Something to ponder after Christchurch and Columbo

Warrigal

Warrigal

SF VIP
Location
Sydney, Australia
This cartoon IMO makes a point that is very profound.

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So often we assume the thoughts and beliefs of people who do not share our heritage, our customs and our faith.
Closer contact with the people we mistrust often reveals that we have much more is common with each other than that which separates us.

It is hatred that fuels violence and terrorism and hatred may have some reason but it is never rational.
 

There are some people who just want an excuse to kill and maim. You can't reason with them. We just have to do our best to thwart them.
 
Warrigal said:
It is hatred that fuels violence and terrorism and hatred may have some reason but it is never rational.
Click to expand...
I take your point, Warrigal, and in this case I agree with your sentiment. That said, however, we should keep in mind that all emotion, by definition, is not rational. Love, hate, joy, anger, envy, pride ... are all part of being human but they're not rational. Emotion is not inherently bad, but mature people learn to control it and not the other way around.


If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:



If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;

If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:



If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’



If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

- Rudyard Kipling
 

I agree with your comment about emotion and rationality.
Love the poetry too.

I see your Kipling and raise you a Henley, a favourite of mine.

Invictus By William Ernest Henley


Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.



In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.



Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds and shall find me unafraid.



It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate,

I am the captain of my soul.
 
Oddly enough I’ve never considered overly emotional people as irrational and immature. Perhaps I need to rethink this.
In reading that first poem, I fail miserably.
Still both poems are beautiful
 
For me, full expression of a healthy range of emotions is desirable, although dependent on time and place, of course. Toxic emotions are a whole different kettle of fish. Often heavily repressed individuals never learn the difference. A small number of them, when triggered, can do heinous things. I am not speaking of psychopaths or individuals with severe mental illness, but of people who never learned to harness and direct their emotions in a healthy adult fashion. Think of them as potentially dangerous adult toddlers. I have had no success in trying to help them.
 
YES! Emotionally arrested. That’s whats wrong with me. Sometimes I forget and wonder why I can’t be like other people no matter how hard I try. Often struggling with trying too hard which doesn’t help one bit.
Its like being permanently emotionally damaged. Another huge light bulb moment once again.
Potentially dangerous adult toddler. I’ve never considered myself dangerous but certainly somewhat disruptive.
https://emotional-intelligence-training.weebly.com/arrested-emotional-development.html

Can this ever be changed ?
Is there hope for this type of damage?
i know I’m not a psychopath because I care far too much to be one.
 
Keesha, certainly there is hope for you, prolonged abuse causes emotional arrest, or atrophy in children and adults. But rarely to the extreme that I was speaking of. These individuals have no desire to heal.They are full of rage and want to take the lives of others. They are dangerous, you are not.
 
No I’m not full of rage or want to kill anyone. Not even close. Thank you for the clarification
I do have a strong desire to heal, have had much counselling but am definitely still damaged.
Its good to know I’m not a sociopath. Perhaps I took this far too serious :laugh:
Thanks Shali. It’s sure good having you back. I really missed you.( not meant to embarrass you )
Sorry Warrigal. I hope we aren’t derailing your thread.
 
You don't have to go the Christchurch or Columbo to find bigotry and hate. I live in Allentown, PA. Just a mile from me, in Bethlehem, PA, a little church was lit on fire-twice in the last few days. It was a Spanish speaking church. And it was definitely arson. You think it's always some far away hell where that kind of hate exists. It's scary to know it lives down the street.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=Bethlehem+church+burned
 
One of the lines I'v heard over and over in this forum is " I hate that PC junk". I think of what some call "PC" is civilization. We are becoming civilized to think of others in a non-bigoted, non-biased way. For example, no longer are women considered owned breeding stock, but important individuals. The people in that little burnt out church are a "them". Some think it's "PC" crap for certain others to live here, without yet learning English, and still be treated well. So, uncivilized things , like fire bombings occur. Nobody is free from their own bigoted, biased notions; it takes civilization to free us from some of them.
 
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