraction of a subjectively defined edict. We convince ourselves that we have no responsibility in the path chosen in reaction, as if "what follows" is something decreed from On High, and must be complied with.

For a specific example, when someone kills another in a context that we, collectively, cannot/will not justify-murder-we claim that we lock that person away "because they have broken the incontrovertible "law." The real truth is that we lock that person away because they and their action frighten us. We know that we, and those we care about, have fragile, finite lives, which we do not wish to have endangered by someone who does not show what we find to be a comfortable degree of consideration of that fact or fragility. I, too, am frightened, and consent to their incarceration, but I accept the real reason why I am a party in this response-law is a smokescreen.

I am not saying that there should be no law or consequence, only that we alone have ownership of our action. Claiming "response" does not change that.  Particularly in the US over the last eight years there has been too much effort put in displacing ownership for the nature of the executioners of our collective "responses." This situation is particularly alarming to me, due to relentless contamination of subjective parameters into political policy that has worldwide impact-i.e. "Reverend" George W. Bush's favorite word, "evil".

             Once a single misrepresentation is passed off as truth, it can become the     
             foundation for no end of fallacy.

I felt a need to share my thoughts on the problem of displaced responsibility because it is not merely one of politics or law, but also an issue of spirit. I remind myself to be aware of the impact of my choices of (supposed) reaction because I am quite certain that even if I am able to delude myself about who will be owner of my actions-and, therefore pay the cost-the Universe will not be so fooled.

Copyright 2008 CG Walters

Truth caters to an individual's capacity to comprehend, but not to one's fear to accept.

This is my truth. Only you can determine if there is any value in it for you.

C.G. Walters primarily writes fiction that focuses on the multidimensionality of our loves and our lives. His current novel, Sacred Vow is a metaphysical novel about a man who responds to the mysterious call of [his soulmate], opening the way to redefinition of both himself and his understanding of the world around him...Highly recommended. -Midwest Book Review.

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