Obliviate!

For those of you who aren't in the little club of Harry Potter fans, the title of this post is the magical (latin-derived) word for the spell of forgetting. More properly, "obliviate" is a spell of confusion, built up from memory loss. And, after work today, I feel as if I had that spell cast on me.
How many of us do things for other masters? How rarely are we working for ourselves, being our own taskmaster? It seems that we are very good at paying bills to other people. We quiver at the thought of being late for a credit card bill. Do we blink, though, when we forget to set aside our earnings or do our own dishes?
That is, we reason, because I can afford to be an easy master to myself. 'After all, I have to deal with Boss X all day long, and really, I prefer not having him follow me all day.'
I suppose the result of that lax attitude is the decline in self-discipline. What is self-discipline other than the habit of obeying yourself? To discipline others is to instruct and be obeyed--to do this to yourself should be simple. After all, your arms and legs follow your commands; why not your behavior?!
Because we tire. Our other masters--Boss X, the water company, medical insurance--drive us and drive us hard. After all, they say, it is for our own benefit. 'You want your paycheck, don't you? Your water? Your health to be paid for when you need it?'
So the picture of our un-self-disciplined lives is thus:
We work for others so that others work for us.

Yet... I wonder. I wonder if, like a poorly sealed set of pipes, this basic assemblage of society loses labor or forgets its excess or... for lack of a better word... leaks. Isn't there something extra going on when you charge off to work an 8 hour day? Driving is an issue of extra--no one pays you to drive to work, but you pay someone. This well-publicised issue can cover over other things. What about your daily habits to facilitate the ease of your life? Like coffee in the morning? Like a movie at home because you're tired and need your brain to unwind? Like pizza delivery since your arms and legs, so driven by Boss X, won't heed your instructions for dinner? We pay for these things so that we can continue working for others.

Farmers might have something great going on. After all, they live on top of their food. They sell the excess. If you can run a diverse enough field for a season, couldn't you feasibly get away without buying food? Your family might gripe, though. I can hear some of the complaints already. "But Dad! The Joneses get pizza every night! I'm tired of fresh bread and cheese." "But we're not keeping up with the Joneses," I would like to reply. Maybe I will one day.

So the struggle in our society is not for proper leadership. One can blame the government for the media, the media for the obesity, the obesity for the stupidity, and on and on. But the truth is that we do not accept our own responsibilities. Our stupidity is ours to change. Our media is ours to listen to (or ignore). I began this post with half-a-mind to say things tantamount to "each man truly IS an island and we should celebrate isolationism." That might be a bit extreme.

Instead, I would suggest that we look at the responsibilities we give away to others and try taking them up ourselves. Look for the small ones. Becoming entirely independent from society is difficult, but look at the things you can learn to do for yourselves. Can you make clothes? Can you figure out your own mechanic work? Can you develop a solution to one of your needs that was previously met by someone else? Do it.
Do it because you'll be doing them a favor--not just yourself. Decreasing their workload gives them a break, a pause, a chance to regain their sanity. This isn't an age where people can stop at work and reflect on life. If we pause at work, it's merely to breathe and gather our wits, not reflect. Maybe one day, when our work has changed to something more meaningful, we will be able to reflect as a society. Some real thinking will be done--maybe even some forethought.

That continues to be my hope.