Some concerns

The Easy Option: Floating
In many areas of my life, I float atop the main stream. I do what everyone else seems to be doing. It is not that I choose to do it in order to deliberately copy others, but rather that I just end up doing it as some sort of socially generated habit.

So:
I generally buy whatever I feel like buying, with little thought to the mysterious mechanisms that go into producing the end-product.
When it comes to government elections, I trudge, fairly apathetically, down to the polling booth to tick the box of the guy from the party that seems to be the least bad.
I give nothing to organised charity, although I do occasionally give homeless people money when I feel like I can’t say no.
And when it comes to thinking about a career plan, I’m not sure exactly what I’d like to do, but I’m drawn to the idea that it should be something that I really enjoy and find fulfilling.

Practical Worries
Even whilst floating, however, I am struck by several types of worry about my behaviour:
A. That I am guilty of failing to do more for other people.
Roughly, this is the concern that I should give more money to charity, or that I should seriously consider taking up a career that genuinely benefits other people. In its strongest form, it is the suggestion that I should be dedicating my life to helping others.

Several factors serve to make this worry more acute:
I: Exposing myself to the facts of life in troubled parts of the world (think war, poverty, anything that creates violent misery really…)
Paradigm case: news footage of the latest humanitarian disaster in Africa.
II: Thinking about people that seem to have made a genuine effort to live a life of devotion to others. (Paradigm case: Jesus, though I am not a Christian, and don’t claim to know much about what the historical Jesus was actually like)
III: Examples of the following kind:

You are walking past a lake, on your way to catch a flight. You are running very late, and you must make it on time to this flight in order to attend a job interview in a different country. The interview cannot be rescheduled, and is a once in a lifetime opportunity to get the kind of job that you’ve always dreamed of having.

As you pick your way around the lake, you pass scores of people, all preoccupied with something or other. But they don’t seem to be paying any attention to the screams that have just erupted from the water. You look across, and see a boy struggling to stay afloat. It is clear that if no one helps the child, he will drown. Conscious of your imminent flight departure, you ask a nearby lady if she couldn’t do something to help the child. She barely shifts her eyes from her magazine and shakes her head, muttering something about someone else doing it, and why was the boy stupid enough to go out there in the first place if he couldn’t swim. No matter who you ask, no-one is moved to do anything. Thus it becomes apparent to you that either you must save the boy, or he will die. You are a capable swimmer, and would have no problem bringing the boy back to safety, but you would certainly miss your flight, and forego your dream job.

It seems to me that common sense dictates that you ought to save the child. The moral worth of the other people around the lake is very questionable, but their failings do not seem to remove the obligation on you.

But this result seems to demand that, in the actual world, we do far, far more for others than we actually do.

B: That I am guilty of actively contributing to a morally reprehensible system.
This is the kind of idea at work when I consider things like:
i) ethical consumerism – e.g. I may feel that I shouldn’t buy clothes made in a sweatshop, because such methods of production are morally unacceptable, and that I ought not help support the companies that employ them.
ii) withholding support for the UK government – the idea would be that if you strongly disagree with government policy (typically foreign policy – wars and the like) then there is a moral burden on you to register your disapproval (go on protest marches, vote against the government etc.), or even withdraw support from the government by withholding taxes etc

C: That I have mis-treated the people around me.

This will include worries about rudeness, hurting the feelings of others, making the lives of others more difficult.

These kind of concerns can be very potent. At times, they will plague my thoughts for days. They often lead me to feel genuine regret about the way I have acted in the past, and to make genuine alterations to the way I intend to do things in the future.

D: That I do not use my time and money very wisely
I worry that I waste:
i) time: on things like television, computer games, and visiting a whole assortment of procrastination friendly websites. Or, from time, I worry that I waste time in a more systematic way by going to university (broadly: thinking about things),
When I could use it to:
Spend more time getting to know friends / family, put more hours into cultivating skills and acquiring knowledge, try new activities.
ii) money: on things like books that I don’t need, non-cheap food, pinball and pool.
when I could use it on:
Travelling, going to the theatre, buying presents for other people.

Fear of guilt

There is an elderly man hunched against the wall, gazing out of a second floor window at the people below. Since his retirement, he has had too much time to spend alone with his thoughts. Before long, he began to look back on his life, to reflect on what he did, and didn’t, achieve. And doing this causes great pain to the man. It used to make him weep, but now the tears are gone. Now the man is silent, only his eyes still exclaim frustration. He avoids the young, because he hates them for having their whole lives ahead of them, and because he can see them making the same mistakes that he did. And he avoids those his own age, because in them he sees himself.

Yet to those who knew the man, his bitter rage is an enigma. By all accounts he led a life of excellence. He reached the top of his chosen field, had a loving family, and was proficient in hobbies ranging from music to sport. He cared for those around him, and was active in the community. But still he regrets.

One day, I summoned the courage to ask the man: why do you feel this way?

In the first place, he knows that he has missed out on so much of what life has to offer. He can see that his life could have been so much more, his experiences far more vital and diverse, had he had the bravery, creativity and wit to push himself further. In the only test of undeniable importance, he failed.

But, he laughs, what is bitterness when set against the agony of guilt? I am confused: this man was no criminal, indeed for all seventy years of his existence he had barely scraped the feelings of another person. Still, he insists, he is guilty, so deeply guilty. Now, in his old age, when things are so clear, he tells me that he can feel the enormous burden of all the suffering that he allowed to take place. On every day of his life, there were people crying out in need, and he did nothing. Through ignorance, indifference, and feelings of insignificance, he let the suffering continue. And how terrible the suffering was. Person upon person upon person had wallowed in life’s wretched underworld, only needing the extended hand of another to lift them out. Without a single malevolent intention, he sighs, he had soaked his clothes in blood.

I feel that the man is too critical of himself, and tell him so. He pauses and stares at me for an eternity. And then, the weight of his sorrow crushing, he speaks slowly and deliberately: “I did not bring my brothers to the pyre, but I let them burn”.

I am afraid of wasting my years. But more than that I am afraid of what might happen if I live my life according to status quo morality. I am afraid that I do that, then come 2060, I may find that the moral system which accords with my deepest sentiments tells me that for my entire life I have been accumulating a debt of sin. A debt that is immovable and unbearable.

It is this fear that drives me to wonder: what ought I to do?