240. The Necessity Of Compassion

Compassionate action can be difficult and demanding, so it’s reasonable to wonder why we should want to become more compassionate. From the perspective of ordinary self-interest, perhaps the answer is simply that we shouldn’t. What we actually want and need is to suffer less and to live more joyfully.

An examination of our suffering quickly reveals that it arises from attachment. We’re human beings, which means we reflect on our experiences and we form desires, aversions, and beliefs that combine to produce ideals that we can easily become attached to. When these ideals are not achieved, we suffer in the form of stress, anger, anxiety, shame, despair, and so on.

239. Finding Courage

When you see an injustice happening, you might not have the courage to speak up. The personal risk of saying something can feel too great and you don’t want to deal with the backlash. In some cases, what you get for bringing attention to an injustice might even be financial ruin or physical violence.

But if someone else speaks up, you might then feel the risk of getting involved has been reduced or at least spread out. It now feels possible for you to add your voice, to courageously join in opposing the injustice. To find your courage, you needed someone to show you that speaking up was possible, which helped you see that your aversion to risk could be overcome.

238. To Become A Machine

He expected an organized and productive day. He expected to do everything he had written down on his list. He expected this would be no problem at all. Provided there were no emergencies, no interruptions beyond his control, he would be able to do it. All he had to do was put his head down and concentrate on his work.

He expected success, but success did not arrive. It did not arrive despite his attention being perfectly focused, despite the absence of interruptions, despite everything going right. It did not arrive because tasks that should have taken him an hour ended up taking two.

237. Responding From Awareness

When I finish reading a provocative text, I might feel an urge to respond it with a text of my own. I want to communicate my response in words, just as the original text reached me through language. To do this, I interpret the text through the lens of my existing normative understanding and then I craft a new text that better fits with that understanding.

I might claim success if I construct a response so powerful that it logically defeats the argument of the original text. I might even feel a certain happiness in my ability to do this well. But by prioritizing my own text, I also cut myself off from the possibility of learning from the original text.

236. Our Shared Reality

When I see a beautiful sunset, I can point it out to you and know you will also enjoy it. Not only does the sunset exist for both of us, we’re also likely to judge its beauty in a similar way. But we don’t always make the same judgments. I might enjoy eating spicy food, while you do not. Here, I judge the taste of a spicy dish to be pleasant, while you judge it otherwise.

235. The Limits Of Language

I’m standing before a great work of art, an unquestionable masterpiece. I cannot recall the name of the painting or the artist. I could read the small card beside the frame to get this information but it doesn’t matter right now. What matters is my experience of the artwork — the whole complex of perception and thought and feeling that constitutes what it is to see this painting.

That it is me seeing it cannot be ignored. For it is my own unique set of past experiences that shapes my present experience. No one will ever share this exact experience with me. Even the person standing next to me right now is not experiencing this painting in the same way, for my past experiences are not theirs and vice versa.

234. Two Illusions

We want to know how the world works because such knowledge is practically useful. When we know how things work we become more capable of manipulating the world to meet our material needs. The unquestionable power of knowing how each part works logically leads us to a desire to know how the whole works. So we start looking for a system that can coherently bring all of the parts together. The system we desire is a narrative connecting past, present, and future through a complex array of causal links.

233. Never Settle Down

She knows she’ll eventually have to settle. She knows this because it’s what always happens. Her thoughts get so far ahead of her that she imagines herself having a future so perfect and beautiful and true before considering whether any of it is realistic. There are so many things she wants, simply because her ideals are so lofty.

She knows she won’t achieve everything and she’ll have to settle for something less. How much less she does not know, but she’s hoping for at least something better than what she has at present. And she knows she’s not the only one who’ll have to settle. Her friends also have dreams they probably won’t fully attain. They too will have to accept whatever small good they can reach.

232. The Spectacle Consumes Us

The spectacle consumes our attention. We see major events happening around us and we cannot look away. The events themselves might not impact us directly, but we know they will eventually produce problems for our community and our future.

We are unable to stop ourselves from watching every change in the emerging situation and every action taken in response to it. We feel we must focus on these things, for it is here that the problem seems to be located. We believe power originates at the top, and we think any possible solution must also be implemented at the top. Our sociopolitical structures reflect this understanding, and they frequently demonstrate how the decisions of a single person with power can have an enormous impact.