CW: Depressive thoughts of an asshole
Do you think that you are a good person? I don’t. I’ve tried to be one for a long time, act like one to those close to me. But I just don’t think it will ever happen.
Some context: I’m a young person living in the Western world. My family are upper-middle class, and loving and supportive of me. I was raised with a strong moral compass, particularly about social issues. As I’ve grown, I’ve become more and more aware of the way that I live. My socio-economic circumstances mean that I’m probably in the top 10% of the world’s population, where the biggest polluters are.
To explain my problem with this, I’ll put it in simple words: the climate crisis kills people. And so, by contributing to it, I am a murderer. You can argue this point all you like. That its a bigger issue than me, that my own emissions are only a fraction of those of the top 1%. But just because someone else has hurt people more doesn’t mean that I haven’t hurt people. One of the scariest parts of this is that it means, wherever I go, the people around me are most likely murders by my own definition. My peers, mentors, neighbors. But they don’t know. They don’t think about the fact that they have contributed to people’s deaths. Ignorance is bliss.
All I want to do is help people. That’s what I want to do with my life: reduce pain and suffering. I’m thinking of going into medicine. But I wake up every morning and go to bed every night with the knowledge that I am doing the opposite. I try to do a little bit: eat less meat, don’t fly, buy less clothes. While I drive places and eat food shipped from far away, watch other’s do things without objection. And the little I also isn’t quite genuine, sometimes more motivated by the fear of the guilt I’ll feel if I do not do it.
I’m going to be real: I’m so scared. I don’t know how much longer I can keep doing this. There’s a line from some song “You’ve got to live with the pain or start feeling nothing at all”. What happens on the day that I start feeling nothing? I’ve had them before. I think the scariest thought of them all is that I become a mindless consumer, working 9-to-5 in an office job. And when the headlines show the deaths from the latest storm or heatwave, I can point and say: “I helped with that”. Yours faithfully, A fellow stranger
P. S. Thanks so much for reading my deranged rant of self pity, and I hope you have a wonderful day P. P. S. If you have any interesting thoughts, it would be much appreciated it you would share them
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This sounds like you are somehow trying to take the full responsibility for the circumstances you were forced into. It is impossible to blame one person for all the things that are not working, looking and being “as they should”. The same goes for “we all failed”. It is much more nuanced than that.
The reverse perspective is more productive, every action and even smallest nudge into the right direction counts towards much bigger pile… of dust… on the endless desert… Yet still, this is how mesmerizing dunes are formed. It’s not about the amount of grains, how long it took, it’s about all the persisting processes.
Thanks, I just guess it just find it hard to keep on going some days. I think one of the reasons I place a decent amount of personal responsibility upon myself is a form of hero fantasy, that I’ll do something to change the world someday, that there is some meaning to me being here that will be massively tangible some day. The semi-urgency of the climate crisis and an indifference among my peers also means that I feel like I need to compensate for some of their actions as I cannot convince them to change. In terms of being “forced into” circumstances, a large part of my concern is taking responsibility for not trying to change those circumstances and not fighting against decisions made by others in my family, friends and wider social circle in regards to the environment, and instead standing by and letting things go.
There are so many anchor points to respond to, from your original post and this reply…
Every well working moral compass starts any process from some form of self doubt — am I wrong here? What was I thinking? What if this is one giant mistake? Am I the bad guy? The garden can’t be all rotten, it’s probably me… and so on, right? You know those? If you do, great, compass is just reminding you to be cautious and more aware of the decision making process. Then the spectrum begins, from “nothing matters and anything I will do does not matter”, let’s call it avoidant end of the spectrum, then on the other side “I should not make any decision and this is the best decision, everything will sort itself”, the everlasting frozen stone… There are more ends but you probably already know where all this is going, the game is in progress and it is always your move. This is exhausting, hence the feeling of “hard to keep going”.
The hero visions? Ohh yeah, those are tasty, aren’t they? Equally destructive as productive. You can stimulate your ego with them into oblivion or… grow actual motivation from them. The real question is, are you ready to do the thing that might become the milestone in your story? If not, you probably just need more time, rest, preparation, et cetera; if yes, how great is that? Whenever you feel like you are failing on your part of “we all are in this together” deal, somewhere on the other side of the scale, someone is doing their best. So if you need to take it slow(er), do it. Because there will be a moment when you will not want to stop doing something and that will be great too.
Maybe let’s finish with this idea of fighting. Not all fights are yours to fight. You won’t stop everyone from littering, eating meat, or any other type of influencing behaviors of others in an instant — magically — is just in the fantasy realm. The real fight starts when you pick your way and by not forcing others to join you, finally someone who will be motivated by your choices, might use it as a starting point for their own decisions or changes… or you will get demotivated and change the trajectory.
If there is this underlying feeling that you should be doing something differently, what if that feeling is right?
Sorry, had a busy day yesterday and didn’t get a chance to reply. On the idea that “influencing the behaviors of others in an instant is just in the fantasy realm” the problem is that, either by fluke or by chance, I recently encountered a situation where such a thing happened, and that after challenging someone’s beliefs they considered them and changed their view on the world (to a large enough degree).
I also understand that I need to change what I am doing, but I can find it really hard to do so. There’s so much that I could do but I never manage to get myself to bother. I sometimes sit in this weird realm where I go about my day with a smile on my face, then retreat to a shell of worry at night, when I do not have the opportunity to change the things around me.
On the spectrum you speak of, I seem to exist at both ends at different times, depend on whether I am feeling like blaming or excusing myself. It reminds me of the chess term Zugzwang (where the only moves available are bad ones), except the only easy moves available are the bad ones, and the good ones exist behind a wall of effort.
Thank you again for your extended a thoughtful replies.
there’s no good or bad people, it’s much more nuanced than that. no one fits into just one box at all times and places.
just do your best, it’s all we can do.
Thanks for the reply. While I am aware that people are neither good nor bad, I just find it hard to deal with the fact everyone around me is continuously making decisions that are bad for the environment and both mine and their future.
A lot of what you say resonates with me. Perhaps something that has helped me greatly may be of use to you.
Know and accept what you can control. It is the only way to be happy, fulfilled, and passionate. When I was younger, I wanted to change the world. As I got older, I started to be depressed (for many reasons) but this one thing really changed me long term. An individual has no control over their peers, strangers, or even family. They may be able to sway some opinion but other people in the end have full control of their own path. The only person you can control is yourself.
This idea may seem disheartening at first, but it is the truth. Learning how to work with this limitation is a sign of great self-awareness.
An example for me: I cannot as an individual save the planet. Can I take some action to do so? Yes. Can I speak to others about my concerns? Yes. Does that matter? Yes. Knowing that is the extent of what I can do is imperative and it sounds like though you understand some of the concept of the limitations of your influence and control, you have not yet accepted it.
Limitations of influence and control are not a burden, but rather is a freedom! Imagine trying to bear the weight of the world! Knowing and accepting that one individual is limited in control is a relief as worrying about others you cannot influence is draining and only will drag you down.
I hope these thoughts are helpful. It took me years to start to actually put these thoughts into practice and I have been a lot happier since. Therapy can also help if you have a good person to speak with.
I think your moral system is wrong.
It doesn’t describe a person, it describes an ideal. There’s no room for a person in there - no one can ever meet that standard. Can you describe a good person in that system?
Morality has to be relative, at least to some degree. Humans must destroy living things to exist - we can only survive from eating life. We also require shelter, community, even entertainment - there’re more and less harmful options for this, but there are no consequence free options. A system that says survival is immoral isn’t a useful system - it leads to supervillain level conclusions if you play it all out
You have to put humans in context.
I share similar values - the base of my moral code is “if everyone lived like me, the world would quickly approach perfection”. Take what you need, give what you can. I don’t travel much, but I do when it’s important. I try to limit my consumption, but I ask if it is worth what it would bring me
I think you’re still developing your moral code, which I think is a sign of a good person - you’ve just gotten stuck midway. There’s two paths I think you should look down
First, you can put everything on a scale - do my actions add more than I take from the world? If you devoted your life to improving the system or helping people, you’ll have to contribute more to the mechanisms killing the world to empower yourself to do more. That includes entertainment and pleasure required to keep yourself in your best condition - but not more.
Second, you can make it all relative. You can’t live a zero carbon life, but you can reduce your impact. You can continuously improve as you learn and gain experience, and stay on the side of progress
These aren’t answers - neither of those approaches are absolutely valid, and I don’t have a perfect moral code. You have to continue to question and strive to be better, but you can’t beat yourself up over what you haven’t learned yet or the consequences of picking the least bad option
In my mind, humans are just animals. Humans do what we’re conditioned to do almost all the time. Most humans never awaken beyond that. Even then, most have moments of being more before dropping back into a talking animal. And even they generally get to a certain point and stop. It’s not fair to judge them from your perspective, you have to judge them from theirs
Keep striving to be better, keep questioning yourself, and even when you slow down never stop growing - that’s what makes for a truly good person in my book
Are you contributing to the climate crisis because you want poor people in developing nations to suffer from it? Then, yes, you’re a bad person.
However, if your contribution is simply a side effect of trying to live a normal life, then you’re not. Intentions matter. The idea of living in a cave, eating sticks and leaves, would be a disproportionate sacrifice compared to the actual harm your actions are causing. A small donation to an effective organization fighting the climate crisis is likely to have a greater positive impact than going out of your way to eliminate all behavior that contributes to carbon emissions and pollution. What feels like making an impact and what actually does can often be entirely different things.
Last time I checked, donating to an organization that buys bed nets and sends them to Africa is the most effective way to use your money to help others. That way, your actions will have a tangible impact on the world. On the other hand, selling your car and stopping consumption altogether makes no difference, no matter how righteous it might feel.
I find replying to this comment difficult due to the harsh challenge it poses to my ideas.
Maybe I can give money to help others, and maybe it is a more effective way to help people (and this comment has motivated me to do so at the next available opportunity). However, I do not agree that “stopping consumption altogether make no difference”. Consumption is an act that requires things to be produced, almost always with the emission of greenhouse gases. While I do wish to help people, I would consider giving money while continuing to contribute to climate change to be a cop-out, helping while hurting. Just because you do a right thing after a wrong thing, it doesn’t mean you do nothing wrong.
