Obligation

They say if you're a writer you have to write everyday, whether you want to or not. I write everyday for work, but have never considered myself a writer, so have not written everyday. I'm good with journals for all of 10 days. I still occasionally return to one, but not lately.

So I guess I'm feeling obligated to write.

I tend to feel "obligated" to do a lot of things that are good for me. Run. Yoga. Call my mother. The problem with obligation is the other side of it is guilt. Obligation is really only the precursor to guilt.

Wiki has a pretty standard definition, but links to a more fascinating Law of Obligations. All these origins of Obligation implies a voluntary thing, but doesn't it really exist in a limbo between voluntary and mandatory? Sure, you can chose NOT to fulfill an obligation, but there's always a nasty consequence. At least there's that pang of guilt.

Now even more fascinating, from the etymological perspective, is the word "oblige"; as in that Southern acknowledgment: "Much Obliged, ma'am." As per etymoline.com;

oblige: 1297, "to bind by oath," from Old French obligier, from Latin obligare, from ob "to" + ligare "to bind," ... Main modern meaning "to make (someone) indebted by conferring a benefit or kindness".

Now, isn't that fascinating? Talk about killing someone with kindness. I'm going to tie you up with my niceness - maybe to this chain link fence here, and make you think about all the sweet things I've done for you, until you do something nice enough to make us even, and then maybe, just maybe, I'll come untie you. Hope you don't starve to death, or die of exposure. Bye now!

It all comes back to this same theory I've always had: we all do things for selfish reasons. Everything is supposed to benefit our own person, even the nice stuff we do. Sure, I pay people's expired parking meters. I'm actually quite perturbed that my local city has changed to electronic parking meters for this very same reason. But I do it to make myself feel better. Everytime you do a kind favor for someone else, you expect it to be repaid to you. There's even a germ of this in Buddhism, right? What is Karma, after all, than cosmic obligation?

I still feel obligated. None of this really releases me from writing all the time, or calling my sweet mom. The question is, how do we translate that feeling of being Bound to someone, to the positive knowledge that something good will come our way in the future?