The Perfect Humanoid Symbol, 10

Conflict may take the form of irresponsibility, too. Once resolved to be hostile, one doesn’t necessarily fight. At least, not openly. Pretty humanoid, and rather effect an attitude: whatever you choose, be assured I’ll choose the opposite. You busy trying to get through? Well, to hell with getting through: I am not. You cause, me effect! After which plenty of variations on the theme come in handy, from couldn’t−give−a−damn attitude to philosophical constructions to the effect that psychedelic ethics, bottoming out, cupio dissolvi (Latin for: crave for destruction), death wish are the cool way to go about it: from it’s no big deal to I didn’t ask to be born, I refuse to share in the responsibility of protecting and ensuring survival, of preserving the torch of life, and therefore I refuse the responsibility to preserve my own integrity as the basis for that, and I feel free to abuse myself in any irreversible way just for the fun of “seeing what it’s like”, as there’s no accountability whatsoever; not only I don’t care whatever happens tomorrow, to me or to anyone else for that matter, but if it ever happens it will be in spite of that life I could not share in… that sort of things, you get the idea. See whether all this really means not fighting those trying to get through, or just not fighting them openly.

Another form of irresponsibility is that crave to get high regardless (as “high” as the criminal swindle of addiction can take, for that matter) that reminds of the ant and the cricket. Any manager worth the title knows that the relationship between the output demanded of any machinery and its routine and emergency maintenance costs can be graphed, and the graphs prove that the optimum is around 80 percent of its potential: underneath it there is wasted potential, above that level maintenance costs snowball, because things start to fall to pieces, and sooner or later they will.