Several times in the last week, I've looked at where I stand at odds with many people, and realised that it comes down to feeling that they and I are compromised, committed to something which is inconsistent with who we want to be. The first example was Australia - putting a high value on the well-being of an imagined community defined by geopolitical borders. To quote William Shatner - I can't get behind that. A nation is just some people's excuse for treating other people worse, often much worse, than themselves. But this problem doesn't stop with nations. Being of a species is an embarassment. Being a temporary living being is frustrating and demoralising. Don't get me started on material existence. Conversely, my friendships, projects and even this blog are unexceptionable.
It seems like the larger and more universal the commitment, the more the contingency of it rankles. The smaller, more local things I enjoy spontaneously and naturally. It is something to do with recognizing my finiteness and what Heidegger calls 'thrown-ness' - part of which is feelings of guilt which mask this ontological guilt, this compromisedness.
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