Voluntarily Taking on Responsibility

Jordan Peterson argues that voluntarily taking on responsibility as the main source of meaning in life.  It is an interesting proposition, and is probably at least somewhat true.  That has drawn my attention to the fact that I seem to have been avoiding unnecessary responsibility for a long time.  At work I am (intentionally) the second in command in most positions I take, or a consultant, which involves even less responsibility.  I avoid the responsibility of a full time job to keep open the potential of working for Scott, or other movie projects.  At church, I help out where ever I can, without committing to do so (besides leading home group).  My main ministry to camps entails responsibility for the safety of the people who use what I build, but beyond that, I am a volunteer who takes on little further responsibility compared to a camp staff member.  But I use that ministry as an excuse to avoid other ongoing responsibilities locally, since I travel so much for that and work.  I obviously parent my own kid, but avoiding further responsibility is one reason we haven't further pursued fostering or adopting. (That also might require a larger house, which would cost more, which would require even more responsibility on the career front, etc.)

I handle the responsibilities that I have just fine (Family, Scott, Apple, Ropes Courses, Home Group) but I rarely voluntarily take on more or new responsibilities.  This is likely because no one taught me that principle growing up, and instead I associated responsibility with stress.  And stress was a bad thing to be avoided, so I have structured my whole life to minimize stress, relatively successfully, but possibly to my detriment.  Stress can strain relationships, which can already be challenging for me, and can harm one's health.  So I might live longer, but I would be living less during that time, if I wholly committed to avoiding stress.  So I need to make changes there, but I have 40 years of habits and inclinations pushing me in the wrong direction.  Small steps might be more responsibilities at church, instead of just 'helping out' when I happen to be available.  Then maybe some changes at the job level, since some things have been shifting in that realm for awhile, and the current trajectory isn't sustainable for long.   But one step at a time, and church seems like the initial move.

Assassinations, Elections, and the Media

 Apparently someone shot Trump in Pennsylvania tonight.  I am in Pennsylvania at the moment, but a different part.  The initial news stories about the incident were all over the place.  It is reasonable for some level of confusion during an incident, until the details are confirmed, but the media made fools of themselves in their initial reports of Trump falling on stage, and Secret Service interrupting his speech.

It is reported that he was shot from a few hundred yards away, and it hit him in the ear, narrowly missing the rest of his head, which would have surely killed (or at least incapacitated) him.  The difference of a couple inches at that range is a God thing.  Good marksmen can reliably hit targets at farther ranges, but ballistics has some level of incalculable variation.  If God is an interventionalist in national politics, and he wanted to remove Trump from the equation, Trump would be dead.  This doesn't necessarily mean that God wants Trump to be president again, just that he is still alive by the grace of God.  God apparently has further plans for him, or is at least just letting things play out, if that is how you view his role.  I believe God is sovereign over all things, but lets us deal with the results of freewill.  That bullet trajectory was not a free will issue.

I have expected major incidents to take place in the runup to this election, both domestically and internationally.  (China might invade Taiwan, the Russia-Ukraine conflict might expand, etc.)  I still think there is a 25% chance that one of the two main candidates might pass away before the election, or before inauguration, and we would never know if it was from natural causes. (Which is quite possibly as they are both around 80 years old.)  Today was close to that, and still shocking in a certain sense, but also comforting in another sense in that "we" (the American people) survived the incident. Trump is still alive, there aren't riots in the street, and this might actually strengthen his campaign.

Why would that be a good thing?  I believe having a clear winner is probably the best outcome for the upcoming election, compared to a 50/50 split with fights over every detail.  So we need a landslide, in one way or the other, where there is no question that 'the people' have spoken.  It is hard to imagine Trump doing something to alienate his base that badly, but easy to imagine Biden doing so.  Therefore from my perspective at the moment, a clear Trump victory seems like the best outcome for the country, at least in the short term, and the outcome of this event seems to be making that more likely.

So that begs the question: could it have been staged?  I think that is a perfectly reasonable inquiry in this day and age.  In one sense, in the video I saw, you hear some pops, Trump grabs the side of his head ducks behind the podium.  He eventually comes up with blood on him, and is rushed off stage to 'safety' after a triumphant fist pump.  He comes off (relatively) strong in the video and the story (Trump survives being shot in attempted assassination).  The claim is that the shooter was killed by the Secret Service immediately. (Presumably by over-watch snipers responding with high-tech shot-detection gear.)  It is just like the setup in the Mark Wahlberg movie Shooter.

My first reaction was that him being shot in the edge of the head would be too risky of plan. (No one wants to be killed in their own staged assassination.)  But what if he wasn't really shot, and just rubbed some blood on his face or nicked his ear when he ducked?  You would only need one or two body guards in on that part.  But then there is the shooter to be staged, which is more challenging, but an option is presented in that movie.  But in this case, tragically other people were hit by the stray bullets, and at least one was killed.  That becomes a little harder to justify as collateral for a publicity stunt, and even with only ten people involved, you'd never keep it a secret.  So based on the reports I have seen so far, it is just big enough of an incident to be undeniably real, without being big enough to tear apart the country immediately.  It will be interesting to see the further details as they are revealed, and what effect this has on the election.

But it won't increase trust in the media, and it is hard to imagine people trusting them any less at this point.  And if something bigger does happen, how will we know what 'really' happened, or if it even happened at all?