Agape Love

[LadyLavinia]

Originally posted by killerdwarf
So, you're saying that we shouldn't do jobs we don't like just because we don't enjoy them? If everyone did things that way, only the neat freaks would have clean houses, 'cause damn, I don't like to clean...my heart says I should be out smelling the flowers! A police officer may feel sorry for a junkie who's fallen so far as to commit assault and robbery, but should he then just let him/her go? Not everyone has the luxury of choosing a job they enjoy, sometimes the job, or circumstances, chooses them (like Buffy). Doing a job that you like is easy...doing a job you don't like and doing it to the best of your abilities...that's hard.

Should we do jobs we don't like, because we don't enjoy them? Basically . . . yes. Unless you're in a situation in which any job will guarantee financial security. Even in this situation, a person should at least consider or prepare him or herself for a job that he or she will like.

As for the police officer . . . well, that person chose to become one in the first place.

As for Buffy . . . if she didn't like being a Slayer, she should have rejected the job. Was there really a need to coerce an adolescent girl or a young woman in her 20s to fight vampires and other demons, when a) they are demons all over the world; and b) there are other demon hunters/fighters (people who had chosen the profession)?

If it was so imperative that a Slayer or Potential to fight vampires and demons, why did Joss Whedon show Buffy giving the Potentials, "the choice" to fight in the Hellmouth, instead of ordering them to fight in "Chosen"?


Allowing the id to dictate our actions is a recipe for anarchy. I don't think any of us want to live in that world.

I don't want to live in a world in which we allow are super-ego to dictate our actions, either. And that was probably why Buffy was unhappy with her life and with Slaying. She allowed her super-ego to dictate to her that she had to be the Slayer.

 

[killerdwarf]

I've been coming back to this thread, and I really had to think about my answer, LL.

Buffy always had the choice to walk away, as I said before. I think it was very honourable of her not to, and to me that is heroic (reading Shogun again...).

Like Buffy, the potentials could have walked away...they didn't, again honourable (or maybe self-preservation kicked in, since the First would have hunted them down and they knew it). Either way, they made the hard choice.

Yup, a world with superego run amuck wouldn't be much fun...all that fighting to protect your honour etc. That being said, the superego serves an important purpose, and no one should be seen as having questionable motivations if they make decisions from that place. After all, our society here in the West has swung so far from honour and duty that people are using self-gratification as justification for committing crimes, serious and not so. The worst part is people actually support them, and sometimes they get off!

I am enjoying this conversation BTW.