Judgement and negativity
Jun. 20th, 2005 10:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
smokingbootThis isn't going to be very nice, in fact, it is the most negative and unpleasant thing I have ever written on my lj. I do not do private posts, but with this, perhaps I should. No, heck with it, I'm not censoring myself. I just recommend that no-one reads it.
What's been wrong with me recently? There are lots of factors; I am still working but I have to get going looking for a job, I still haven't got the synopsis done, my cv needs...I don't know what it needs. It's too hot, the storm hasn't passed properly; tomorrow is a beautiful date for me (I love midsummer) but it's also a time I associate with disillusion and despair; A strange gift indeed, and if the fairies gave it, they were in most perverse mood, though they cleared me a path to great happiness. Tripping over Chief Wigam in a dress last week didn't help.
I read the extraordinary beauty ofsecretrapture's journal, and it quickens me from head to foot, the latest excerpt from Rumi's Book of Love almost sets me on fire just reading it. I read aegis_one's journal, and we talk about Super Barrio, and the readiness of people to make a difference.
Then I learn about a situation where someone could make a difference and didn't, they walked away. Oh, they are feeling bad about it, they are doing all the right stuff now, and rousing themselves to blame the world around them for being a shitty place. Well, who made it that way? Millions of human beings who do exactly what this person did, kept their heads down, looked after number one. The world's a tough place you know, you've got to look out for number one. How did it get this way? Could it be a history of people forever looking after number one? It's natural, it's human, to be cowardly, yes of course it is; and if people get tortured or bullied or raped, that's horrible but it's over there and we're over here so we're OK (fingers crossed). And when it comes over here? Who will protect us then? Er, sorry, no can do, looking after number one, you're on your own. Wot, no gun? Keep still then, and maybe you'll come out alive at the end of it. What's that? You can't stop recalling the trauma? your life was saved but your head was fucked? Oh dear. Well, life at any price and all that. You set the price, you pay it.
Yuk. I don't want to live in a world where this is the default. I don't want a world where the Kitty Genovese experience is the norm, to be expected. I am perfectly happy with those who live like this to catch a bullet, especially if the bullet would otherwise have landed in the chest of a real human being. Maybe a soul is something you earn.
And who am I to judge this, who am I to decide? No-one. The cruelty, the harshness inherent in this judgement is almost as bad as the evil of the coward who does nothing, and that is what I must remember. The seven deadly sins all have a part of me, but Pride and Wrath are my biggies. I am extreme, manic perhaps, always have been. When people question spirituality, I would argue that mine has been a great friend; I am elevated by the storm, and depressed by people dressing up their faults as some kind of inherent aspect of humanity. But this is not the way to be, there is something better, happier, kinder.
'A lug-worm, with its grey and muddy mouth
Sang that somewhere to north or west or south
There lived a gay, exulting, gentle race
Under the golden or the silver skies...'
- The Man Who Dreamed of Fairyland
W.B. Yeats
What's been wrong with me recently? There are lots of factors; I am still working but I have to get going looking for a job, I still haven't got the synopsis done, my cv needs...I don't know what it needs. It's too hot, the storm hasn't passed properly; tomorrow is a beautiful date for me (I love midsummer) but it's also a time I associate with disillusion and despair; A strange gift indeed, and if the fairies gave it, they were in most perverse mood, though they cleared me a path to great happiness. Tripping over Chief Wigam in a dress last week didn't help.
I read the extraordinary beauty of
secretrapture's journal, and it quickens me from head to foot, the latest excerpt from Rumi's Book of Love almost sets me on fire just reading it. I read aegis_one's journal, and we talk about Super Barrio, and the readiness of people to make a difference. Then I learn about a situation where someone could make a difference and didn't, they walked away. Oh, they are feeling bad about it, they are doing all the right stuff now, and rousing themselves to blame the world around them for being a shitty place. Well, who made it that way? Millions of human beings who do exactly what this person did, kept their heads down, looked after number one. The world's a tough place you know, you've got to look out for number one. How did it get this way? Could it be a history of people forever looking after number one? It's natural, it's human, to be cowardly, yes of course it is; and if people get tortured or bullied or raped, that's horrible but it's over there and we're over here so we're OK (fingers crossed). And when it comes over here? Who will protect us then? Er, sorry, no can do, looking after number one, you're on your own. Wot, no gun? Keep still then, and maybe you'll come out alive at the end of it. What's that? You can't stop recalling the trauma? your life was saved but your head was fucked? Oh dear. Well, life at any price and all that. You set the price, you pay it.
Yuk. I don't want to live in a world where this is the default. I don't want a world where the Kitty Genovese experience is the norm, to be expected. I am perfectly happy with those who live like this to catch a bullet, especially if the bullet would otherwise have landed in the chest of a real human being. Maybe a soul is something you earn.
And who am I to judge this, who am I to decide? No-one. The cruelty, the harshness inherent in this judgement is almost as bad as the evil of the coward who does nothing, and that is what I must remember. The seven deadly sins all have a part of me, but Pride and Wrath are my biggies. I am extreme, manic perhaps, always have been. When people question spirituality, I would argue that mine has been a great friend; I am elevated by the storm, and depressed by people dressing up their faults as some kind of inherent aspect of humanity. But this is not the way to be, there is something better, happier, kinder.
'A lug-worm, with its grey and muddy mouth
Sang that somewhere to north or west or south
There lived a gay, exulting, gentle race
Under the golden or the silver skies...'
- The Man Who Dreamed of Fairyland
W.B. Yeats
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Date: 2005-06-20 07:14 pm (UTC)My view is that I don't get involved in things I don't understand. If someone is clearly in need of assistance then I shall do what I can, but it's not for me to intervene in situations unasked otherwise. That way lies the invasion of Iraq etc and the worst kinds of evangelism.
Amended. Sorry!
Date: 2005-06-20 11:12 pm (UTC)Absolutely! This has got to be the best expression of giving help in a potentially difficult situation without making judgements except the one; that there appears to be a potential problem.
It's extremely dangerous to make any kind of judgement without knowing all the facts: I'm sure there are plenty of things that you've don ein your life that could be misunderstood very easily by someone sticking their nose in halfway through.
I don't know of any situation where I have been judged half way through a situation on the basis of actual evidence; When I have been ill-judged, it has been due to a desire to do so, and neither truth nor appearance would have influenced the outcome as far as I know. Misunderstanding wasn't a danger or a consequence, it was a necessary, albeit perhaps unconscious, prerequisite.
My view is that I don't get involved in things I don't understand. If someone is clearly in need of assistance then I shall do what I can, but it's not for me to intervene in situations unasked otherwise. That way lies the invasion of Iraq etc and the worst kinds of evangelism.
Your view is wise and clear. I think the key phrase here is 'Clearly in need of assistance.' It is when that need is ignored that I see red. And I suspect that need is ignored more often than it is answered. But I would be happy to be wrong about this!
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