Interdependence and Personal Debt

Owing to our great interdependence practicly everyone will be left with a large number of unpaid personal debts at the ends of our motal lifetime. And I think its fair to say that some of our debts can never be satisfied via financial means. Countless numbers of people have made contributions to my own personal welfare with little to no monetary compensation. Some of them can't be rewarded because they're already long dead. Many of the individuals who's life work has benefited myself, may never get more than a pat on the back and "Job well done m8!" from me, but arguably that's good enough for recognition. Most of those people I may never have the opportunity to meet and thank personally, whether or not they were rewarded in life.

For example, everytime you drive a car you accumulate debt with all those people who built the roads and bridges and maintained them. Whether or not you supported all that work by paying taxes, I believe there should be an additional and more personal debt. We probably don't know anything about those people as fellow human beings, what personal accomplishments they cherished or how well they lived. Life should be more personal.

Of course there are a number of individuals who we did pay for services rendered, or were paid by our benefactors. For all those who have been rewarded financially, should we owe them any additional loyalty? I think not, because for all intents and purposes we are equally important. To consider our fellow human-beings as peers is the highest form of compliment that I personally can manage. Most of us are unwilling to go that far without discrimination and judgement, but if we haven't reached the level of maturity to learn it for ouselves, I think we must at least learn to be willing. To be willing is the greatest accomplishment whether or not we possess a level of personal ability to do a job.

Thousands of man-hours have been spent to stock our local grocery stores, a very minimal amount of labor is required by me in order to eat. As a practical consideration I would never be able to accomplish that much work myself, and do it in a timely way. I live in a house which I did not build myself, and I have not dedicated the many hours of my personal time to develope the skill to be able to do all the work. It doesn't really matter that the contractors were paid for the work, there is still a personal debt which goes well beyond that. And in order to make good on all these kinds of debts we really do need unlimited time, and we need some kind of after-life, or restoration to life.

We need enough time and opportunity to meet everyone and entertain a bit of conversation. There are a number of historical persons and personal hero's whom I'd very dearly like to meet and here them tell their own story. And whether or not they're personal hero's, I'm still willing to listen. There is a huge difference between being willing and simply being pre-occupied. We can sometimes excuse ourselves from making the effort because we are too busy, but within God's Eternal Kingdom, no such excuses can be made. And the way I see it, mortal life does take place within God's Eternal Kingdom. No place can exist in a state of seperation from that Kingdom, and the Spirit of God itself is ever-present. God touches all of our lives whether or not we are willing to believe it, without this intimate touch our self-awareness would be impossible. We can not choose to forsake this without forsaking our own continued existence as Individual persons, in this respect we are utterly dependent. We simply have no power or authority to chose seperation, we can not chose to have an end and rest in the peace of unconsciouness. If thats what we end up getting, it can never be due to a personal choice. Free-will has it's limitations when we are counted among a multitude of thinkers, and evidently we will always be counted as part of a greater whole.

The only kinds of personal rights which can be gaurenteed in life are those rights whigh our God or Creator does gaurentee. Its hard to say exactly what those rights would amount to if we share them equally and all things being considered. Evidently the right to life and happiness is not gaurenteed. While most of us would like to enjoy a guarenteed freedom from molestation, it does not appear that any one of us has ever had that gaurenteed. Any of our civil rights which are gaurenteed by a governing agency of our own, can easily be made subject to suspension, and for most rules we are willing to make exceptions. In order to become the most excellent judges in our own right, we must learn not to make exceptions, and we can never choose to enforce punishment. Violence in all it's various forms is the main part of our human dilema and can never be a part of the solution. When we've dedicated literally millions of man-hours to preperations for war, then war becomes a fair certainty lest all that work goes to waste; it easily becomes the means of choice. But i'm afraid its inevitable that all our current technology of arms will eventually be rendered obsolete, someone will discover a path to superior force.

This wonderful capacity for reason which we believe elevates us from the rest of the animal kingdom has not freed us from this kind of insanity. It appears that we are able to justify practically any deed, even genocide can make sense to one of us. Frequently we are able to justify murder or assasination when the ends seem desireable, and the threat of punishment will not serve as a deterant for many of us. We can not help but feel angry under certain circumstances, and it appears that our feelings will serve as our best excuse if we are ever to be made accountable. It's hard to account for the way we feel about differernt things, although in many cases we have been taught how we should feel. Who can take the blame if they were not favored with a quality education? We don't get to chose the circumstances of our birth but we need to be able to trust someone other than ourselves.

It's my personal belief that all manner of our personal debts can and will be paid in some way eventually. I believe in the durability of the individual human spirit because I trust God completely not to abandon us. At the very least we are gaurenteed to be remembered perfectly, all the events that surrounded us and intimately our personal experience of those events. It must be true because history is indelible, nothing can ever be changed about it. Even if I imagine that God has the power and authority to change some factual event, I can not imagine him using that power in order to show favor to a few and disfavor to others. I think that we will endure whether or not the world ever made sense to us, or whether or not we get any enjoyment out of it. We are ever a part of this great big Universe whether or not we felt that we belonged to it, it belongs to each of us. From our personal involvement and accountability there is no possibility of divorce, we may be pardoned from punishment but we may not be pardoned from existence and judgement. In the long run I believe that happiness is still a possibility for us, we shouldn't be too disappointed as the ultimate truth stands revealed to us; if we find ourselves very surprised the truth must still be better than we can possibly imagine.