Filhall

 

The song manifests the stress of people trapped in exclusive, binding relationships involving commitments that weren't based on adequate consideration of the individual's varied emotions over time, and which do not acknowledge the individual's Right to Change. 

Will it be immoral for an individual to wish to revise the terms/commitments involved in his/her relationship with someone, given that:

• Those commitments were made without conscious thought, based on a template borrowed from society that didn't offer many options or customisations to suit the individual's basic needs. A good contract is one that offers the parties the opportunity of informed consent. A contract based on ignorant, unthoughtful consent is not a fully valid contract.
• The individual has changed as a person since the time those commitments were made. Change is the only constant in the universe, and one may feel romantic love for different people at different times. By inhibiting change, we inhibit growth and slow down spiritual, personal, and economic growth.

Monogamous ways of thinking put people in guilt when their feelings breach the boundaries of what they are 'supposed to feel'. The idea of restricting people's feelings is a noble one as far as it is intended to protect the civilisation from evils of anarchy, chaos, war, cannibalism, hedonism. However, to use it to make people feel guilty for nothing more than touch each other is purely absurd and stress-causing.

"Like a caterpillar, we weave a cocoon of thoughts, doubts, and fantasies, slowly suffocating ourselves." - Shams Tabrizi 

Commitments:

A commitment is a structural frame within the bounds of which one confines oneself with the objective of guiding one's progression in life while keeping the spontaneous behavioural extremities in moderation.

Commitments involve one's expression of intent to measure up to the standard and achieve the objective they set for themselves, without digression from the decided path - by censoring thoughts or indulgence in emotions that risk making one go astray.

Commitments are important to keep our life in order, more so when we are emotional, irrational creatures, with not much protection against losing our sanity when confronted with a new situation. Commitments are like solid white lines on either side of the road; our best, virtuous, self-justifiable behaviour is within these while lines we draw for ourselves; subconscious digressions from these limits bring new problems, making it difficult to get back on track without leaving a trail in the dirt.

Features of good commitments:

• They are created with the informed consent of the individual responsible for their fulfilment. 
• If the individual is not sufficiently mature to be able to make an informed decision, responsibilities that may be entrusted upon them should be binding only as far as they are likely to result in one's personal growth and fulfilment in long term.
• They are either within the capacity of the individual or enhance the capacity of the individual in a manner that results in fulfilling growth rather than exasperation.
• They uphold and promote values that are universally considered virtuous.
• Their creation is supported more by a positive, pulling motivation than by a negative, pushing motivation. For example, a commitment of saving money may be supported by "a desire for being prosperous" or "a fear or disgust for poverty", the former motivation is healthier than the latter one.

Red Flags for bad commitments:

• They are motivated by fears. As we mature, and as the fear ends, motivation for upholding the commitment ends too.
• They are made with insufficient awareness regarding one's capacity to fulfil them, and the difficulty of the terrain that lies ahead, causing one's collisions (and pain) with the side-barricades (that one erected to guide oneself), as one moves along the path.

 

Making a commitment is like charting one's course before knowing what the terrain would be.

Commitments should be made in little steps, as one goes along, to be renewed and revised as per circumstances. They should be limited in terms of period and resources at their disposal. Only when we fulfil the smaller ones, can we know of our capacity to fulfil slightly bigger commitments, only then can our commitment be a good, moral, virtuous commitment.

Making a commitment to someone is like dedicating a pillar to support their roof. We should know how much they will rely on our support and how many floors are they going to construct above the roof supported by our pillar. If we withdraw ourselves later, we risk damaging their entire structure. If we continue to uphold, we risk ourselves to a burden we hadn't imagined possible. Hence, commitments shall be made cautiously, responsibly, and in incremental steps. One step at a time.

to be continued:

issues: who decides what's good.

aren't small ones for weak, and big for strong?

commitment isn't planning without knowing the terrain, it is about keep going no matter what the terrain is.