So, I’m watching a video from Seeker. You should look them up on YouTube. They make good videos.

This video is about a phrase in the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (the one that abolished slavery) which actually allows for slavery; but only as a punishment for crime.

For example:

You steal a bunch of stuff. You go to jail. You make license plates.

Or you clean up the highway.

Or you make… cheese? Yeah, apparently that’s a thing.

So, I’m all like

“Well, yeah, this makes sense…”

After all, teachers follow a similar scheme all the time. Parents do too.

If you break it, you fix it. It you mess it up, you clean it up. If you get it out, you put it away. If you ruin it, you replace it.

Manual labor can make people want to stop doing whatever it was they were doing to break the rules just so they don’t have to do the manual labor.

Not to mention, work builds character. Perhaps, working out in public doing jobs that show results and make the community better could actually cause inmates to feel better about themselves and want to change. Then they change and become productive members of society.

I could go on, but I don’t really want to talk about the video or the content in it.

What I really want to talk about is:

Why the hell do I care?

No, seriously.

Things like this come up all the time. Whether it’s a video, a news article, or a conversation I actually had with a real person (that’s people outside of the computer screen). There’s some issue. This issue has a problem. The problem is full of debate. And the debate is usually a hot topic issue. 😉

But seriously, there’s some issue that people have strong feelings about. There’s many ideas out there for fixing the issue. Problem is, no one can seem to agree on how to solve the issue.

And then there’s me.

When I find an issue like this I begin to “solve” it. Like, ok, I don’t actually solve the issue. But I try to. I try so hard! I look at information, create systems, build models, and generally play “guy in charge who has to fix this or the boss is gonna fire me.”

I do this a lot.

But…

why?

It’s not my job to solve all the problems.

Heck, I can’t even solve my own problems! What makes me think I can solve other people’s problems?

What indeed…

Maybe I try to solve issues I have absolutely no control over because there’s no way I can fail. No one is expecting me to solve the issue, so when I don’t, I didn’t actually fail. If you miss every question on your math test, you will fail. You were expected to study and pass that test. Also, since you didn’t, that failing grade will affect your overall grade in math class as well as your overall GPA, as well as your chances of getting into math club meaning you will never get to hang out with Chrissy, the regional math champion.

But if you don’t solve world hunger, everyone’s like, “ya, well, neither can Congress, so… no problem, buddy.”

And if I’m not supposed to worry about such large scale issues, at least in the context of finding actual solutions for these issues… well… who is?

-Diggs out

P.S. – OMG there’s sooooo many problems in this world!

P.P.S. – Just breath. Pray, and breath.