When I first got my laptop, my uncle Toby helped me get it set up. He's a whiz with computers and has lots of good software to boot! He installed this thing on my computer called oblique strategies. When you click it open, it gives you a single thought or question to consider. When I first got it, I clicked it a lot. I used it as motivation when I felt stuck (especially creatively) & then like most new discoveries on the computer, I kind of forgot it after awhile.Last night I saw the icon for it on my tool bar and clicked. It said: What wouldn't you do?
I went through things like the seven sins and decided I would definitely do each of them under certain circumstances . Then I thought of silly things. Would I eat dog poop? Again, under certain circumstances, in a heartbeat (even though it activates my gag reflex to think about it!). Then I went through my greatest fears. Would I swim with sharks? Yes, there are even circumstances I was able to imagine where I would swim with sharks. Then it came to me. Aha! I would never knowingly torture somebody for no good reason. But then I thought of a friend of mine who did just that. He's not a bad person I don't think but he found himself in a set of circumstances where he was able to cross lines he had never considered plausible. So I realized that I couldn't say for sure that I would never torture anyone though I can say I'm unable to conceive of a circumstance in which I would. I don't think I'd do a lot of things and I'd like to think that I would never do some things but after considering it for a long time last night I realized that I don't think one can't be 100% certain about what different sets of circumstances might enable us to do. If you have children, imagine what you'd do if their life was on the line. Or your own life or the life of someone you love. Imagine if you were faced with choices about the suffering of one versus many. Imagine all the different scenarios that could potentially cause you to act against your conscience or your own nature or to overcome the things which terrify you more than anything....
What wouldn't you do?
"What wouldn't you do?" Exactly. I probably had limits (or so I thought) at one point or another, but then I had my daughter. Now there are no limits. You are right, any personality, any fear, any challenge, there is a circumstance that would overcome it, I think, for everyone.
ReplyDeleteI would never kill myself or get plastic surgery...which for me are similar.
ReplyDeleteOf course there are weird scenarios I suppose could crop up where I would succumb...lets see, breast enlargement or they chop off one of my baby's toes, ok, I'm in...but seriously, in the real world I would never do those things. I am who I am and I am here til the end.
Having said that...to me War is not the real world, it is hell and turns us into animals. In those situations I can't know what I would do, but I would like to think that if I became an animal, I would become a bird and fly above it or a fish and swim through it or an elephant and carry others to safety on my back and never forget.