Needless Rebellion -

A lot of people (and former people (and former selves of previous version of me)) feel the need to rebel.  But, I'm not convinced that it is logical, in the sense that it doesn't lead to anything productive, no greater good, sans some energy expended (which yes, can be productive in a narrow sense, but hear me out for a minute).

No, I'm of the mind, perhaps out of necessity these days, that turning oneself into a restricted half-disciplinarian is a better mode, because it teaches you, me, whomever, to sublimate a bit of the feeling, the want, the urge,to rebel, or to do whatever it is that makes you or I feel rebellious.  Not all rebellion is bad, of course, but I'm not talking about rebellion in the general sense of letting out energy, or doing some really energetic activity.  No, mostly, I'm thinking of self-destruction-type events, or abusive events, or mostly events that put the individual doing them at a much higher standpoint regarding safety and sanity and general enjoyment than those around him or her.  And usually they're blunt and pointless activities, reckless.  (Caveat: I'm not sure where I stand on those people who are honestly misguided as to the impact of their actions).  Anyway, you "know" these actions when you witness them, and perhaps it is my own desire to act recklessly that makes me insanely angry at such people, I'm not sure, but the anger is there--not that it is better.

Just that, this brings me to a larger point: we don't follow logic as a guide to our actions, at least not most of the time, even when following logic will increase subjective (and emotional) satisfaction. If something doesn't feel right, it confuses us: we strive for something definite, defined.

An even larger point: we have a sense of rightness and wrongness that heaps a conclusion onto events in front of us pretty quickly.  Everyone has slightly different thresholds for what is acceptable, and what is not acceptable, and the majority essentially wins this fight, and adapts.  Which makes sense, given that our co-dependence matters to our happiness (and survival); the fact that it can trump logic in a consistent way, though, is astounding to me, simply because we might "know" the difference between right and wrong externally (as in, what is externally agreed upon), and simultaneously chose (albeit in a split second) to participate in something we don't think is acceptable even when we know the chances are high that it will restrict our consequent freedom in some way.  I can't exactly make sense of it any more than I can say it exists.  Because it isn't about sense making.  It is more about feeling.  And while I won't denigrate compassion or intuition, I do think we'd be a lot better off if we could follow some simple rules; rules which we consistently, and pointlessly, break.  We would be better off = we individually would obtain our goals faster and with less costs, and we collectively would average up those important things.