The Hammer Falls

I had the most fascinating experience last night of watching one of my friends in a fit of repressed emotion down the equivalent of three glasses of red wine, turn bright red, and fall asleep after alternating between being a sobbing wreck, a budding nudist, and a crazy version of Dr. House. What was not so fascinating, however, was (thank god with a friend) dragging her into a taxi cab, into a bed, and making sure she didn't spend the night choking on her own vomit. The dawn greeted me as I wearily bought an issue of TIMES magazine and fell asleep in my own bed at six-thirty in the morning.

What have I learned from this experience, aside from people should not guzzle cheap, red wine?

People will always be there to help you if you need it. For most of us, we all have a support system, a series of friends, confidants, and the like who are willing to put themselves out there because of our own personal issues, or because we simply need a hug. Throughout our lifetimes we both depend on such systems and act as parts of those systems, a massive series of gives-and-takes to assure that when we get wasted and puke in the middle of the street, the guy who owes you for last week will be rubbing your back and calling a cab to take you home. However, there are times when we are alone, that we should examine such systems because intrinsically, there is always that danger of being too dependent.

Where do we draw the line? Between having problems we can handle ourselves, and problems where we need others; and more importantly, in the sense of being the one helping? Are there things that people should simply learn on their own that no amount of scaffolding can teach, or are they mostly things we can rationally understand and avoid from our friends and loved ones? This is an interesting question and, empirically, results in the following simplified form. How deeply should we care? To what extent should we invest our time, energy, and compassion if someone is constantly troubled, and for what aim?

As I was half-passing out on the way home from exhaustion, I realized that despite knowing the situation would irritate me (c'mon, escorting drunk chicks home, one of which who was hysterical? who wouldn't be irritated by that!), the line I drew for good or for ill, was quick, decisive, and hopefully for the best. I then realized what sort of burdens those who had to make this decision every day have to carry on their shoulders. The doctor in the ER who must triage, the general who must send his boys to war. The executive who balances between economics and the greater good, the president between politics and dreams. This decision I made and the subsequent consequences drained me completely and from my stupor, I could understand then why people have devoted their lives to things that perhaps are so irritating and difficult to manage. You don't do it because you want to, or because you love it, or because any of those reasons actually matter at the core; those are just the tricks and the shiny advertisements.

You do it because you made the call for both its appropriateness, and its utility. In short, because it was the right thing to do. That aforementioned line between our action and inaction then, perhaps, is the line of 'rightness,' the line that reminds us once we step across, that we are no longer acting because of an aim, or a motive, but for the ideal of 'the right thing.'

I must say that doing the right thing is a very tiring experience. However, it is perhaps an aim that we can all aspire to for each and every action, within each and every profession.

Today is cloudy, and because I slept like crap yesterday, I am lazy.

Cheers.