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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This is going to sound monstrous harsh...
Date: 2005-06-21 10:29 am (UTC)Everyone looks after number one.
Whatever they do is whatever they think is will make them feel best about the situation.
Next time you do something that seems altrustic, take out your motivations and examine them (in private please, such things are not for the public gaze)
If you can't boil them down to enlightened self interest, look again; you are deluding yourself.
From my own point of view I find that recognising my gain for doing something makes the doing of it easier.
If I recognise that I'm going to Auntie Ethel's boring tea party because I prefer the boredom there to the family outrage I'd get for refusing to attend I can endure the boredom better because I know I'm still in profit at the end of it.
If I recognise that the feeling of disquiet I'd have for walking by would be worse than the broken knuckles I get for wading in I can wade in with a will. Knowing that whatever happens I'm still coming out ahead of the game, feeling good about myself.
Re: This is going to sound monstrous harsh...
Date: 2005-06-21 11:25 am (UTC)Incredible sacrifices happen every day, for love, for duty, for whatever. The ultimate sacrifice, laying down your life for another, cannot be put down to someone doing it to feel good about themselves. That moment of righteous satisfaction cannot compare to the great fear of not existing, especially for those with no spiritual belief to prop them up. There is no reward here and there is no reward after it and no-one will see, and no-one will cheer...
And yet they do it anyway. They are rare, but not rare enough to be considered beyond the human condition.
And on the subject of everyday altruism, it is a glorious triumph of Satanic doublethought (in the sense of LaVey's ideas) to decide that 'doing good' must feel bad or feel like nothing at all to be good. Just been reading
Re: This is going to sound monstrous harsh...
Date: 2005-06-21 11:27 am (UTC)Re: This is going to sound monstrous harsh...
Date: 2005-06-21 12:28 pm (UTC)Love and kisses for you my sweet, you are wonderful beyond measure.
The ultimate sacrifice, laying down your life for another, cannot be put down to someone doing it to feel good about themselves.
I'd argue that this exactly wrong.
Though perhaps the wording should be "someone doing it to avoid loathing themselves forever".
I can imagine all kinds of scenarios where I would severely risk my own life to avoid injury/death to other people, only one has come to pass so far* and I know for certain that the choice boiled down very fast into how I would feel about myself for following each course of action.
I didn't end up dead*, I walked away from that one with nothing more than wrenched shoulders and a bruised knee. But I can tell you now that there are fates worse than death, and depending on who you are knowing that by your action/inaction someone else is suffering is one of them.
Choice is all too often a tapdance through the minefield of evil concequences.
*Or if I did, I feel pretty calm about it.
Re: This is going to sound monstrous harsh...
Date: 2005-06-21 01:07 pm (UTC)God, they say, is love. So any act of love is an act of God (Or an act of Dog, who knows?)
There is no such thing as selfish love; if it's selfish, it's not love. But love is fulfilment etc, and it is right and healthy to hope and expect that from love. Ever so simple. It's when your own fulfilment is all that matters that the problem starts.
Bring on the tie dyed flower hats!
Date: 2005-06-21 02:05 pm (UTC)Where is the difference between an action performed deliberately to make you happy with the intent that your happiness make me happy, and an action performed which makes you happy with no intent other than on the action itself.
Deep Breath
Example.
Consider, Larians buys you a Birthday Pres which makes you smile and go "Squeeeee!". By your argument there is no love in the gift if he has done this becasue he enjoys your bouncy happiness.
Example 2.
I'm willing to bet cash money that you sleep sounder in your bed at night knowing that there is a bowl of food out for the Chav Cat. Is there less compassion in your feeding him because you'd feel bad if you didn't do it ?
If it feels loving, it's love.
Thou art God.
Re: Bring on the tie dyed flower hats!
Date: 2005-06-21 02:35 pm (UTC)But I never did argue with it; I never said love couldn't feel great, couldn't be gratifying - I just said that if it did, it didn't mean that the feeling was reprehensible or wrong. Action derived from Love that makes you happy is not lacking in altruism. It's the point.
You are god also. With flaming hair and eyes that shine...