Because living in such world is depressing. Done, end of story. Did I scare you? Of course not. You’re probably aware what I’m going to poke at. In case you need a reminder, a certain, highly unpleasant and completely incompetent excuse for existence said something along the lines of “Empathy is humanity’s weakness”. Now, I urge you to resist turning your desk into a pile of splinters or punching a hole through the wall next to you. Instead, let’s dissect this usually male (no, not manly) thing of supressing or downright rejecting empathy or emotions in general.
A topic I’ve already touched in one of my previous episodes of this irregular series (namely XII) when I was talking about growing. This time I’d like to look at the act of comparing ourselves to others from a different perspective. Instead of looking at it as something that stifles our personal growth we’ll take a look at how it threatens our feelings of self-worth. So, let’s try and regain our power.
Well, stick around and find out. Ok, now that we have the “click-bait” part done (and I’ve had a decontamination procedure), let’s look at through a mildly cynical lens on how fickle legality of one’s action can be. It’s especially on point these days when we look at what’s happening beyond the pond – as in we take a look at the totally unhinged, dementia-filled clusterfuck of past not-even-month. The question has been around social circles so much and it’s quite interesting and terrifying to watch everyone wonder. You might be tempted to ask how I seem so calm. Believe me, I’m not. But also keep in mind that the place I come from experienced this multiple times. Hell, we had it twice in past century from both sides of the spectrum (damn it, I really shouldn’t be using this analogy since I despise it so much). So, let’s dive in.
We all like success and we all want to avoid ridicule. We’re being raised in this climate, putting the pressure on ourselves to strive for more. I’ve already wrote about the “pursuit of growth for the sake of growth” so I’d only repeat myself here. However, the title says something else which is related to our “growth” or a perception of safety, be it personal or communal. It is a personal property that is largely visible or loud. It is easily spotted by an average person but for reasons completely incomprehensible to me it is revered rather than shunned; arrogance. And today we’re going to take a peek into what it is.
What is better – to be born good, or to overcome your evil nature through great effort?
Paarthurnax, from The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim
I don’t think I need to introduce this quote much. It’s been around for quite a while and it made its way into the online spaces. The reason I’m borrowing it here is of course the idea behind the quote. That idea is that one should consider not only the past of someone they’re dealing with but also the present actions and also how they themselves look at their past. Are they proud of their past actions? Do they look at their past decisions with a critical eye? Are they trying to atone for their past mistakes? All these questions are extremely important factors when considering a renewal of the “peace treaty of tolerance” between people and providing forgiveness in the sense of my previous episode. However, mostly in those same online space, we witness quite a lot of people viewing accountability either as a weakness or worse, a tool of abuse. How, well, let’s take a look.
Been a while since I got into writing. And we’re back with the “unlucky 13”. I’ve lately stumbled upon some folks talking in public about their life struggles, ,venting their issues with other folks which caused them grief and how to apporach this. Often we get into a point where we “hold a grudge” if that trauma is massive and any reminder throws us back into the time we were experiencing the “torture”. This not only fuels our PTSD but can develop further into something worse. But when someone starts talking about forgiveness, we immediately go on full defence because we’re taught “forgiveness = everything’s fine, let’s start over”. However, that’s not true. Not at all, my dear reader. Forgiveness can in fact have a completely different form. Let me show some of them and as usual, we start with a quote; a short one and very much on point:
We all like to improve. We like to get promotions at work, getting better in games, getting better in sports … we like improvement in general and we someitmes go to great lengths to chase it. Improved tools, new trainings; all the things that make that sponge in our heads bubble with action and sometimes our muscles ache from all the gains. But is it all we should do? And how to do this in a healthy manner? How to, using the popular quote, “Check ourselves so we don’t wreck ourselves?” In today’s chapter I’m going to look on two thoughts that I keep close to myself regarding personal growth and improvement. Now, I’m not offering advice on how to grow, I’m not a life coach. My goal instead will be to look on things that could make the growth mindset actually do more harm than good and what to do to not step into that trap.
I must not fear. Fear is a mind-killer. Fear is a little death that brings total obliteration …
By borrowing the inital verses of Litany Against Fear, known these days mostly through the Dune franchise, we’ll take a peek into today’s perception of fear and how it makes people do really bad decision in long-term. And also how it’s extremely weaponised by the manipulative and/or hopelessly naive.
Oh dear, I’m already at ten of these “drops of wisdom” (take with a train load of salt). And with this one, I’m about to do another kick into a hornet’s nest. Why? I dunno, probably because I’m a fan of weird kind of self-flagellation (don’t take this out of context >:3). But this one’s probably going to be short because the idea is rather quick to grasp.
Absolute freedom is impossible. Because for freedom to be truly absolute, you must allow for someone else’s freedom to be taken away.
Oh dear, this is something we see every day. Every single day we see and hear people screaming “My freedom is being attacked! I’m oppressed!” Now, there’s of course a significant group of people that is in fact having their freedoms under scrutiny, be it racial minorities, sexual minorities etc. And no, just because they’re not being lynched doesn’t mean everything is fine. It’s not fine at all and if you try engaging in some genuine perspective taking, you’ll start taking off your rose-tinted glasses. Why am I saying this? Because this text isn’t aimed at these people and calling them out for “whining'“. Not at all. The post I’m writing here is very much aimed at people who start screaming “My freedoms!” whenever they get called out at their miserable behaviour. They know they’re doing something bad and they got spotted. Well, my dear, “free-dumbs” (I’d use harsher language but … let’s keep, how we’d call it back then, some “institutional culture”), take a comfy seat, grab your favourite snack and listen. For I’m about to show you how you’ve become your greatest tyrant and how to get out (gosh, I’m getting reminded of the first post in this series).