Even when perspectives collapse, obligation does not.
What fails is not obligation itself, but the perspectival coherence that once made commitment intelligible.
This post examines what commitment becomes when there is no stable vantage point from which to hold it.
Commitment Presupposes Perspective
Under ordinary conditions, commitment relies on:
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a bounded role
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a delimited field of relevance
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a hierarchy of priorities
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a horizon of consequence
One can say yes or no because one knows where one is speaking from.
When perspectives collapse, this anchoring disappears.
Obligation Without Location
In incoherent commitment:
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every obligation feels immediate
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no obligation can be cleanly deferred
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incompatible demands coexist
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refusal appears as moral failure
Obligation loses its location.
It is no longer possible to say:
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this is my responsibility
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that belongs elsewhere
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this exceeds my role
Everything arrives in the same space.
Why Decision Procedures Fail
Advice commonly offered in such conditions — prioritise, set boundaries, choose strategically — presupposes a perspective that can rank obligations.
But incoherent commitment is precisely the loss of that ranking capacity.
Decision procedures intensify strain because they add:
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meta-obligation (“choose better”)
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self-scrutiny
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moral residue
The system demands commitment and coherence while denying the conditions for either.
The Moralisation of Structural Failure
Incoherent commitment is often experienced as:
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guilt without wrongdoing
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responsibility without agency
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failure without error
This is why it is easily moralised.
But the failure is structural:
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obligations exceed differentiation
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roles are saturated
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perspectives are no longer separable
No amount of sincerity resolves this.
Commitment as Endurance
When commitment loses coherence, it transforms.
It becomes:
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endurance instead of choice
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coping instead of judgment
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persistence instead of action
The system continues to function because commitment has not ceased — it has degraded into survival.
Why This Is So Exhausting
Incoherent commitment exhausts because:
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effort cannot resolve strain
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completion is impossible
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repair is out of reach
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success criteria are unstable
Every action feels both necessary and insufficient.
The Link to Burnout
Burnout is often treated as emotional depletion.
Structurally, it is the long-term effect of incoherent commitment.
When obligation persists without differentiation:
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exhaustion accumulates
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meaning thins
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responsiveness narrows
What remains is obligation stripped of intelligibility.
Next
The next post will name this condition directly:
Burnout as Semiotic OverloadExhaustion before pathology.
Because burnout is not a failure to cope.
It is what happens when meaning itself becomes too dense to manage.
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