On Responsibility

Edward Degas, “L’Absinthe” (1875/1876)

One ship drives east and another drives west. / With the self-same winds that blow; / ’Tis the set of the sails / And not the gales / That tells them the way to go. // Like the winds of the sea are the winds of fate / As we voyage along through life; / ’Tis the set of the soul / That decides its goal / And not the calm or the strife.

This poem, ‘The Winds of Fate,’ by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, touches upon something that seems to be…