What is your version of the wild orchids—something that is a personal passion of yours, a source of individual bliss, which you do purely for yourself, and which others might not necessarily understand the importance of?
What is your Trotsky—something larger than yourself that you are committed to, that you are passionate about, and which you feel is noble and is of value in terms of promoting the greater good?
Thinking now not necessarily about the two things you just discussed, but more broadly if you wish, do you ever experience any tension in your life between self-interest or self-care, on one hand, and looking after others and their interests, on the other hand? How are you doing at making room for both in your life at the moment?
I believe kayaking is my wild orchid. This pursuit of mine has immense value to me and my sense of self but often gives undue stress to those around me. My family and girlfriend have constant fear of my death during my adventures. I travel for kayaking often, burning fossil fuels and exacerbating global warming. I provide little social good as I have put teaching others on hold for my exploration of my own skills.
I feel strongly about redistributing my privilege. My success is not solely my own and I feel I have a strong debt to the society I belong to. I realize this in financial donations to causes I believe in, the support of higher taxes and the general kindness I try to bring to others. I hope to use my own privilege to advance others. My degree was surrounded in the ideals of improving the environmental sustainability and I hope my fortune to study provides protection for the nature that society and I benefit from. Lately, I have been trying to focus on the non-transactional nature of giving. I feel that most volunteering currently allows the volunteer to exchange time for boastful social media posts and social capital. That is why I have been going out of my way to help individual homeless people without telling my friends, trying to generate an intrinsic value in giving that defeats our privileged, social-capitalist world.
I find tension in my participation in capitalism. It was because of my parents’ savings and privilege that I am able to invest so much. I feel that this will grow as capitalism often allows it and if I do not remain philosophical could allow me to further profit of such an unjust system. I while I feel that capitalism hurts many and is not wholeheartedly in the interest of the masses, I feel a self-interest to perform in this domain, to seek new and exciting ways to leverage capital and gain social power through financial capability. I have worries of complicity others suffering but feel that my time is better spent than to exhaustively research the effects of my financial actions. I hope to overcome this one day.