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also a bit flippant, but i've used this many times to counter my anti-abortion bible thumping kin. leaves them a little dumbfounded when i explain their bible is fairly mixed on the topic too. heh.
There's always an alien battle cruiser, or a Corellian death ray, or an intergalactic plague intended to wipe out life on this miserable little planet.
Let there be peace on Earth, and let it begin with me.
I'm sorry that I don't have a better response to this than flippancy, but humanity has always had this internal struggle and always will, and the urgency of our current situation is no more dire than in any other time in history. Maybe I'm not 'Christian' enough to be so moved by the crises of the day, but neither will I let myself get all spun up over boogey men. I'll leave you with a passage from my favorite book, Ecclesiastes (the first six lines of chapter 4, FWIW):
Again I looked and saw all the oppression that was taking place under the sun:
I saw the tears of the oppressed—
and they have no comforter;
power was on the side of their oppressors—
and they have no comforter.
2 And I declared that the dead,
who had already died,
are happier than the living,
who are still alive.
3 But better than both
is the one who has never been born,
who has not seen the evil
that is done under the sun.
4 And I saw that all toil and all achievement spring from one person’s envy of another. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.
5 Fools fold their hands
and ruin themselves.
6 Better one handful with tranquillity
than two handfuls with toil
and chasing after the wind.
i pull over a dozen passages, but not doing it here and never visited the politics forum. also qualified the post as a bit flippant. appreciate your reply, apologize for noting my use of the passage, let's stick to the lovely thoughts in wikkid's topic. mea culpa.
I agree with what you're saying here. I also thought a large part of what he was saying was that when we think it's our neighbor with the capacity to sin or transgress, it's really us confused about our perceptions of them, and therefore, back on us. I think self-ownership of our faults and frailties is a big thing here. It's the old "if I point a finger at you, I really have three pointed back at me," only he does it placing an emphasis on the imperfections of our own perceptions, especially how distorted perceptions of our true selves and our truths colors how we perceive others.
Parsimonious will get you
The other word I was going to work into the talk was "Hoarding"* which is a behavior akin, yet different, to stinginess. People usually use it in terms of stuff, but it's more than that. All of it really relates to the true, all encompassing word I want to use - narcissism. But that one is too gruff to get people to pay attention.
I think the entire 21st Century just cringed with a little shame, myself included.
A tangent in the presentation I gave was giving my opinion that the very first thing that people can do to accept responsibility is to get their finances in order - and the first step in that is to prioritize spending and really consider every purchase they intend to make.
I eschewed credit cards sometime ago. Paying interest on baubles makes little sense. So around here we save up and watch for sales for stuff that isn't an essential and even with the essentials I try to be careful that we maximize the value we get. Heck I haven't had a car payment in years. I haven't owned a new car either but I'm cool with that. A car is a tool to me not a status symbol.
narcissism is the $64 word here. the underrated "inconsiderate" is my Costco substitute.
I thought maybe this was a thread about the Sherman Hemsley sitcom.
Then I thought it was about the Greatest American Hero.
Assumed it was a Sherman Hemsley/Crystal Bernard mashup....then I recalled Sherm as no longer with us (which wouldn't necessarily 86 said sitcom, I suppose).I thought maybe this was a thread about the Sherman Hemsley sitcom.
Then I thought it was about the Greatest American Hero.
Maybe I watched too much TV in the 80's.
