Duplicity, Eternal Recurrence, and the Sunshine Test

At my job, we have a thing called the sunshine test that we are supposed to use to determine how we should be performing our tasks. If you were to complete the work in front of your grandmother (assuming she understood it all), how would you feel? The intended conclusion here is that you don't take shortcuts or perform unethically in your daily duties if you feel that all of your actions are transparent to one who's opinion of you really matters. It's a great ideal and a measuring stick I think back to during the drudgery of more menial tasks where cutting a corner would be easy, but would ultimately not be in the best interest of the client. It's hard to keep those incentives in-line in client-centered work, which is frustrating at times and dictated by demands of people who may or may not be completely unreasonable.

I have a dilemma with this whole approach because (until the forthcoming technocracy makes everything transparent) the sunshine relies on other peoples' consciences and not your own. I understand the point, but the hardcore existentialist in me resents an effort to shape action aside from internal values and ideals. Personally, I like Nietzsche's concept of eternal recurrence, which is essentially a spin on reincarnation where, instead of living your next life based on the karma from your current one, you must live the same life over and over and over again, in perpetuity. If you are to fulfill eternal recurrence, you will move forward and embrace the reliving of your current life because you lived without regret. It would not be painful to relive this life, because you'd live it the same way again anyway.

For the most part, I feel that I have lived my life the right way, but it's always challenging and impossible to say you have no regrets. Most of my regrets have not been in the way of major life decisions (i.e. I think I chose the right college, have applied my efforts in the right areas, and have no real regrets about taking my current job), but have been in my interpersonal life. Yeah, sure, everyone realizes they could have dated so and so, or made this move, etc., yet the real regrets in my life have been about words and interpersonal relationships rather than actions. I think everyone talks and everyone talks shit at one time or another, but it's something I've been straining hard against. That transparency, the aforementioned sunshine test, has been in the back of my mind when people ask me about people I know as human beings, job prospects, or in any capacity.

The precise actions which I have taken in the past that have been most troublesome, most hurtful, and most regrettable have not been romantic entanglements but small comments, slips, or information that I should not have divulged. Even if it was intended as a joke or never intended to get back to the person. I've relived some of those moments more times than I'd like to remember, pinpointing precisely where I should have shut up. That doesn't change what you said or what you should have said. I've started to attempt to reform this universal foible and have focused on being much kinder, especially when I don't have nice things to say. Why say anything at all? Goes back to the great philosopher Thumper from "Bambi." If I know someone who has embezzled or physically abused their girlfriend or something, I'd bring that up and let my friend now before advising or declining to advising their hiring, but mostly I'd say the right approach is live and let live. The new sunshine test - pretend whoever you are talking about is right their in the room with you, so if you have to say something mean, at least ensure that you can back it up or it is important enough to be justified/mentioned. Bringing up trivial skeletons in someone's close is unkind and unnecessary 99.999999% of the time.

I've been frustrated with this in other people recently, the duplicity of it all. I know we are all different people based on our circumstances, but I think that removing the two-faced nature of our personalities will lead to a lot less conflict, a lot less internal guilt and harm, and just generally a better relationship with other people. I don't want to be known (and I'm not for the record, but that's not enough) as a preacher's wife or a gossip and it'd be hypocritical for me to condemn others for character flaws I'm yet to master (maybe that guilt over my own failings has something to do with this), but I'm working towards that ideal. Life would be simpler if you knew where you stood with people, not where they stand with you and a big question mark when you are no longer around. Part of my journey will be to figure out how to walk this line, but I feel that keeping the sunshine talking shit test in mind will help me moving forward. At the same time, I must accept that human drama is inevitable and the source of much meaning as well as pain in our lives. It's a transaction cost for having relationships that mean something. While there may not be a shangri-la, a perfect place where all exist in harmony, I think that tweaking the way we speak, or at least thinking before we speak, about other people could improve a lot of people's lives, including my own.

Sunshine, indeed.