MC #3 – Immediate Concerns [4 pages]

Life happens.  Literally.  Immediately.  Now.  Always. 

Sure how we “feel” and what we “want” are important (to us only), but….

The bills have to be paid.

The tires on the car have to be replaced.

Competitive learning must be performed.

We have our annual physical to get.

The teachers need to see us at “back-to-school” night.

We need to buy plane tickets.

The groceries have to be bought and the laundry picked up.

And we need some rest and fun sometime …

The process of life is indifferent to us and to what we care about.  We are not in charge.  We don’t matter.  We can’t produce life.  We can’t change its essence, which is the built-in drive anything alive has to reproduce itself so that it can remain alive.  (Reproduce = eating, breathing and repairing oneself, and not sexual reproduction)

INDIFFERENCE is hard to imagine because we are never indifferent about ourselves.  We never notice our indifference to others because, well, we are indifferent about it. 

Do you ever think while eating a chicken dinner that you are eating some chicken’s child?  Why not?  You’d care if a chicken ate your child.

Are you concerned while reading this essay about all the other things you could be doing to take care of other people, instead?  If so, how many and what are their names, ages and interests?  How many millions of people did you leave out?

The indifferent process of life and death  — the constant appearance of hunger, thirst, fatigue and other discomforts —  is unrelenting. 

Our bodies, the natural world around us and the social systems in which we participate, such as our communities, families and businesses, go through regular cycles. 

We can build narratives and practices to anticipate these cycles and the breakdowns to our bodies and communities that accompany them or are produced by them. 

What we cannot do is avoid the breakdowns that appear, nor can we store up care for them in advance.  That is, we cannot eat tomorrow’s breakfast today.  We can’t sleep now for tomorrow night.  We can’t keep vegetables fresh longer than a few days. 

The mechanics of life require us to continually cope with breakdowns we can predict.  They also require us to cope with breakdowns like flat tires, toothaches and snow storms that are guaranteed to happen sometimes; we just don’t know exactly when they will appear.

We call the concerns that cycle predictably and the ones that we can expect recurrently, immediate concerns.  No one person, and no couple, can escape these concerns.  They must be dealt with recurrently by all human beings. 

When we have a family, we must cope with immediate concerns for our children and aging parents. 

When we live in a community we must cope with these concerns for the community as well.  Examples of community concerns are street paving, block parties with the neighbors, elections, coaches for soccer practice, Halloween nights, charities, dances for the kids and back-to-school nights.

Immediate concerns are always situations in which we find ourselves.

Situations are unique sets of threats, obligations and opportunities we need to avoid, fulfill and exploit in order to fulfill our intentions to survive, be free and “live a good life” in our marriages and with our families.

Each situation is different from another because of the mix of threats, obligations and opportunities in them that people have to avoid, fulfill and exploit, which requires people to learn skills and absorb costs whether they want to or not.

So, if we walk around the block clockwise in NYC and then turn around and walk around the block counter-clockwise, we might think we are in the same “situation” regardless of the direction we walk.

Once we understand what constitutes a real “situation”,

… which is one that really affects our concerns, other situations, capabilities and strategies,

… in ways that enable us to think and act effectively, strategically and competitively enough to fulfill our intentions, however,

… we know that if we encounter even one threat, obligation or opportunity that is different when we walk one around the block one way or the other,

… we are in a different situation.

In this, then, marriage is a continual unfolding of situations that married couples have to cope with all day, every day.  If they can interpret threats effectively enough to avoid them, interpret obligations they need to fulfill in order to avoid triggering threats or losing opportunities, and interpret opportunities they need to exploit in order to take satisfactory care of their concerns, spouses can survive, be free and “live a good life” together.

But if spouses don’t know how to cope with situations effectively, strategically and competitively enough to take satisfactory care of their most fundamental concerns, they find themselves under pressures from many threats they don’t know how to avoid, which are certain to harm them or thwart their intentions to live a good life. 

They find themselves assaulted with obligations, or duties, they need to fulfill in order to avoid triggering serious negative consequences, to maintain their existing opportunities such as their job, and to produce new opportunities they need to exploit in order to take care of their concerns.

And they find themselves confronted by opportunities or real structures in their environments that really affect their concerns, situations, capabilities and strategies to live a good life, which they must exploit in order to survive, be free and “live a good life”.

The never-ending unfolding of situations for couples and their families require planning, preparation and timing.  They require couples to make and keep promises with each other and with their neighbors in the community. 

Conditions of satisfaction must be produced.  Reciprocation, obligation, cooperation and coordination are fundamental practices for maintaining the power structure for everyone. 

Immediate concerns require standard practices to be invented to fulfill these promises.  They require us to take time, use energy and spend money for the sake of all of us. 

For couples in an ambitious marriage, immediate concerns require each spouse to talk with one another in order to cooperate with one another and coordinate actions every day, all day.