Putting Boundaries on Boundaries

I think the boundaries thing has about served it's purpose. It's run it's course. We've driven it into the ground, and broken it off. We started talking about boundaries, say, probably around 2004. It slowly came into vogue. By the end of the 2010s it had gone mainstream and drawn in all the margins. It gave us such meme seeds as:

• Know when to say no. 
• You have to take care of yourself first (like in air travel emergencies).
• Give yourself some "me time."
• You deserve to (fill in the blank).

In reality, there are times when we had better say "yes," even if it's what we don't want to do. Life isn't a Delta passenger flight - we are social creatures that wreck ourselves if we don't take care of others. All things being equal, the human race actually probably needs more "other," than "me" time. If we're being honest, we really don't "deserve" anything. 

"Boundaries" is not consistent with The Golden Rule.

Now, understand that I am not opposed to boundaries, per se. We go crazy if we take on too much. And we're no good at all to others if we're crazy. But like so many other things, too much of a good thing is bad. Too much water, too much oxygen, would kill you. The pendulum of human life swings back, and forth, through history. First we're big on justice. But then we swing over to being big on compassion. And then we swing back to justice; but we swing it further out, to include "social" justice. But then, we're back to making the streets safer. Back, and forth. 

The mature approach to the pendulum problem is to find the balance. How to maybe limit the swinging of the pendulum and get to a point where these competing, and incompatible impulses are both represented. For that is the true human condition. I will never have it fully my way, and you will never have it fully yours. We're going to disagree. The key is to finding a spot that is our way, while covenanting with each other, to protect each other, even when we disagree.

The 1980s were the "Me Decade." This wasn't something to be proud of. 

A generation later, it's the "Me First, Last, and In-Between, and Me Only Decade." You got a problem with that?

Here is an example of the type of meme in vogue today, in The Era of Extreme Boundaries:

Don't change yourself so that other people will like you. Be yourself so that the right people will love you.

The sentiment is boundaries on steroids. But it has a set of problems.

First: Changing, when it comes to yourself, isn't a bad word. The openness to change is necessary for growth. We must change, or else we die. But the boundaries ethic has come to mean, don't change at all. (It should be noted that society does, indeed, endorse some categories of change that represent existential change to one's real, true self. This is delusional and neither healthy to the individual nor to society at large. )

Second: It places the emphasis on whether or not to be liked, or loved, or both, or neither. Regardless, the focus is on self, and that is narcissism.  I know plenty of people that stand against the crowd, even if it means being disliked. But in 2022 we don't find it within our cultural mores, to celebrate people like that, if only for their courage. 

Third: Who are the "right" people. The ones that "love" you? And what is our definition of "love"? Being treated in a way that makes us "feel" good . . . or gives us a chemical rush? Real Love has everything to do with serving people we don't particularly love, or even like. It is not a feeling. 

Finally . . . the meme actually creates boundaries. Big boundaries. Series, hateful boundaries. Boundaries that cause divorce, fighting, crime, and even war. If you don't love me, I will dump you. 

I know that I am exaggerating. It may appear that I don't get it, or that I am over-analyzing it. 

But something is wrong with the world, and to trouble-shoot the problem, we have to be willing to examine, critically, the popular mores and trends. What books are people reading? What are the popular memes? What gets the most "likes" on social media?

In 2022, the pendulum has swung way to far to the extreme end that is about self. Me first. Love me. Notice me. Accept me. Me. Me. Me. 

Why? Because I have boundaries. 

Our course needs correction.