Before I discuss responsibility (again) let me introduce the term existential given. (If you are familiar with the term you can skip over the next paragraph).
An existential given is a thing that we can’t change even if we want to. For example, the date of our birth, the fact that we will die, the place we are born, the family we are born into, our place in the family (e.g. eldest, youngest etc.). It is also a given that we get older as time moves forward. (This is related to the root foundations of time and emergence). It is sometimes not easy to decide what is an existential given and what isn’t. When I was young (if I had known what the term existential given meant) I would have thought that being a Catholic was one – so strong was my belief that if I was born into a Catholic family I would always be a Catholic. But it isn’t – because even though it appeared to me that I had no choice in the matter, actually I did.
What about responsibility? Many researchers, philosophers, writers and thinkers maintain that because 1): responsibility is essential to our growth and development, and 2): humans wouldn’t have evolved into what we are nowadays without it; it can be considered to be an existential given. This implies that even if we want to change ourselves into irresponsible humans – it is impossible, because being human means being responsible. (In a previous post on responsibility I referred to the writings of Irwin Yalom who develops this theme very well).
The fact that responsibility is an existential given implies that we will suffer existential guilt if we are not being responsible. Existential guilt means that we feel guilty if we haven’t been, for example, authentic, or true to ourselves, or if we haven’t reached our full potential, and/or that we have let ourselves down – and if we are irresponsible we let ourselves down.
Now, as an aside, there is a very interesting organisation known as the Human Givens Institute, based in England. The book, entitled Human Givens, is a very thought-provoking and informative read which promotes the idea that we all have, innately, the potential to change our lives for the better.
I think that givens like the book identifies – and, indeed, responsibility – are different kinds of givens than the colour of our eyes, or the year we are born, or our place in our family. When I was thinking of the differences I was thinking that the former are dynamic, or moving givens, and the latter are static givens.
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Almost always, if we end up in prison, a root cause (remember we also discussed proximate causes and root causes in a previous Chapter) is that we find it really difficult to manage our emotions and/or we are well practiced at getting others to take responsibility for our emotional state.
Simply put, this means when something goes wrong or we feel angry or afraid or indeed we do something wrong, it is always someone else’s fault. So – in not being responsible – we let ourselves down – which is far more debilitating than letting anyone else down.
Sometimes I wonder if we have a felt-sense of responsibility to make a contribution to family and/or society or is it just to self? In other words, if we perceive ourselves not to be doing so do we suffer from a kind of existential torment?
Perhaps!