my secret button (button #1)

Ever since highschool, I’ve realized two interesting things about myself, each of which I call my “secret button”. One of them is the fact that people, even complete strangers, feel that they can trust me, and tend to open up to me and tell me intimate details of their lives. Calling this a “button” is really silly, since I don’t push it consciously and I can’t ever stop pushing it. But it’s been happening ever since I started Triumvirate BBS and I’d chat with people who called up. This is a good thing and it makes me very happy. The only tricky consequence is the Katamari Effect; I care about people, I become attached to them, then I feel obligated to help, and then I feel bitter about feeling obligated. This cycle often results in a sinusoidal curve oscillating between me being very social/outgoing and very hermity. Lately I’ve been getting better at breaking this cycle, and I’ve done it by breaking the “caring implies obligation” link.

I’m trying to eliminate the words “should” and “ought”, and some uses of “need” from my vocabulary. I find them to be never helpful and often harmful.

Instead of saying “Oh, I can’t play games, I should do this thing on my to-do list instead,” I’ll think about how much I want to play games and how good it would feel to get that thing done, and I’ll do whichever I want to do more.

Instead of saying “I need to go to work today,” I’ll think about how much I want to go to work, and how much I enjoy the fruits of my labour, like money and benefits and doing things that are often fun.

Instead of saying “I ought to call my friend back,” and then either doing it out of responsibility or feeling guilty because I didn’t, instead I’ll think about whether I want to call my friend back, and if I want to, then I will, and if I don’t want to, then I won’t.

“But,” you say, “how can you live like that? Choosing not to feel responsibility, obligation, or guilt is tantamount to opting out of society completely! How can you ever have any friends if they can never rely on you for anything? How can you have a committed relationship, or — zounds! — a marriage?! Or a child?!”

Commitment and responsibility are just wants like any other. They’re just more abstract and long-term wants. I want to have a happy, stable marriage. I want to be a good mom. I want to have good friends and healthy relationships with myself and others. All I need to do is keep these wants in mind (and in heart) while i’m also feeling other, more concrete, more short-term wants. Then I just do whichever I want to do more.

Some of my friends might be uncomfortable with this. You might say “Oh, so you’re saying that you’re unwilling to engage in the basic terms and conditions of friendship. Why should I even bother with you if I can’t depend on you for anything, since you’ll always just do what you want to do?”

I’m still trying to figure out how to reply to that. I guess all I can say is “I care about you and I want to be friends with you,” and try to work out exactly what that means if needed.