Comfort derived from defiance is delusional.

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I'm sorry, but you aren't making any sense to me. It's not conceited to thirst for knowledge. Nor is personal responsibility something one can give another. You can teach them what it is, but in the end that's all you can do.

I will try harder!

I am talking about this simple fact: With the exception of the newborn (as you have pointed out), no entity has authority over another entity unless granted. Someone might rob or steal my life, my liberty or my property, but that does not make me into an entity whose authority to decide his own affairs in now gone. I might not be able to carry out the things I decide, but the authority to decide (such as to yet claim ownership of something stolen from me) is still mine.



The matter of the passenger refusing to leave the sinking ship until he or she first understands why it is sinking goes beyond the matter of a thirst for knowledge. To refuse to get into a lifeboat until first knowing why the ship is sinking is to suffer the delusion of intellectual comfort ... or at least to believe the comfort of having that knowledge would be of more value than one's own life. Without trying to turn this into any kind of A.A./AA meeting, that kind of foolishness is common among suffering alcoholics: They are just *not* going to get into anybody's lifeboat until *after* knowing why they are drowning ... and that has to do with something like, "No, I will be the boss of me, and no matter what! So, you just tell me what is wrong so I can go fix it and keep this ship afloat, thank you." I have seen many people go to the grave in just that kind of delusional state.



Same thing, different words. Parents make decisions for their children until children in one way or another and with or without parental permission or consent begin acting out their own authority and deciding things for themselves.

Well now... demanding to know why the ship is sinking is different. lol That, I understand.

Being responsible for decisions regarding your child is not the same thing as personal responsibility. Personal responsibility is a sense of responsibility that come from inside you, whereas an adult making choices for a minor is demonstrating outward responsibility.

Sure, and now bring in the matters of authority, defiance and comfort:

My two daughters are now grown and exercising their authority in their own lives, and we all hope they do that responsibly.

Then, they also exercise their parental authority in the lives of my grandchildren, and we again hope they do that responsibly.

Now, I do not have authority to decide things in the lives of my grandchildren, and my grandchildren do not yet have the authority to decide all things for themselves ... and now consider this story ...

For whatever reason or reasons, my older daughter has decided "no phone calls" to me in the lives of my three grandchildren (her children) in her care.

Then this morning, my oldest grandchild, 7, said this to my younger daughter, his aunt:

"I wish Grandpa Joe had not moved to Louisiana. I miss him, and if he is still alive when I get old enough to make my own decisions, I am going to invite him to my house."

Question: Does that not show the boy knows the authority in his own life is presently being held by someone else?

In an e-mail this morning, my younger daughter told me what the child had said, and I told her to dial my number for all of them (my five grandchildren) at her next convenience ... and I ended up talking with all but the two-year-old this afternoon.

Now, none of my grandchildren had the authority (permission) to make that call on their own, and my younger daughter had overstepped her own level of authority in the lives of three of my grandchildren when she permitted them to "decide for themselves" (as to the matter of participating in the call she placed for them) at least in principle against what their own mother had already decided.

No real harm has been done in any of that, of course, but think about something much greater than a phone call being decided by a child who would then be doing something in defiance while feeling good (comfort) about himself or herself for having done so. That kind of "comfort", at least I say, is a product of delusion.