The Next Night

If you are not the cause of something, but could have prevented it, are you responsible for the consequences?

After last night (the night after my previous entry), this is a question that is bothering me. The answer, as usual, depends on your definitions, in this case of responsible. It depends on if we're considered accountable or answerable for only that which we cause directly, or if we're also answerable or accountable for that which is within our ability.

Last night, I wanted to study. Unfortunately, once again, I was distracted. This time it was by a costume I got from a girl on third floor (who, in case of future reference, is friendly, hot, and Asian). She gave me a mini-fridge box, which I quickly found my way into, finding cracks out of which to see and finding new ways of walking (even using my PSP as a para-scope). I then got down to doing my math homework while watching Silent Running, an old, well done, science fiction movie about the last garden of Earth, ironically in space. I then found a mathematical formula (y^(2n)+x^2n=c where cER and nEN) that shows the transformation of a circle into a square, and I tried deriving the inverse of a circle, but none of my calculators could properly display it (n<0, nEZ). I then realized what time it was (one of the morning) and headed back to my room for sleep.

I didn't try sleeping right away, instead I tried building up to it by watching another movie to relax, Toy Story 3. I was twenty minutes in before someone walked in, then out. I Turned off the movie and the computer and decided to go straight for sleep (as opposed to watching my movie interrupted). This failed when a few moments later when my room mate burst in, drunk, again. A few others from my floor were trying to get him into bed. Knowing what I knew of last night, I encouraged them, but didn't bother to help what I considered futile. The night before he had not tried sleep until he was unable to do anything else. The same applied last night. When they thought they had him in, he jumped out. We got him in and I moved my dresser in front on the door. He pulled it aside without trouble or hesitation (I don't count initially failing to recognized that the door is blocked to be hesitation). From that point on, we gave up trying to stop him.

He ran around the floor a few times, he stumbled around, smashed his head against the wall, and then he started. He started tearing down posters and fliers from the walls and from people's doors. He was making a mess of whatever he could find. He took a vinyl record (used as a decoration on someones door) and threw it like a Frisbee. It shattered and came close to hitting us. I took down my posters and gave them to a friend for safe keeping for the night. He tried again and again to play his music loudly, and shouted when we took his iPod from him until we gave it back (he was never able to actually get the music playing, thankfully). He made a mess of his room, almost breaking a few of his possessions and treating his stuff like trash. Eventually we called an advisor, and moments before she showed up, he quieted down and stayed in his room. I left him on his own, this was more than I wanted and more than I was responsible for. I took up an offer to sleep in someone else's room on the floor.

But that night, before I fell asleep, three ideas went through my head. The first was visualization and a metaphor of life that I came up with as a make-think project to relax. The second was the thought of being in the same state as my room mate. I shivered until I stopped thinking about it. I would hope that someone would stop me if that ever happened. And that lead to my third thought, should someone stop someone else. Should I have stopped him from tearing everything up. If I envoke the golden rule, then yes, but that conflicts with my non-impediment principle (id est, let people do what they want so long as it doesn't interfere with anyone else). I felt selfish for protecting my own posters and stuff while not stopping him from tearing others' to pieces. I'm still to conflicted to solve these and I find the whole matter unsettling.

Well, hopefully I'll find solace and an answer, but right now I need to get my homework done.