Sartrean Hero

Quarter of eleven. The tracking information tells me my bass is coming Thursday. It’s rather weird getting a new instrument in the absence of my mother. Given all that I’ve been through, I think she would approve. I just got home with some chocolate ice cream and Milk Bones for Aesop. I think I’m done with the Baldwin book. I may start reading the Rousseau today out of curiosity… I wonder how I would fare at a blues jam? Maybe Ron and I could go to one, and never mind Mike? But it would be this summer, when things reopen more… My mother’s death left me with no identity and no direction. And I had never lived here alone before. I had been a supporting actor, and suddenly I was in the spotlight. The star of my own show. I couldn’t handle it at first. My life had never been about me. My parents didn’t allow me a voice. My sister turned the idea of responsibility into a conservative burden, de emphasizing the freedom side of the coin. She was not very smart. Of course the bright side of this onerous responsibility is free agency, and realizing this turned things around for me. Jean Paul Sartre was right all along. We are always responsible for the consequences of our choices, but it’s much easier to live with that than to live in superstitious fear of invisible spooks. I don’t understand why people choose to live that way. I cannot. Freedom and responsibility, plus cause and effect, are enough to live by.

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