Commitment & Discipline
Since April last year, when I published the article Create stronger emotional bonds through an exchange of shame and compassion. I have tried to be open about my insecurities — keeping with the philosophy of the article.
Eight months ago, I moved to a new city. In the first three months, things were looking positive. Some months later, my loneliness had become unbearable. While I had made some acquaintances, few became friendships.
I felt like I had nowhere to go, no plans, no upcoming events, and nothing to ultimately look forward to.
What really had worried me was that I had gotten into such a bad routine. As a freelancer, I have flexibility over my hours. Since 2011, I had fought a long and hard battle to get my weekends back, but in the past terrible months, I had started working over the weekends, procrastinating during the weekdays, sleeping till 1pm — so half the day away — and working till the early hours of the mornings when there are only ghosts for company.
Naturally, I had nothing to look forward to on the weekends, so Saturdays and Sundays became useless fillers of the week (has anyone made such a terrible claim?)
I was ready to pack my bags and run back home. Fortunately, I first opened up to one of my acquaintance-friends, and she explained that “I have so many interests so there are so many things I can do to meet like-minded people”. I took her advice and I am giving things another try.
After I signed up with a practical philosophy course, actually went on Meet Up and joined social activities — as weird as they were — opened up about how I was feeling, and then proposed plans with my acquaintances (not too far from emotional blackmail 😊), things have been looking up. Unconsciously, what I had been doing was making commitments.
Commitment = Discipline
I am not sure when I first made the connection that a commitment was discipline but it was certainly during this period. I had no plans, no weekly or weekend commitments, so I had no reason to wake up early or get dressed after waking up.
However, when you set aside an hour or half a day to do something — go to a course, spend time with your grandmother, join a hike, or go to a coffee shop to do some writing — you are giving your time a purpose.
That hour which was free is no longer so. An event or a plan has been imposed on it — hence, the reason why we call it a commitment. Ultimately, the time has been given meaning and by giving it a purpose, you have breathed life into it.
Time is only precious if you have something to do with it.
For the past four years, it has slowly been dawning on me that the root to all things that are good is based on discipline — a kind of ‘freedom is slavery’ which is, ironically, one of the slogans of the Big Brother party in Orwell’s 1984. I do not mean a kind of slavery to others, but to yourself.
The seed was first planted in my head when I was having a lesson with a piano teacher. She had no kids of her own, but more than two decades of experience teaching children. What she told me was that “children needed boundaries”. My curiosity was roused, and I asked her why she believed this.
The piano teacher said that she did not know why, but knew it was right. She then went onto relate a story of two students she had, a brother and sister who came from a very wealthy family, where the parents did not believe in discipline. In her many years of experience, she had never struggled with students like these. They often got in foul mood over not getting a piece right. One even kicked her piano in their great agitation. I listened to the piano teacher’s story, but I was still not satisfied.
For the next few weeks, I asked everyone I knew why did they thought children needed boundaries. First, the most obvious responses came up, society had rules and so children needed to be socialized to follow the rules.
This is certainly true, but it is only half of the story.
As the piano teacher explained, the two students had struggled with a lack of self-esteem and anger from a lack of boundaries. She had never kicked them out of her school so there was something internally problematic from having no boundaries.
Next, I came across a quote from Dostoyevsky “Nothing has ever been more insupportable for a man and a human society than freedom”. It was clear from the quote that it was not only children who needed boundaries, but everyone.
It is too easy to assume that it is because of society’s rules and laws that discipline is or boundaries are necessary.
Anyone remotely familiar with Dostoyevsky’s writings would know that he always wrote from the individual’s perspective. A clear example is the internal monologue of the father in The Brothers Karamazov. The father is willing to play the fool to entertain others, even at cost of his own self-respect, but he is aware of this cost and it does not sit well with his conscience.
No Dostoyevsky is claiming that discipline is as an appeasement to the rules or preferences of a society. It is too easy, too unsophisticated.
So, I began to ask myself why is discipline necessary. And then it dawned on me.
If I had no discipline, I would not wake up, or I would eat too much, I would watch TV all day, or I would sit on the couch and never get up. My body’s enjoyment of so-called basic entertainments would win hands down. The same way in which having uncommitted time or nothing to do with my time just meant I woke up late, stayed up late, procrastinated.
The Obsession with Freedom
Honestly, we have become consumed with the concept of freedom.
Freedom in every way — even meaningless freedom — has climbed to the top of society’s hierarchy and it is sitting there, but not comfortably.
This is not a political article, but a philosophical one. Philosophy treads very close to politics often, but in this case, it is rather that politics have started treading on every other aspect of social life which makes this comment political.
As said, we maintain that we require the freedom to do whatever and even calling for no judgement ever to be made on our actions — which is almost impossible.
Naturally, the freedom to choose is important, but freedom should not lay at the very top of our social hierarchies. For example, I have the freedom to kill myself or anyone else now. No one stops me from doing the act, except that when I have done it, I shall be punished.
Society gives me the basic freedom to move around, but not once the crime has been committed. This is a very clear example of how freedom can become meaningless or dangerous.
Closing
It was reading David Bentley Hart’s memorable and exquisitely written passage that drove this point home and concluded it once and for all.
We become free, that is, in something of the same way that (in Michelangelo’s image) the form is “liberated” from the marble by the sculptor. This means we are not free not merely because we can choose, but only when we have chosen well (Hart, p25)*.
There is no point in freedom if you are not going to apply it to do something worthwhile. If we do not choose well, we will only become slaves to our bodies and our useless, short-term desires.
Like with Hart’s above quote, think of the hard work that has gone into creating a sculpture from a hard substance like marble. Think of all that labour and effort.
The sculpture is a creation, a celebration of beauty, and true freedom.
The truest form of freedom is discipline because it is through discipline that you sieve through all the possibilities and are left with the one that is most worthwhile.
Notes
*I recommend reading the entire passage from David Hartley’s Atheist Delusions (pp 24–25). It was one of the most beautifully written paragraphs that I have read in a long time and it hits you.
