starvingartist wrote:
Eureka13 wrote:
leafplant wrote:
Actually I think that's just Christian rhetoric. It doesn't work for those of us who are not religious. I find guilt a very unhelpful emotion. I have always found my own personal behaviour was better moved to improvement by positive reinforcements rather than any guilt. Guilt just makes me resent those people who have caused it in the first place.
I personally believe that we are all one and therefore actually harming another in effect harms oneself. This can get philosophically challenging at times, of course, but this is a belief that I found the most comfortable for myself. Of course, I realise it is folly like all other beliefs, but you have to have an operating system of some sort..anyway..this has turned into too much of a PPR discussion
Let me assure you that I do not condone or excuse intentional harming of anyone, not even oneself (which is why I completely fail to comprehend the allure of BSMD for example).
I absolutely get this.
I rarely choose to take action that I know will harm another, but when I do, it's because I've weighed all the options and it's generally the lesser harm all around. Rarely will I choose to hurt another over hurting myself, but sometimes if the hurt to me will reach dangerous levels, I will choose a lesser hurt to another. I also don't believe in guilt.
yes, i believe we have established that i am the freak here. i'll stop posting on this thread now.
Sorry, I ran out of time to write everything I wanted to write before I posted. But I intended to say that I also get where you are coming from. I also need to believe in the basic, inherent goodness of people, or I'd have checked out of this place a long time ago.
Honestly, I think you and leafplant are saying the same thing, just saying it in different ways. The part I bolded above is the part that really resonated with me, and my prime operative, as it were, is stolen from the AMA - "first, do no harm." But at some point there will be difficult decisions to make, and we either have to be psychically free to make those decisions with resolve, or we become hopelessly ensnared in the minutiae of life.
I would give my life to save another person's - probably even a stranger's. But where do you draw the line? Do you give your life to save someone else from a stubbed toe? Do you give your life to save someone from a rapist? Everyone has to decide where their own line is drawn. Once having drawn it, it frees one from the *need* for guilt. Either you have the courage of your convictions or you don't.
Granted, one has to allow that there are truly bad people in the world (or negative energy, if you prefer to look at it that way). I don't understand the people who are driven by the negative energy, and I never will. But I do know that *I* seek out the positive energy, and try to avoid the negative, sometimes at great cost to myself.
Does the fact that I refuse to feel guilt then make me one of those bad people? *I* don't think so.
28 Mar 2014, 7:10 pm
