RE: The Fiction We Live.
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Darn good topic.
Where you write you go by freedom and responsibility, I usually say with freedom also respect is required. We mean more or less the same thing.
Usually on the 'respect' side of things, I get others to tell me that having respect is subjective and cannot be determined what is right and what is wrong, since this varies between individuals. The thought that having respect for everything and everyone is something we shall live by and do as good as we can, even when we define what respect is from our own subjectivity. I mean, certain things is simply obvious to all of us, like nobody likes to be physically abused in any way, even a pat on the buttocks of a stranger, a lady, while being in a bar or club, or on the streets. Other things may be subjective, like tell someone who is deeply religious, faith is for the dumb, religion is the biggest evil in the world, and you dont want to have anyone as neighbours who is not an atheist.
If we all would truly understand humans do like to be part of a group, humans have social needs, we will also understand we implicitly gain responsibilities (aka apply respect) towards at least the group of people we like to be part of. This includes people we know personally, but also strangers.
Individualism is good, but it becomes bad when we become selfish. Sure, we are all selfish at times, but we shall also apply none selfish behaviour or even mindset, at least as part of our existance. When a too large group of people dont do the latter, we will end up in a world were constantly 'fight' each other. In the end, this will make nobody heppy.
I'd say that taking responsibility for oneself does indeed have a lot to do with respect towards others. As well as respect towards oneself. Acting responsibly is acting with consideration. Add a little valuation to consideration, and you have respect. But that train of thought might be worth a whole post :-D
I do feel like there are some underlying rules, like laws of nature. Lewis describes them as the Tao, rules that all religion and spiritual practices (the old ones, not the new age fusion crap) have in common. One of them is indeed respect: Love thy neighbor and such. It's a lot harder to love your neighbor than your brother.
Deep spirituality is normally not the problem, according to the theory of the Tao. There is common ground everywhere where there's "good". If the religion teaches to hate, though, then it's either misunderstood or evil.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment!
Much of the core of religions is what we have in our laws as well.
Thou shall not kill. Thou shall not steal, etc etc
Agree, for another time🥳