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May 19, 2010

Wordchoke



I rarely have the problem of not having anything to say, instead, I often find myself stumbling over words because so many of them want to come out at once and they end up in a mess and without any sense. This happens when I take notes as well. I want to take notes of singificance, but they get twirled into my own ideas and the questions raised. Even though I don't concidider "I feel" a point in an argument I'm sure there are times where I want to resort to it. Not because I'm actually out of arguments, but because the whole concept is pissing me off and I feel unheard and belittled. See, there I went! But there has to be something behind that. Why do certain opinions raise feelings and others don't?

I can feel strongly for some things, but they basically boil down to one thing - injustice. The hate flares up in me and I become spiteful and pitiful. I can apply this to a lot of areas, but I have the core opinion that things should be somewhat fair and if we all tried to make things a bit more even the world would be a better place. What we concider right and wrong isn't as much our opinion as we'd like to think, it often has more to do with social structures and the ever feared tradition. I might not hate violence and war with such a passion had I ever faced it and felt my survival depended on my ability to defend myself. It's fairly easy being a pacifist in Sweden. There's so much pride and identity involved in military services and I do understand it's not as easy as saying "Lay down your weapons and embrace" as it's all part of a bigger system.

But isn't it true, at some level at least, that if no country had an army it would be harder to justify the building of one? If we were to just stop there'd naturally be economic consequences as those in the business of strategically killing others for their own benefit would be unemployed, but maybe a better world would emerge. I've been called naive, and yes I can see the point, but giving up the security blanket or violence would also include a reevaluation of possessions, freedom of belief and speech.

As I stated before I understand that what be believe is a product of factors surrounding us at the point in time where we formed our opinions, so what I'd like to happen is for those factors to be positive. I'm not naive enough (sorry) to think this would happen overnight, nor am I proclaiming a complete union of the world, what I'm simply asking for is an open mind and a basic respect for others.

We can't undo the mistakes of the past generations so it'd be a hard task to let go of a lot of the anger, but little by little as the injustices fade into a historic past we could begin to bridge the gaps. People should be about the same no matter where they are, we all have the basic needs, as explained by Abraham Maslow and that stairthing. Though, I don't agree completely (do I ever) as I wouldn't put safety as being more basic than love and belonging. But then again, that might be easy for me to say. Perhaps I should conduct a survey among homeless people and ask them what they'd rather want, a place to live or to be loved.

But it is in the second step we run into problems, especially if it clatches with the very top of beliefs, and we go completely off track if we forget the part of respect. I personally think that respect should be included in love. We can't love everyone, but we should strive to respect all. It's hard to deliberatly injure someone you respect. Respect needs to be earned however, and part of that is taking responsibility, so as long as we try to shift blame there can be no proper respect. Take reponsibility for your own actions and apologize when and apology is needed and your counterpart won't feel as unheard and belittled and can grow into a confident and secure person/nation/area/group, without the need to hurt someone physically.

Perhaps I'm just kidding myself. Maybe the human race doesn't deserve what's best for them and maybe we don't really want to listen to be others to be heard ourselves, at the same time as we have two ears and only one mouth. "I hear what you're saying, but I don't agree and I have no intrest in discussing it any further".

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