Trying to be a decent person

[Grandma]

The Dalai Lama has told us "Be kind whenever possible.  It is always possible."

 

And from the Talmud, "Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.".

 

And from a third source of spiritual knowledge,

 

[RosieBlack]

1 hour ago, katrinka said:

I think real spirituality does. You can be decent without being spiritual but you can't be spiritual without being decent. That would be faking it.
I don't think we're actually disagreeing.

 

No I don't think we're disagreeing either. I didn't say you couldn't be decent and not spiritual and yes I agree that being decent goes hand in hand with being spiritual. I was just clarifying my stance.

[katrinka]

7 hours ago, reall said:

Are institution to look for help shelters & shower & change of clothes as well as hot meal even my city have 1of those & even if people are vary of them imo it can't be much worse than street?:)

There are no shelters in the city where I live, or the surrounding cities. They have to go to a major city. That's a 40-50 mile walk. And there are never enough beds in those places for everyone. Nothing close. And they're ugly, dangerous places. The best option for the homeless here is to find a vacant house and use it as a squat. But if they get caught, that's a trespassing charge. Nobody wants to be confined, even if it means food, shelter and running water.

And it's not even that bad in the town I live in. A lot of cities have miles of makeshift tents on the sidewalks. Every now and then they have the police "do something about it": destroy the tents, assault people, run them out. But the issues always return because they don't FIX them.

When I was a kid, there were run down hotels where the poor people could get a room indoors. Flophouses, basically. You can see one in this old Doors photoshoot.
https://www.vintag.es/2018/11/morrison-hotel-photo-shoot.html
You could get a room there for $2 and change - see the sign? It was skid row then, but it actually looks good compared to now. That area is miles of one of those "miles of people living on sidewalks" neighborhoods now.

That's called gentrification. The old hotels were torn down or refurbished, made into things these people can't afford now. That's one of the reasons so many are homeless. There are other reasons, too, all similarly coming down to greed: high rents, low paying jobs, lack of health care, on and on. Most people are only a paycheck or two away from being in this situation. 
 

[reall]

ouch! that sounds worse than my country!x,x facepalm oddly i always expect US to be better in everything?x,x facepalm

maybe bc it's such a big country everything is faaaar away & you need transport for everything!x,x & thats expensive?://

(we joke you can cross our country in 1 p* thats how big on map we are!xD lol

i blame it on system that is created & function to keep everyone in *it's place aka pump $$ from poor to rich!:)

imo it's same everywhere,,,  just different scales,,,

wonder when will we come to understanding there is plenty of everything for everyone to share & no need for some to have 10villas & planes while others are homeless,,

[reall]

btw just to add some oil to disagreement decency vs spirituality i will say both are not same as Good (aka someone you would like to hang around with!:)

for example I know devoted religious person who is also decent in every aspect you can think of but would get in such petty argument with sickly little children or person in need it was supposed to support i would personally feel deep shame over such behavior & im not exactly person to get ashamed easily!:) lol

[fire cat pickles]

I think this is a community where we can all give each other the benefit of the doubt that we don't target each other in discussions like these.

[Raggydoll]

9 hours ago, katrinka said:

I think real spirituality does. You can be decent without being spiritual but you can't be spiritual without being decent. That would be faking it.
I don't think we're actually disagreeing.

I agree, real spirituality definitely involves decency for me!

 

[Raggydoll]

4 hours ago, fire cat pickles said:

I think this is a community where we can all give each other the benefit of the doubt that we don't target each other in discussions like these.

Thank you, YES! ❤️

[katrinka]

13 hours ago, TheThumbPuppy said:

I could relate to this a lot.

 

To give some context to my anecdote I should say that I am also Jewish however I was raised as a Catholic. My great-grandparents moved from Poland to Venice just after WWI. When things started to get bad in the early 30's, they sailed to a scarcely populated area in Sardinia, where they pretended to be Catholic. It was only in the 80's that my grandparents told us the family history (many things started to make sense). The rest of the family who stayed in Venice disappeared in concentration camps.

 

Yes, that's exactly the way it was. People "disappeared."
 

My grandmother's family sent her here from Austria in 1918 when she was sixteen years old. I'm not clear on the details because she could never talk about any of this without crying, no matter how many years had passed. She worked as a seamstress and then married. They continued to communicate by mail, and then sometime in the 1930's, the letters stopped. She had a dream that she saw them "dead in a ditch". She never heard from any of them again.  

 

It's telling how many people are only recently discovering that they have Jewish ancestry. Oksana Baiul, the figure skater who won the gold medal at Lillehammer in 1994, is a well known example of this. She only found out a few years ago that her mother was Jewish. As you know, Judaism is matrilineal. Until she was almost 40, Oksana had no clue about her own identity. When you look at the history of the Holocaust in the Ukraine, you can see why people hid who they were, even for generations after the Nazis were defeated.  The trauma must have been beyond comprehension. https://www.ushmm.org/information/exhibitions/online-exhibitions/special-focus/ukraine                                                                   

 

 

It continues to happen. It happened to Matthew Shepard, POC in the streets of the US, immigrants, Native Americans, and so many others even though they were not Jewish. And it won't stop until people learn to embrace Popper's Paradox. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance   

 

I don't really like the word "tolerance" - it implies just putting up with people. But Popper's Paradox is still key.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

13 hours ago, TheThumbPuppy said:

My grandmother, who went to church every Sunday, started to also go to temple. 

 

I asked her, "Why do you go to church and temple?"

 

"Because I have friends in both places", she replied.

 

I can't even begin to express the beauty of that reply. So many people practice a religion, yet don't get the core message.
It sounds like she got the core message of two. 💖

[gregory]

22 hours ago, TheThumbPuppy said:

 

You're not being targeted @RosieBlack , that goes against anything I stand for.

 

I apologise if my short message may have sounded like that.

 

In fact I didn't read the full thread from the beginning, but I noticed your post, which was the most recent at the time.

 

My short message was a shorthand – for myself more than anybody else – that we cannot make assumptions.

 

I'll give you an example of what was going through my mind, that may be clearer. 

 

It was only last year that what I would call extreme situations took place In Seattle. Some of the people involved in some of those situation refer to themselves as "spiritual". They have their own interpretation of what being spiritual is, which may be different from mine, or yours. In fact there may be many interpretations of what being spiritual is and everybody could create their own. But let's suppose for the time being that the interpretation of being spiritual is the same for everybody.

 

Some of those people in Seattle did some things that are outside what I think a decent person would do. However they and their supporters described those actions with pride, i.e. what a decent person would do. (I skipped a few steps, because I cannot know what another person is thinking, but I think that this example is clear enough for this debate).

 

My opinion is that some of the actions of some of those people are what a decent person would not do. Some of those people and their supporter however think that their actions are what a decent person would do – even further some of them argued that if you were not taking part in those action, you were not a decent person.

 

The bottom line is that for me spirituality and being a decent person do not necessarily go hand in hand, because I can offer many example of people who refer to themselves as spiritual (however we want to interpret it), but are not decent people in my opinion.

 

We see this type of philosophical relativism every day. Some people think that abortion is not what a decent person would do, other people think that abortion is what a decent person would not do. Some people think that being woke is what a decent person would do, other people think that being woke is what a decent person would not do. And so on.

 

I would like to put your concerns to rest that I was not having a go at you.

 

My messages are always (well, almost always, sometimes I try to crack a joke, which is not always successful) intended in the spirit of a collective brainstorming where we debate different views in a safe environment.

This is a GREAT post.

 

21 hours ago, fire cat pickles said:

I think this is a community where we can all give each other the benefit of the doubt that we don't target each other in discussions like these.

 

I hope and believe you're right ! ♥️

22 hours ago, TheThumbPuppy said:

My grandmother, who went to church every Sunday, started to also go to temple. 

 

I asked her, "Why do you go to church and temple?"

 

"Because I have friends in both places", she replied.

 

As katrinka says - that's beautiful. I don't have the family pain you both have been through - but I do get annoyed when I go to church - even join in the prayers - for some special event, because someone to whom it matters wants me to - and people who know me say things like "Why are you going - you don't believe ?" No - but they do, so....

[reall]

@katrinka thanx! *Popper's Paradox Exactly my cup of tea!:)

[gregory]

1 hour ago, katrinka said:

It continues to happen. It happened to Matthew Shepard, POC in the streets of the US, immigrants, Native Americans, and so many others even though they were not Jewish. And it won't stop until people learn to embrace Popper's Paradox. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance   

I LOVE Popper. I must dig out his books again.,

1 hour ago, katrinka said:

 

I don't really like the word "tolerance" - it implies just putting up with people. But Popper's Paradox is still key.                                               💖

 

Me too. Acceptance is the thing to aim for.

[Onibaba]

2 hours ago, TheThumbPuppy said:

 

I have however some reservations on who's to decide who or what is intolerant.

 

And there are some loopholes that make the Popper's Paradox easy to manipulate.

 

 

yes. One must have wisdom. Otherwise, it turns into a whole “two wrongs don’t make a right” scenario.  
 

Besides, there’s so much tomfoolery in the world. People are constantly framing others and accusing others of serious indiscretions, and to top it off, using other people as pawns to help bully the intended victim.
 

for example, I just saw a TikTok video of some rich white young man upload a car accident video where he paints a young female POC to be at fault for the accident. He uploaded video footage in such a convincing way that there was little doubt this young lady appeared insane and the one at fault. Turns out days later, the truth finally emerged (as it always does, thankfully). His video was a completely strategic fabrication and he was the one at fault. Countless people bullied and harassed this innocent woman.  She’s now suing him for defamation, along with the other damages he inflicted to her car. 

 

 

it goes to show that deep fakes, online impersonation, and unfair accusations are rampant, especially with the aid of technology today.  Not to mention the age old issue of people falling prey to vicious manipulation by convincing sociopathic behavior.  Some beings, sadly, just want to watch the world burn… because they can (a’la the aliens in MARS ATTACKS). They live to cause provocations and keep others from practicing true compassion and live in peace with one another. 
 

Anyway, unless you possess the crystal clear clarity of a fully realized enlightened being, you’re just compounding some seriously bad karma for yourself by mobbing innocent people for crimes and actions they never committed in the first place.  I’d hate to find out that I spent a good portion of my life accusing an innocent person of being a racist / bigot / sexist / etc. just because some other crazy, jealous individual had some secret vendetta and agenda against the person that I was not privy to. Being used as a pawn is no excuse for intentionally cruel behavior. A judge will never say, “Oh, so Bob told you to torture and kill Susie? And you were the one to do it while Bob hid like a coward in another state, laughing maniacally? Well, then, I totally understand!  Murder-schmurder!  It’s, like, totally okay, babe. The court finds you clear of all charges and crimes!  Eff that dead, innocent Susie anyway. I never liked her to begin with.”

 

No. You will be held 100% responsible for what you’ve done, one way or another. 
 

All actions have consequences. 

 

Edited October 8, 2021 by Onibaba
Spelling hard

[Grandma]

1 hour ago, Onibaba said:

the truth finally emerged (as it always does, thankfully).

One would like to think, but how would we know if it didn't?  

[Onibaba]

22 minutes ago, Grandma said:

One would like to think, but how would we know if it didn't?  

This is a fallacious question. 
 

All actions are subjected to time and space. “Karma.”  If we are not capable of being beyond time and space, then we are automatically held accountable by any and all actions we perform. 
 

Even if you, for instance, perform some chaos magic to avoid your consequences, that’s still karma in action. It’s just compounded karma now, because magic is held within time and space just like any other actions we perform. No matter how powerful you think your magic is, it is still subjected to karma. It’s just gaining more “karmic interest” over time and space, that’s all. 
 

Therefore, the truth always comes to light because we cannot escape the karma of our actions (good / bad / neutral).  It’s how our dimensions are created.  We will live our lives by how we have authored them to become. This is the truth coming to light.

Edited October 8, 2021 by Onibaba

[katrinka]

3 hours ago, TheThumbPuppy said:

 

This is definitely a good place to start.

 

I kind of formulated my version of Popper's Paradox well before I knew about it (and I thought I was well read!)

 

I have however some reservations on who's to decide who or what is intolerant.

 

And there are some loopholes that make the Popper's Paradox easy to manipulate.

 

I tried to write something up on this post, but every time it got garbled. Perhaps one day I'll be able to express clearly what I'm thinking.

It's one of those things that needs to be worked at in perpetuity, I think.
But some things are perfectly clear: things liked nazis and gay bashing should never, ever be tolerated. They should be fought at every opportunity.
We do have sticking points like the Constitution. Sometimes it can have nasty side effects, like Klan rallies. Free speech is for everybody, even evil people.
But the Constitution also states that the government has no right to suppress these things. The common people, OTOH...

Here in the US, we had nazis marching in the streets on D Day. In a way I'm glad that my dad didn't live to see that. In another way, I wish he and large numbers of other WWII vets had. There would have been hell to pay. Strictly as private citizens, of course, and not as an arm of the US government. 😉

 

But that generation is mostly gone now. Everything is on us. Teach your kids and grandkids history and do everything you can to raise them to have a conscience, and/or show up and make Good Trouble https://www.brookings.edu/blog/how-we-rise/2020/07/23/five-things-john-lewis-taught-us-about-getting-in-good-trouble/) - it's totally your decision. Just do SOMETHING.

 

Never Again, etc.

Edited October 8, 2021 by katrinka

[Onibaba]

2 hours ago, TheThumbPuppy said:

Precisely. But who's to decide if someone's got wisdom?

 

That really wasn’t the point. The point was can an individual assess their own level of wisdom, not someone else’s. Only a highly realized enlightened being can tell if another being is the same. Therefore, if an individual cannot do this, best to watch their P’s and Q’s because they are still bound by karma. 
 

2 hours ago, TheThumbPuppy said:

 

(read: the people they chose to do their own thinking and fabricate their own opinions; it could be a political party, a tv channel, a youtube influencer, etc) said so.

 

I agree to a point. Speaking of online influencers, here’s a bit of a side story example….

 

I recall watching one female YouTube influencer for years. She was so sweet and a joy to view. But suddenly her life got overturned and she was (still probably is?… I don’t watch her any longer for the reason that I’m about to express) unmercifully and relentlessly harassed by some group of female trolls. Like, badly. To the point that this woman would upload videos about wanting to kill herself.  She went from being very lucky and her life being wonderful and full of love / family / friends / good health, to morphing into this monster shadow of herself, who was always angry, losing her health and friends, and compulsively lying in her videos in order to combat the trolls online. I mean, the stuff they’d do to her deserved jail time. If these woman ever got caught (I think they lived in Australia or SE Asia or something while she was based in the states), they’d definitely be thrown in jail or have some other serious repercussions for their actions. 
 

anyway, the point is that this woman was definitely not an authority on anything (even a little ignorant at times), and to see her give advice to others did seem a bit arrogant and dangerous, true. I could see why the trolls did not like her and her perceived charmed life.  however, this woman was also genuinely sweet and made fun videos that people genuinely enjoyed watching, and she was steadily gaining viewers every day. That is until the trolls kept harassing her, telling her she had no right to be an influencer and claiming that she was endangering her viewers’ lives by not being this or that. They loved to confuse her and say “black” one day and “white” the next, which made me wonder if they really cared that much about her lack of wisdom, or just got off on being malicious energy vampires. 
 

it was also sad to witness because sometimes you’d agree with the trolls. They were good at twisting the truth and forcing the influencer to make stupid decisions and look like a fool online. I tried to help her out a few times in the comments, but that’s when the trolls started coming after ME and I had to back off. (One of them somehow even found my Facebook and made a similar video on her Instagram impersonating my profile video!!!)  But then I’d remind myself, “if the trolls never showed up and harassed this poor woman in the first place, where would she be now? Probably still happy and making quality content, because that’s exactly how everything was going until the trolls showed up and slowly started to drive her crazy and mentally and emotionally torture her.”

 

anyway that’s my little side example of how, yes, I agree a bit with the trolls and that this whole YouTuber influencer thing is dangerous. The wrong people are being given power in the media and causing more harm than good. These young influencers do not have “wisdom” to inform the public about anything, to be honest. However, destroying someone’s life for $hit$ and giggles is not “wise” either, and just downright sociopathic. 

Edited October 9, 2021 by Onibaba

[katrinka]

5 hours ago, TheThumbPuppy said:

We're back to Plato's benevolent dictator immo. Who's to decide if the dictator is benevolent or malevolent?

 

I'd be tempted to say that all dictators are malevolent, but then I recall that my favorite governor in history, Huey Long, was sometimes referred to as "the dictator of Louisiana."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huey_Long

Please take a few moments to read ALL of the things that man did. Built roads and bridges across the swamps, made sure kids got free school books, built hospitals - all things that benefit the people. His Share Our Wealth plan was brilliant and badly needed in our own time. Rich people could still be rich, but ridiculous wealth was redistributed as a kind of Basic Income.

It wasn't the regular people calling Huey a dictator, and it wasn't the regular people who had him murdered. It was the people with too much power, the ones he was roping in. And people like that NEED to be roped in, they NEED to be dictated to. They're the actual criminals. We punish robbers, right? Or the poor ones, anyway. Why not the billionaire ones? In our own time, they're allowed to run over us roughshod. We pay ridiculous taxes but Jeff Bezos paid nothing. Seriously:
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2018/may/03/bernie-s/amazon-paid-0-federal-income-taxes-2017/

 

https://www.snopes.com/articles/347473/billionaire-taxes/

 

If the billionaires paid their fair share of taxes, things would be very different. Families could survive on a single income. People could once again afford home ownership. We could have Basic Income and the homeless would be treated as human and not an infestation of rats and cockroaches. We could fix our crumbling roads and have good public transportation. Etc.

All of this is starting to stray into politics, which is verboten here. I mention it only because too many of our "leaders" have "danced with the ones that brung 'em." But I mention it because when the balance of power is no longer a balance, but something twisted and perverted into pure exploitation and a flagrant disregard for humanity, it becomes necessary to use force.

 

5 hours ago, TheThumbPuppy said:

And that's exactly the type of manipulation and brain-washing for which I was trying to find a good example.

 

Internet echo chambers aren't helping. Neither is FAUX News, OANN, etc. But you can see who's behind those things. "The ones that brung 'em."
Again, critical thinking needs to be emphasized. It needs to be taught in schools. EVERY. SINGLE. YEAR. at the level the kids are capable of understanding.

 

5 hours ago, TheThumbPuppy said:

What I find rather disturbing nowadays is that there doesn't seem to be a good side to stand on. Both sides use the same manipulative tactics.

 

Some more than others. A LOT more.
There actually IS a good side to stand on. You don't have to blindly follow everything said.
You can call out the good guys when they lie, too. It's an obligation, really.
This site has been extremely helpful:
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/

 

5 hours ago, TheThumbPuppy said:

And even mentioning that you don't agree with either one of them will have you cancelled for being either a communist or fascist. No investigation, no due course, just a sentence. And hordes of people will agree or disagree with that sentence depending on what side they stand, just because their leaders (read: the people they chose to do their own thinking and fabricate their own opinions; it could be a political party, a tv channel, a youtube influencer, etc) said so.

 

I really don't care if I'm "cancelled" by idiots on facebook and twitter. We have honeypot groups where we draw them in, debunk them with facts, cite reputable sources, and laugh at their tantrums. It's quite entertaining. 😁
 

5 hours ago, TheThumbPuppy said:

Just an ad marginem on this subject. When I was a child we were taught about the horrors of nazism and fascism in the 30's and 40's.

 

However we were never taught of the similar horrors under Stalin, Leopold II, or Mao. 

 

To put things in perspective, an estimate of deaths under these regimes is the following:

• Hitler: Holocaust: 4.7 to 7.4 million; ⅔ of Jews in Europe were killed
• Leopold II: Congo: 10 million people; between 1880 and 1920; Half the population was killed
• Stalin: Soviet Union: 6 to 61 million.; the high limit is for the whole soviet period
• Mao: China: 40 to 80 million; some more recent reports estimate up to 120 million (I cannot find the link just now)

 

And lets not forget Pol Pot, even though his body count was "only" a couple of million. There are a lot of murderous rulers like that. The education system in the US is abysmal. People think Communism and Stalinism are the same thing. They aren't.

Anybody can access the whole internet and virtually all the information in the world with a $100 Android, and they're looking at Alex Jones. We're probably doomed.

 

5 hours ago, TheThumbPuppy said:

However even today if you were to ask who was the most murderous dictator in history, the answer would probably be Hitler. I'm certainly not defending Hitler. However there is something seriously wrong with our education system if the answer isn't a resounding Mao. Instead we still see flags and t-shirt with the face of Mao and some of his international supporters, depicted as an example to follow.

 

The schools certainly DON'T tell you that. I only learned as an adult when I started digging into Tibetan Buddhism. Though to be fair, while Tibet was falling, the American media listened to China and painted the Dalai Lama as the murderous dictator. We are not a nice country. Black folks and Natives know that, but some others seem to have trouble grasping the concept. It would have been very simple to send reporters to Nepal and get the real story from the Tibetan refugees there.

But that was a long time ago. There is absolutely no excuse for it now.

 

5 hours ago, TheThumbPuppy said:

But I don't want to allow any political hook here. Whether extreme right or extreme left, these regimes were totalitarian and intolerant of different opinions.

 

What troubles me is that it seems like we are progressing towards new forms of totalitarianism. For instance:

• Google and Twitter decide who can talk and who can't with no due process. They probably think that they're acting as benevolent dictators. I think they're acting as malevolent tyrants.

 

Twitter seems to be banning insurrectionists, including a certain high-profile one (LOL) so I have to disagree about them at least somewhat. COVID misinformation is being taken seriously, too.
The real culprit is Facebook. If they don't like your politics, they'll give you 30 days for photos you posted ten years ago. I've seen them do that to people. But Zuck and Sandberg coddle "the ones that brung 'em."
https://www.theverge.com/2020/11/1/21544501/facebook-rules-protect-conservatives-instagram-bias-discipline

 

5 hours ago, TheThumbPuppy said:

The alternative is ignoring Popper's paradox with even more tragic consequences immo. For instance, many  nations protect even religions/ideologies that are totalitarian and intolerant of other religions/ideologies under the umbrella of their tolerant anti-discrimination policies. Derogatory -ist lables are attached to individuals who question whether our indiscriminate tolerance / acceptance of multiculturalism has gone too far and by doing so threatens the mere existence of our more tolerant / accepting civilisations and cultures by letting totalitarian and intolerant religions/ideologies free at large. The camicie nere (whatever their colour) are out again. The bullies are back in the court yard.

 

Exactly. Nazis are trying to regain power, all over the world.
It's why we CAN'T stay neutral.

True, people lie. We are also primates. We fling poop.
But it's best to side with the primates who are not nazis. It's all very cut and dried, actually.
 

Edited October 9, 2021 by katrinka

[DanielJUK]

This thread has sadly descended into arguing, I've temporary locked it for things to calm down

[DanielJUK]

We are going to reopen this thread as it was such an interesting philosophical discussion. I have removed some of the later posts in the thread which became an argument.

We can make different points and have different views in this forum, diversity of opinion is absolutely welcomed. But we have to respect and be civil to each other, if you are not sure, please reread the rules before posting.

 

Let's take the topic back to @katrinka 's original post about trying to be a decent person here.....

 

On 10/6/2021 at 3:31 AM, katrinka said:

I think that's vital to spirituality. And I don't think it gets the attention it should.
Today was pretty mundane. I walked to a salon and got a haircut, all that bad COVID chopping in front and too-long-for-my-age stuff is finally gone. I don't have to put my hair up at work anymore, I'm back to my Bette Davis All About Eve/Lauren Bacall/Rita Hayworth long bob hair. I don't LOOK like them, but I can once again make my hair do all those things. I'll settle for that. 😄

I went to a couple of stores after that. And it's still hot here, so I finally stopped at a convenience store where I've always seen people hanging out front and called an Uber. There is shade there, and it seemed like a good place to wait 20-30 minutes.

There was a man in a wheelchair out front. He had four backpacks on the sidewalk nearby. He warned me that the people in the store could have me jailed for loitering and pointed out a sign that said so. He said the only reason they had to tolerate him was his wheelchair. I went inside, bought a soda, and told the clerk that I was waiting for an Uber and would be gone in about 20 minutes. The clerk OK'd that.

I probably would have been OK sitting out there for 20 minutes anyway. I look employed, but in Texas you never can tell. Maybe that man was playing savior. But maybe I would have been jailed. A store owner is NOT more trustworthy than a homeless guy.

I went back outside and he told me his tales of woe. I don't know how much of that was true and how much was hustle. But it doesn't matter. I gave him the $7 cash I had on me and he told me he would go to the Sonic across the street and get food. But I don't have those expectations.

AND THAT IS THE POINT I AM TRYING TO MAKE HERE. It DOES NOT MATTER what the homeless do with the money we give them. They don't HAVE to buy food. Maybe sleeping on pavement is EASIER with a bottle of cheap wine or vodka in your belly. Maybe drug withdrawals are WORSE than being hungry. Maybe everybody can't just pull themselves up by their damn bootstraps, maybe some people are not that strong, maybe you can't just "get a job" without ID - or clean clothes, or a shower - anyway.

 

And maybe - just maybe - they don't "LIKE living like that.". OK, that last was sarcasm, But I've heard a lot of people actually say that since the 80's.

He did hint around like he needed a place to clean up. And I'm not a martyr or a saint, I didn't open my home to him. I don't class myself as "spiritual".

I am a woman. A woman "of a certain vintage" who is not about to be taken advantage of, ripped off, etc. And yeah, he'd have done that, I'm sure. That's the street, those are "the rules."

But he is also a human. A human deserving of not having to live in the damn streets.
And I won't go into hostile architecture or cuts in social services here. We do have a "no politics" rule. You can google all of that. But suffice to say that paying taxes should benefit the people when needed, not billionaires. I pay in, when I need help I should be able to get it. Same for you. Same for the guy in the wheelchair in front of the store. We should not have to feel like it's on us to take people in if we are paying taxes.

We are paying in for nothing. There is no real help for people in need. The roads are all potholes. We have no public transportation here.

 

What if the fire department was privatized? "Oh, your house is on fire? Do you have insurance? Can you pay out of pocket?" And if you don't, it spreads....but maybe those people in those OTHER houses can afford to pay. Do you see what's wrong here?

 

The wealth gap in the US is surreal. This will not end well. Things are going to get very, very difficult. And that's not even taking things like climate change into account, which will be devastating.

 

I do agree with this:

 

There is one quote from Thích Nhất Hạnh that sticks with me: “The wave does not need to die to become water. She is already water.”

 

All of us. One big water. We come out of it, discover our toes and fingers, and someday, well...we go back.
Beyond that, I don't know.

I know I explained it badly, and it's not so woo, fun, or mystic. But that's my spirituality.
Comments welcome.

 

 

[TheLoracular]

Powerful stuff @katrinka and it just resonated into my soul.

I don't  go to stores much any more and I don't habitually carry cash like I used to.  But since my early 20s I've had a fundamental belief that should someone stop me and ask for money or help, then doing so is what I need to do.  Its both an obligation and a joy. 

There have been people over the years that my instinct has told me to walk away from very quickly once their request was made, but with a polite respectful way.  Never been robbed, never been threatened.

But I've never walked away from someone in a wheel chair and it has never mattered to me what the $1 or $5 or $20 I gave them based what cash I had on hand went to.  I didn't need their story to be true.  Basic charity is a fundamental principle of mine and God knows I've had extraordinary people ~always~ come to my own rescue when Lightning has struck my own personal Tower and things shattered. 

What comes around, goes around for both Good and Evil.

 

[katrinka]

On 10/18/2021 at 11:43 AM, TheLoracular said:

What comes around, goes around for both Good and Evil.

Yes. You get it.
It's not always overt or quid pro quo, but I think it does come back. Often in unexpected ways. The wheel of karma grinds slowly, but it grinds finely.

I guess it's safe to speak here again.(Thanks, mods.)  I want to talk about punching down.
The expression comes from the idea of someone punching a much smaller person. It's used when the balance of power is not equal, when a person in power abuses someone with less power: boss vs. employee, police vs. private citizen, etc. It's horribly, horribly wrong and that's why we tend to root for the underdog.

But I'm trying to work something out. Today I've been following the Alec Baldwin story. If you missed it, someone handed him a prop gun during the filming of a movie and it apparently had a dummy load in it.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-59006905
Halyna Hutchins, an award winning cinematographer, was killed and the director, Joel Souza, was injured. It's like when Brandon Lee was killed back on the 90's. Mr. Baldwin is devastated and is being very supportive of the family:

https://nypost.com/2021/10/22/halyna-hutchins-husband-says-alec-baldwin-being-very-supportivehalyna-hutchins-husband-says-alec-baldwin-being-very-supportive/

But I'm still seeing people online trying to paint him as guilty. Because he made fun of the Former Guy on SNL or whatever. This is not an Alec Baldwin issue. All he could say after it happened, before he had time to think, was "Why was I given a hot gun?"

This is a workplace safety issue. It's rare, yes, but there have been victims other than Halyna and Brandon. And none of them should have happened AT ALL. None.

Us "regular people" often work in unsafe conditions. Look at the recent effort to keep everything running during COVID. At my job, we were declared "essential workers." We do not provide food or medical care. We build electronic automotive parts for new cars, FFS. Does anybody NEED a brand new car with electronic sensors and gadgets? NO. Get a used car. There's a pandemic going on.

This article says the unionized workers walked off the set due to poor safety protocols. So what happened? They hired a non-union guy and he handed Alec a gun with a live round.
https://nypost.com/2021/10/22/replacement-non-union-worker-was-in-charge-of-alec-baldwins-deadly-prop-gun/

It's disheartening to me that cinematographers and actors with money and mansions are really treated no better than us in that sense. And I think that right now, if Mr. Baldwin could trade places with me and be someone in a funky little house in a funky little nowhere town, but not have that blood on his hands, he'd do it. I hope this doesn't destroy him. I think it may have destroyed the guy who killed Brandon.
https://nypost.com/2021/10/22/actor-who-fatally-shot-brandon-lee-in-1993-tragedy-also-traumatized/

 

So yeah. I don't think Mr. Baldwin is the person we should be going after at all. Somebody punched down on him, and on Mrs. Hutchins. Hard.

There is a quote from Joseph Campbell in The Power of Myth, where he says "Is the machine going to crush humanity or serve humanity?" At that time, he was talking about the state. But "the state", these days, is run by the corporations. And the corporations exist to make money. They have no other purpose, no other concern, and that's what happened here.

Keep a good thought for the people who were impacted by this.

 

[katrinka]

I hope it's safe to revive this thread. 🤣

I don't think being decent means being a living saint. That's unattainable. But depending on circumstances, it can involve some sacrifice. During WWII, Marlene Dietrich sold war bonds, worked to get Jews and dissidents out of Germany, and entertained on the front lines. When asked why she did it, she replied “Aus anstand”—out of decency. Desperate times call for desperate measures. But for day to day life, it's much less difficult.

Sometimes being a decent person means being hated. I'm on a site called NextDoor, if you're not familiar with it, it's a neighborhood app for people to talk about local things. Needless to say, a lot of people post covid misinformation and conspiracy theories, and a few of us work constantly to get that removed. It's the decent thing to do. But there's a lot of commentary that we're "communists." I don't think these people know the actual definition of "communism", lol. And I suppose there's an outside chance one of them could try to burn my house. But so far, it's been all talk.

We're in a pandemic. Facts are science, not a political stance, and need to be treated as such.

[frankie]

I have been thinking about this topic a lot and am glad the thread was brought back to life. 😉 From reading earlier posts, I see some back-and-forth about what actions constitute being decent, and I think that's when spiritual belief can slip into ideology, fanaticism, times when ideas/principles/morals take priority over anything else, like that fact we're all humans trying to get by. I see being decent as being kind and never forgetting our common humanity, and by that I mean, never going out of my way to harm another person and trying to help when/where I can (I include being knowledgeable and informed as part of this). You never know what's going on in someone else's life.

 

So I agree being decent is vital to spirituality, but neither seems all that valued on the day-to-day; in fact, it feels sometimes that society is built against supporting both. I've thought a lot about the toxic cultures of so-called competitive industries, where people are expected to pay their dues, suffer humiliations, and curry favor from gatekeepers. It's always an open-secret who the toxic players are, and yet they're allowed to ruin peoples' lives and livelihoods with impunity, in part because those who benefit are fed the narrative that it was their talent that got them there and shielded them from harm, not random advantages.

 

Recently, I pulled the Ace of Swords (Nemesis) from Ellen Lorenzi-Prince's Dark Goddess Tarot, and a line from the guidebook struck me, which feels relevant here: "Mediate your ego. Much of what people believe they deserve, they do not. Some things are not a matter of deserving but of privilege and possibility. Stay humble." 

[RunningWild]

Why is it hard to be decent?  Why must all decent actions be defined as anything other than altruistic?  I wish I had those answers. 

 

This past year, when I was working all the time, I paid a kid to mow my lawn and trim around the house and also to do the same for a neighbor who is on a fixed income.  The place where I live charges $35 each time they mow someone's lawn and they do it when they want to, without any regard for whether someone can afford it.  They'd already increased rent and made it nearly impossible for the elderly to pay their rent as they'd always done.  So many still don't have internet access and even if they do, they can hardly navigate it to more than merely reading the news or playing a game.  And frankly, they're not all that interested in the internet anyway.  Yet, this place suddenly insisted that all payments to them were digital.

 

I received a bit of flack for having his lawn mowed.  My motive was completely altruistic.  I never went to him and asked him if he wanted it done.  I just had a kid do it.  At first, he was upset and telling the kid that he couldn't afford it.  The kid's dad explained that it was already paid for. 

 

This guy didn't own a lawn mower himself and I don't think he could have pushed one around his yard even if he did.  He has no vehicle of his own.  No family and only a few friends his own age that I'm aware of.  Where's the harm in helping someone like that out?

 

Apparently it ruffles feathers.  Darn.