We had a family, now that we were grown and the old times with father were past, that we had not had before. With all of its constituents, too; a wife and three little ones, and the dog, and therefore we were seriously affected by recent threats concerning the devices, long forgotten, that might not have concerned us when we were younger, when all threats would have been levied against us, alone. While we were us ourselves alone, we would not have given threats a second thought. Frankly, it can be said we were in those days a devil-may-care sort of individual, reckless with our health and well-being. But we never, we never wanted another not ourselves, to be hurt, as collateral. Never to be injured. About the dangers of collateral we thought ourselves tidy, careful. At other times, it is true, we have had no family and were responsible for no one—how we preferred it, if we were to think about our actions. Or inaction.
That is, there are times, there were and are times we prefer not to do anything, and go ahead and do nothing. We do not like to foist ourselves upon events — we do not respond, even, to emergencies. Whose, after all, would these be? We stay at these times in our room, a room just large enough, constraining our limbs, and move just enough, move hardly at all; only to turn around in our chair, or in our bed, or extending our neck, to look out of the window, but sometimes not even to look out of the window, as there can be nothing there that really concerns us. Since to look out of the window is, after all, to allow that something you see there might worry you, in theory.
In some scenarios — plausible scenarios — not looking out of the window might fail to take into account events about which you ought, instead, and by exception, to be distressed, that might affect some other, as collateral for your doing nothing, if you knew. So what is out the window is not our business, but might be our business, if not to look is to disregard, and continuing in the room, unaware, prevents us from knowing which, falling as we have so often into the selfsame dilemma of unintended causation or benevolent harm. It is at these times, when our mind strains toward disobedience, that we are stirred into restlessness, evicted from our room by the force of such considerations.
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