Debt and Consequences

If I haven’t said it, I really don’t like the idea of owing anyone anything.

Part of the reason I don’t like it is because all too often, as a child, I seemed to stumble into some sort of major life debt—I owed my family to act a particular way. I owed my father to be a certain way. I owed society to be a certain kind of person. I owed men to be a particular kind of woman.

Somehow, no one seemed to owe me, which convinced me early that there was something fundamentally wrong with the idea of debt. You see, I could never quite, no matter how hard I tried, pay anyone back. I could never get ahead, or figure out how to break even. I couldn’t even seem to understand the rules for the debt. They seemed to change.

We like to think of debt as a consequence, but if my childhood taught me anything, it’s that debt and consequence are not closely related. A consequence for my action might be owing money, but it could just as well be not eating until I get paid again. Nothing I could have done would have enlisted me, with any degree of will, in the kind of debts my family believed I owed them, and somehow instead of being a debt between myself and individuals, the debt was between me and the entire world, which I was fundamentally failing without knowing how.

The difference between debt and consequence lies in this: a consequence can be learned from, can be understood (if after the fact), and once it has happened, it is done. Learn from it or don’t.

A debt is a nasty emotional cycle, and while you can learn from debt, it is fundamentally punitive. Debt is shamed, is used to condemn. Debt punishes you for not having enough, and you can be born in a debt you did not do anything to incur.

I’d rather have consequences.