January 2, 2007
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Strawberry
Perhaps, from one perspective it was unwise of me to mention Saddam Hussein while exploring the idea of compassion. Apparently it served as a flash point for many. Another perspective might be that it gave some an opportunity to sound the idea of compassion in their own minds and hearts. A friend in Texas said, I don't necessarily disagree with you, however... I cannot find compassion for someone like Saddam. Okay. That's understandable to me. I'll bet there are a lot of people who genuinely feel that way and I don't want to leave them out of the equation. Changing the world isn't my direct goal so it's okay with me if you don't agree with what I write. You don't have
to because I don't need to change you. Therefore your agreement doesn't satisfy my aim. My primary interest is to learn to better express the ideas with which I struggle internally. You see, I want to change me. I don't want to be the person I was raised and programmed to be. Not wholly anyway. I've noticed many areas in me where big improvements could be made if I could find how to make those changes. Of course, finding how to make a change and making the change are vastly different matters. As I search for words to express to others what I find in myself I've found my understanding has deepened and taken on another dimension. Mostly, the way I thought was rather two dimensional; chocolate or vanilla? I can't change and remain the same. But where must this changes begin? Certainly not with my socks but with my thoughts. How do I change thoughts without changing my way of thinking? Chocolate or vanilla, though it has served me in life, will no longer measure up to my new goal. I need a third thing. Like strawberry.Whether or not Saddam should have been executed, where, when or how are not matters of great use to me in relation to my primary aim of changing my way of thinking. At least not at this stage of the process. But, like eating an apple, I've found eventually I need to take a bite and start to chew as swallowing whole apples is as unpleasant as dangerous. How will I find the strawberry, the new thing in the equation of chocolate or vanilla? Strawberry is neither chocolate nor vanilla but it's still a flavor. By examining chocolate and vanilla I find that a third thing arises. The idea of something like chocolate and vanilla but not either of them. To further quote the Texan on the subject of Saddam's execution, it should've been done a bit differently... not so quickly and not when it was done (on a day when no one is supposed to be executed due to a holiday or whatever). Here I have found a strawberry. She is expressing compassion for whomever might have been suffering because the day of the execution may have been poorly chosen. Is some compassion better than no compassion? From my perspective it is because it moves one in the direction of compassion and that is the direction in which I wish to travel. How much movement is needed? I don't know that. But I do know that some movement in the direction in which I wish to travel is something brings me closer to my goal. It's interesting to me that the Texan's love, compassion and tenderness are the main reasons I read about her life.Please don't labor under the false conception you must agree with me to comment here, read here or be considered my friend. Not everyone who agrees with me is my friend and not everyone who disagrees with me is not. I've spent enough time in directed thinking and self-examination to realize not every idea I express is mine. Certainly then the ideas you express are not mine. They come out of your consciousness and reflect your center of gravity. Inner change is my goal and I am not opposed, in any way, to some internal change taking place in you as a result of our interaction. It follows then that no change in you must be accepted with equal grace and poise. Reading over the comments on my last offering has been rewarding to me. Firstly because it gave me more about which to think. Secondly in order, but certainly not value, was finding there are people who have also sensed a great need for compassion on our planet and in our epoch. Further, there are some who have realized it must begin in their own hearts and minds. For those of you interested in a further treatment of the ideas related to a new way of thinking please check out the James' World Phat Podcasts numbered 024 and 026. When 030 is released it too will deal with the subject.
Comments (21)
I felt very uneasy about Saddam's execution. People everywhere were cheering, yet I cannot bring myself to cheer someone's execution, no matter how evil they may have been. I don't know whether that's compassion on my part of something else. I've heard very disturbing things about the trial and the way it was conducted. Maybe it's the lawyer in me who finds that offensive. I dunno...just seems a bit...hypocritical.
i appreciate your contemplation on how to rewire the thinking in your brain that no longer works for you, james. i think there are many of us going through that right now. me, for example. *smile* it's a grand voyage of unchartered waters trying to be the captain and setting a course for home, working our way through familiar yet somewhat hostile territory to a land that will embrace and nurture us.
and as far as wearing lapis goes, i think you would look quite stunning with one ear pierced and a well placed lapis stud. after all, they say lapis is good for communication as well as improving visualization and your connection with the outer realms. *grin* did i just hear you scoff?...hahaha
thanks for visiting, james. it always feels good to me when you come by.
ds
I would like to think that if I came here with the idea it was right to kill Saddam, that reading these words would open my mind to "strawberry." I am actually surprised how many people do see it was wrong to execute Saddam. Of course, we are all in a minority, but I find it encouraging, nonetheless. My primary reason for opposing his execution, and the killing of any human being, is simply because it's wrong to kill. And yet, when I apply the logic to other situations, it doesn't hold up for me. It's also wrong to ask another person to pull that switch, inject that needle, pull the lever. Again though, on closer inspection, I find flaws with that line of thinking. Your premise, about the need for compassion, is one that seems to pass muster against all other scenarios. I look forward to listening to the podcasts.
Ill have to listen to those podcasts. I hope it is a how to.. Cuz I need to know how to have that compassion for myself. Its hard.
I'm not sure compassion is the word for "the Texan's" statement; regrets might be more appropriate. It's not about "hey, sorry it happened" (compassion) but rather "hey, it was necessary but it was done wrong" (regret).
I believe that being a better person, for me, would involve feeling compassion for people whose very existence turns my stomach: mass murderers, pedophiles, and rapists. I haven't gotten there yet. I still believe there are people who deserve to die or to suffer for their actions against others. Timothy McVeigh, whose bomb destroyed the lives of innocent people, including small children, was a blight on the planet that needed to be removed. Saddam Hussein was another. I don't agree with the war in Iraq, but I will lose no sleep over the loss of Saddam. Perhaps I should. Perhaps that would make me a better person, a more compassionate person.
Like I said any one who had a problem with that it's not your problem it's theirs.
Though I hope my own comment didn't step over that line.
What is the road from vanilla/chocolate thinking to seeing the strawberry as an option? Profound man. I have thought long on the road to compassion re: your prior post and concluded that one step along the way is to hone the skill of empathy. I find it hard to have compassion without understanding how others experience their world. Once I have some empathy, there is a chance I might feel and show some compassion. I wonder too what value is compassion without action. Now, back to how to pull in a new scene in my viewfinder? Well, let me meditate on that but my quick response is experience and education. I'm sure there are other ways but those come immediately to mind. Cheers
Of all the people I know I think you are more strawberry than any of them, not just because I like you either
I think you have changed quite alot, I have been reading you for years, long before I ever got brave enough to comment and I have seen a big change just in your writings, I cannot imagine how you have changed on a personal and daily basis. You help me try to learn to veery towards Carmel rather than Chocolate!
For some reason the execution of Saddam caught me in the stomach and gave me a punch. I believe he was a truly vicious and greedy man but I do hope he does not become a martyr to those who refuse to see his cruelty.
I am thinking that raspberry might be my leaning..not sure though.
I think compassion is a great thing. I also think that it is our innate nature to have compassion. Things learned along the way lead to pavlovian responses to stimuli. The same is probably true of Saddam. In fact, I'm certain Saddam was just as much an object of his collected stimuli as any of us have been. That's not to say we all have the capability to act as he has done. To be as cruel and relentless. To be as heartless in the face of religious or political differences with his people.
I think Saddam was not a nice man. I don't know what kind of 2 year old he was. I don't know what kind of 4 year old. I feel bad for any child, so full of infinite potential, to become a steel-fisted dictator. To be denied his own peace by what he became. What he built himself into one action at a time.
I do not believe in the death penalty by any means. It is not anyone's right to take another's life. To end someone. It is the very reason Saddam was on trial. For taking thousands of lives. Thousands of thousands. To kill a murderer is a hypocracy that brings those whould would see justice to the level of the guilty.
Of course, what about war? Any of the wars in which people have had to fight to defend themselves? I suppose that is where my ideals fall apart. I've never had to look war in the eyes. I haven't had to make that choice. It is easy for me to say "no" to murder, but it is easy for me to say that simply because those people who came before me and fought those that would seek to harm us have made such a life of peace for me possible.
I suppose all of what I've just written above makes me either a hypocrite or confused. Probably more confused. I don't believe in murder, but that belief has come largely from the fairly idyllic lifestyle I have lived in my life, which has come as a result of freedom won in the past by what I do not condone for myself.
I pray strongly that I never have to face that choice, but in the case of Saddam, post-war capital punishment is not something in which I believe.
Wow. That comment was far too long to be a comment, but I hope that there's something worth reading therein.
Peace,
Shane
your ideas and meanderings on these subjects are important. thank you.
I found the Podcast on stuffing negative emotions was helpful. It was a huge issue for me last year. Notice I am saying it was. I will listen to that one again. Thanks.
Wouldn't it be a nicer world if everyone could accept tutti fruitti as an alternate choice? On many things I can take or leave any number of flavors. But I still have several things that are either/or, and no other way. Guess that makes me still a work in progress...LOL
I'm going to have to agree with one of the above commentors about the compassion thing. It was more of a regret than compassion, on my part. I'm more concerned of the ill effects a hurried execution, done at a poor time, with those present at the execution taunting the condemned... not concerned about the effect it had on Saddam, but on the effects it has on the region and the people who live there and our armed services personnel.
I suppose it's all a matter of perspective then, war. I see your concern for our personnel as compassion. It makes me happy to see it that way as well as leaves the door open for you to discover some new form of compassion within yourself if you so choose.
Chocolate:Windows/Vanilla:Apple OS-X/Strawberry:Linux/Grape:BeOS. Actually, I prefer Strawberry:RedHat/Cherry:Debian, but some people wouldn't understand the reference. All are different 'flavors' of the entity known as 'windowing operating systems'.
In reference to the comment you left on my site: yes, OS-X. I'm OS neutral, having used Windows, OS-X, RedHat, several kinds of Debian, SuSE, CP/M, Forth and BeOS on desktop machines and PalmOS on handheld devices. I can't even remember all of the systems I've used on mainframe computers and have written no few of my own. Back in the dawn of computer history, the machines were provided with no operating system at all, forcing us to write our own.
By the way, we are all undergoing change -- whether we like it or not. For some people, it is random; for others, such as yourself, an attempt is made to select a direction, which we consider improvement. If nothing else, we are all getting older. But I pity the poor souls who deny change could take place because they are the results of creation by a perfect deity.
I started commenting here again a couple of months ago but you just didn't notice. Xanga hadn't been sending me your posts and I thought you had stopped writing. My mail host had bogged down in forwarding messages and the flood of rejection messages coming back to Xanga prompted them to stop sending me anything.
Oh, I noticed. I simply didn't find anything at your site when I went to have a look so I figured you were lurking.
Change, so much I need to change. Then I bog down in putting myself down, shoots the whole effort in the foot.
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