I think it is natural to tie your ego into your characteristics in a wholistic way. It is also good to like aspects about your being that you think are productive to your goals and values. That being said, i think it an absolute disaster to tie your ego into individual or small groups of characteristics you hold. This is why I am so against “identity.”
Tag: empathy
Unparalleled Threat to Our Existence
Not a day goes by that I don’t hear about or talk to someone whose life has been irrevocably harmed by the state. If you haven’t yet experienced this, consider yourself fortunate, but please try to have some empathy for the millions of people who are languishing under state oppression.
Abnormalities and Treating Others with Kindness
Abnormalities aren’t normal. We don’t need to normalize abnormalities in order to have the kind of society that treats people with respect. We don’t need body positivity, trans awareness, gay awareness or anything else. We only need to teach people to be polite and treat assholes like they are assholes.
Being Content with Being Bad
I don’t want to rape and murder, not because it is wrong, but because I have empathy for others and it would destroy my life for many reasons. I think societies should stop people from raping and murdering because it is in people’s self-interest to do so.
The Secret to Interpersonal Happiness
Let’s take a brief look at the ill-intentioned way of seeing things, then go into what I believe will transform most people’s interpersonal happiness — the good-hearted view.
Indifferent to Human Suffering
The lack of compassion and empathy for the millions of people who have been and are being murdered, tortured, brutalized, kidnapped, enslaved, and extorted by the state and its enforcers is truly staggering.
Leaving One’s Moral Compass at the Door
Whenever I hear a government employee, be it a bureaucrat or law enforcer, say anything to the effect of, “I’m just doing my job” as a response to someone criticizing their behavior, my immediate thought is that they’ve seemed to misplace their moral compass.
“He’s Just Being a Boy” II
In the last several years I have seen quite a few people critical of the phrase “boys will be boys.” While I will often agree with these people’s perspective on selected examples of shitty behavior … I think they misunderstand how the phrase has been generally used, and I think there is danger in how many of these people think.
The Unexpected Pleasures of More Than a Decade of Reading Harry Potter
I absolutely love the Harry Potter series, and have had the immense pleasure and honor of reading it to my kids, learning new things each time, finding new pleasures with each one, rediscovering details I’d forgotten, falling in love with the characters all over again each time. Reading the series with four kids brought me some unexpected pleasures.
Deep Empathy is Overwhelming
The great task that awaits the individual who becomes secure in his identity… is to share that identity with others. You need to know with every bit of who you are that you are not alone in the world. Consider deeply, for a moment, what that implies about how you interact with other people.