The branch that thinks it's a tree

Yesterday named the shirker. Today, look at the slower drift that gets there: the quiet decision that your part is your part, and the rest is somebody else's problem. The warehouse picker who hits his own number and steps over the jam two aisles down. The teacher who closes her door and lets the new hire sink. The shift where everyone guards their lane so carefully that no one notices the whole operation grinding down around them.

Marcus pushed the body image one step further. "A branch cut off from the adjacent branch must of necessity be cut off from the whole tree also. So too a man when he is separated from another man has fallen off from the whole social community" (Meditations 11.8, Long). Notice the chain. You don't cut yourself off from the company or the mission first. You cut yourself off from the person right next to you, and the rest follows on its own.

The branch keeps its leaves a while after it's pruned. It looks fine. Then it doesn't. Carrying your share starts with the colleague at the next station, not the org chart.