Rambling And Responsibility

Today is going better, so I'm writing a real post. This might be nothing at all, or just a consequence of my type of obsessions compared to someone who does experience this a little more in line with popular portrayals, but I'd still like to write about it. Specifically, the weird space of where my responsibility falls.

I've never felt like I'm capable of preventing some grand and unthinkable disaster. I don't act out of genuine belief I can change the future, or the 'I know it's illogical, but just in case' mentality. My job is to keep people safe. I know, I know that sounds pretty much the same as preventing bad things from happening, but it isn't quite that. Simply put - I don't think I can circumvent what I'm scared will happen, but I can protect the people I care about from the consequences of it. My responsibility isn't to stop it from happening, it's to never let anything happen to them. Yeah, there's something awful which might happen, but they'll be distanced from that. I can't change the fact that it exists as a possibility or guarantee it'll never come true, but I can try for as long as possible to make sure they don't even know that possibility exists.

It's all semantics of the silliest kind, and I can never get the distinction as clear as I want even in my own head. At the end of the day, I'm still looking for the exact same thing as anyone who feels like they're responsible for holding off fate; I live for the moments where I get to think that I've succeeded, people are safe, I'm fixing something by doing this. I think that maybe, regardless of all the rest, most people just want to feel like their actions have consequences. It really does feel like that sometimes. A monkeys paw curling on the wish that you had some control over your life. And now I'm silly again!