Still thinking about empathy, and the lack of it. Empathy is not just fellow-feeling. It’s an art. The lack of empathy is almost synonymous with cruelty and violence. Those without empathy can only see it as sentimentality, rather than as an art of appreciation and participation. Sometimes understanding can ease the greatest of sufferings, sometimes joy is the greater for sharing. Some quotations upon which to ponder… If we are to love our neighbors, before doing anything else we must…
Ohhhhhhhh, Severus Snape….
Once in a while, I let it go. I have to, or my thoughts would consume me. Instead, I unhitch a million threads, and float… and drift. Before too long, a path waves toward me, but I prefer to explore. For that you need a dose of the random. Open possibility is too vertiginous, but play is a vector of freedom. Only a judicious, homeopathic dose of the random…such is the contemporary life. Why not play in a field of…
I’ve been thinking a lot about human evil lately, watching some of the strands of contemporary ideology in America, and one of the themes that keeps re-appearing is the dehumanization of other human beings. Once you believe that another human being isn’t fully human, it seems that you somehow feel that any treatment of that subhuman is justifiable. From harassment to shootings to torture, whether the dehumanized happen to be gay or muslim or atheist or brown or female or…
I’m in regular contact with a number of other former Jehovah’s Witnesses around the world. Now that an entire community has built up, there is a lot of support at peer level. If you’re looking for feedback and stories from others there are a lot more resources now than the ones on my original list. Facebook has some good, smart, creative people who moderate discussions in the various groups – do a search. A good place to start is Jehovah’s…
Chastain Park in Atlanta is a perfect venue to see any concert, and I’ve never had a bad experience there. Of course, the concert experience is almost unrecognizable from my early years. On the positive side, it’s a scene that engenders no hesitation whatsoever about allowing children to participate. On the negative side, it’s become completely sanitized. Clothing is casual without being at all transgressive. Concessions are outrageously expensive. It’s a serious hike up to the one small area where…