The other day I posted something about people opposing each other, I listed a bunch of examples of how it often happens and yada, yada. I took it down cause I really didnt like how I worded it. I made it sound(to me)as though being against something is wrong. Didnt mean that at all. Thats crazy. Tell you what, please forgive my putting my foot in my mouth and I promise that if and when the need should arise later on Ill return the favor. Even personally, Im against lots of things. Lots. Im against violence(in general, whether military or domestic), animal cruelty(eating them isnt cruel though. Lets be real, cauliflower, carrots and lettuce are living things too. They have to die in order to be eaten). Im against censorship, oppression, any form of abuse, so many things. But I dont believe in being against people(and yes I do still have some negative biases Im trying to break down which I wont explicitly list). And its not even just because I think its wrong to be. Its because itll be pointless and itll do more harm than good. For proof, next time you see somebody do something that you think is completely uncalled for and cruel yell at them, degrade them, tell them what worthless low-lives they are, or if you really want to be bold and see that method in full swing then just punch them square in the teeth. Not only will they probably hit you back but theyll likely do whatever bothered you again just to spite you. When we depict a person or people as the enemy then we give them an open invitation to see both us and what we stand for as the enemy. Generalizations are a great way to accidentally do just that too. Its easy to say that ____ sort of people are ____ until you meet one that totally isnt ____ at all but was still attacked by the generalization all the same. Please be aware of my awareness of that in the future if I make generalizations. We cant paint a target on somebody elses head without also painting one on our own in the process it just doesnt work that way. Obviously if weve got our minds set on punishment then theres no alternative to punishment but I do think we owe it to ourselves to ask ourselves why were putting more value on punishment than in reconciliation and healing. I think if solving whatever the problem is is what matters to us then it works better to use words and actions that appeal to a persons goodness, logic, reason and ability to be loved, things like that. Treat them like theyre awesome(because they are, deep down everybody is, God doesnt make mistakes). Or just smile, nod and let it go if it doesnt REALLY matter. Sometimes people who make asses of themselves arent actually asses. Sometimes theyre just people who dont know everything and cant see all ends(like we all are) or people whove straight had enough and whos ability to empathize has been jaded by their own hurts(which may or may not even be centered solely on themselves so the selfish accusation might not even be true). If we call those people selfish well just make it worse. Metaphorically speaking it might be easy to stand in judgment of somebody whos screaming and snarling because theyre burning but that wont put the fire out and its the spreading of that fire thats the problem, not the person themselves. I think the sooner we understand that, the sooner real progress will be made. Sometimes that takes a while. Sometimes it takes several years and sometimes what were personally doing to help doesnt seem to even be making a dent on the issue but It always is, its just that we as human beings tend to attribute the effectiveness of our words and actions to things like recognition and immediate results but not all results are immediately visible. Sometimes a person will leave us behaving no differently than they ever did but were not gonna be the only people who handle things that way and just as every instance of suffering provides another brick in the wall, every instance of loving provides another sledge hammer blow to that same walls weak points. Lets ask ourselves what really matters.
Posted on: Wed, 25 Jun 2014 00:41:30 +0000
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