Self Sovereignty and Kindness

My top two values, in the context of the world

When I think about what my top two values are to teach people about how to exist in the context of the entire world, I think it’s important to teach Self Sovereignty and Kindness, in that order.

There's a lot of discourse on what people should be obligated to do within their community (a recent example).

My general broad stroke political views are: with my family, I’m a communist. With my close friends, I’m a socialist. At the local level, I’m a Democrat. At the state level, I’m a Republican. At the federal level, I’m a Libertarian.

At a world level, I think it’s important for everyone to first understand and hold their own sovereignty. The world is a big place. There are many ways of living. The freedom to choose your own path is an important first step in finding your place in the universe.

The skills, competency, and resources you are born with play into what could be seen as “your self-actualized place in the universe”. But being purely forced there by others (individuals, or societal pressures) isn’t usually a great way for people to find their place.

Kindness is action rooted in caring about other people’s wellbeing.

Kindness has benefits for the person being kind. Those benefits are much more pronounced when the kindness is out of their own volition, rather than forced by someone else.

There are (many) contexts where you enter into an implicit contract about how to act. When you play a sport: your coach is in charge, you’re on a team, and you’re there to win together. When you go to the movies: you turn your phone off, and are quiet. In these smaller, often temporary contexts, you trade a portion of your sovereignty for something else. Sometimes you do it just to follow the rules. Sometimes, you do it because you genuinely care about the other people’s experience.

I’m a supporter of doing the right things for the wrong reasons. Because sometimes you’ll come to find you like doing the “right” thing, and start doing it for the right reasons. It’s kind of like the physical act of smiling will actually make you happier.

For kids, exposing them to many contexts where they trade some of their sovereignty for something else is important. The hope is that they learn the benefits of all the other things in the world that are at odds with sovereignty. And that they choose to do things that are so much better when they’re done out of choice, rather than by force - especially kindness.

But never should we forget that our self sovereignty, our right to govern our own lives, make our own choices, and be the ultimate authority over our actions, comes first.