Stalewardship.

Odd – the reality of responsibility. Especially among decent men. We take it so seriously.

We tread forward in our lives, and as we obtain the things we want, we are burdened with responsibilities that come with them. Now there is a significant other to whom one must share one’s entire life, kids who need care of various kinds, monetary requirements that demand that we diligently work at acquiring among often many other things – then, the daily logistics required to uphold the many legs that hold the constellation of all that we hold valuable upright….

We cannot divorce that which is existentially valuable from taxation of our time and effort. It sustains not only that which we obtained, but also those whom we love most.

And eventually we find ourselves driven by all that is required of us. We must do it, or else a dreadful onset of personal failure will begin to metastasize within us – and we know that if that occurs, then we will not be able to find the strength to bear that which is needed to keep that which we love so dearly. We risk losing all.

We have to keep on, because it is what good and responsible people do. Everything apart from it is failure…

Until we become immobile.

Until our spark and creativity dies.

Until we are both stressed and bored at the same time.

Until we lie to ourselves about what life is.

Until our dreams die.

Until those we serve take us for granted and mistreat us,

And we allow it.

Until we accept forms of morality that justify lifelessness.

Until we dull inside.

Until we become stale,

“Because we are stewards!”

—The Staleward.

Something about it all strikes a discordant note. One would think, in all the misery, that one would actively vie to investigate why – until one thinks of those who have tried to solve this problem that came before oneself, which steered them into affairs, alcoholism, drug abuse, etc. The desire to be free, respected, and self-deterministic, becomes, to the Staleward, an enemy to holiness. Even if one is honest with oneself enough to admit a sense of entrapment in one’s current life, escaping it may seem like greater doom.

Does sufficient time even exist, in the life of the Staleward, to even consider that their life is deeply problematic? Do they have sufficient energy left to find the real solution if they could?

If so, perhaps they would have the sense to wonder when it all started: The first time a piece of their prison snapped into the perfect place to constrain them in an area. Perhaps, they would think that something was cast overboard in the beginning of the responsibility-bearing that allowed the dictates of this enslaving dynamic, but which cannot at all be seen – because vision of it is blocked entirely by whatever enrapturing thing we remember obtaining in the moment the shackles snapped around their sense of obligation. Maybe it was the job promotion, or the birth of one’s first child – and when it happened the first ebb toward one’s captivity emerged and something discarded that only a profoundly wise, or profoundly stupid person would value: consideration to risk.

To maintain their now “better” lives, schedules are drawn up, routines are constructed, efficiency with time and resources are prioritized above all else to kill as many forms of risk as possible to hold on to that which one now has.

Slowly the Staleward becomes the enemy of chance, desolation to new possibilities, and strangler of creative thought.

Even if something were to appear before them that is both glamorous and new, of potential and direction, the Staleward could scarcely value it – for fear of having to leave to any extent the responsibilities placed upon them and the threat of resulting cataclysm.

The Staleward has not only him or herself to blame: false ideas of responsibility have been cast like nets over throngs in society for a long time, entangled and enforcing Staleward living. It binds personal awareness by claiming that responsibility is inhibition of life. It makes sense, since dire consequences prowl around the corner of failure to deliver the proper result. Entanglement by the masses in incorrect sense of responsibility, leaves the Staleward with a lack of good contradicting examples. The Staleward often cannot even imagine anything other than the shackles that weigh on their every limb.

To the Staleward that happens to recognize what he or she is, the answer is one that may not be immediately apparent – especially since risk seems an inherently unjustifiable medicine to the trap that feels like responsibility.

An evil transpired before responsibility began to weigh so much: understanding the need to know oneself with God, and the responsibility that that self-development requires in order to adequately estimate, endure, and balance our lives was never properly approached and explored. The confrontation with our own inadequacies and resolving them was never part of daily living – so we remained in a state in which we were never in an upward spiral of continual freeing of one’s own heart and soul. Responsibility was never experienced as a freeing agent before the metamorphosis to Staleward living. Instead, life was daily circumstantial forward motion of little consequence – and now that one’s wants have been obtained, it is daily circumstantial forward motion of enormous consequence. Everything intensified.

And because of this, responsibility is located entirely in the places of life that are externally oriented: other people, money, logistics. The freeing of internally oriented places in which responsibility should exist has been summarily abandoned or were never discovered at all. Rest, self-love, freedom, play, self-discovery, reflection, relationship, etc., are mere concepts.

The Staleward is a person that is outweighed by everything outside of him- or herself. The self becomes so small that one is beholden to everything else to a degree of relative totality.

And with that understanding, risk, the seeming poison to the beating heart of the externally oriented life, becomes the hinge upon which a retroactive exchange must take place. One learns to say “no” to things on the outside, in order to establish things that need attention on the inside, and which enables us to experience personal, restful satisfaction, in the privacy of our own souls.

Perhaps the “no” is the inability to support a family member emotionally to the degree one agreed to previously – because after a certain amount of it, the nurture that was doled out to others, is now needed for oneself. A pay cut might be required to find the time to re-orient oneself and re-strategize to find an occupation that doesn’t grind oneself to dust. The “no” is not the complete abandonment of that which one has obtained, but instead, moving to shift the sacrificing of our vitality on the altars of that which we externally cherish, to creating only just enough space for those things in order to maintain ourselves to the maximum degree.

The risk is terrifying, because that which one must refuse is excruciatingly visible, and often met with brutal protest from those closest to us – which also happens to expose the monsters that were secretly growing in them due to the Stalewards over-involvment: thankless entitled children, tyrant bosses, complacent spouses, etc.

Risk enables the transition from external to internal responsibility that keeps us feeling alive, which advocates our own value, and helps us defend it. Use of risk and “no” reveals hells in others we have enabled and, by extension, grown.

Internal gain often can’t be seen as immediately as outward prosperity can, but when matured, can be felt when one does have to bear external responsibilities, and by those whom we have relationships with. It brings life to everything and to all, despite the fact that we are no longer as monetarily, emotionally, or logistically involved or resourceful. Inner joy and peace at some point, will spring outward, and spread to those around us, who did not know that they needed less of our external resources, and more of from-the-inside-overflowing traits that well up from us. To infect the world around us with inner qualities, which people are so desperate to find, is a task entirely impossible to the defensively minded Staleward. Our inner attention is tantamount.

It keeps one flexible,

It sparks our creativity,

It keeps us occupied and joyful,

It helps us adequately identify what life is really about,

Preserves and revives our dreams.

It enforces our sense of dignity, which others respect,

And attempt to emulate,

It clarifies a morality that imbues us with a sense of vitality

It makes us sharper,

Flexible and happy,

To ourselves and to everyone we touch

Because this is what Stewardship is.

—The Steward