You wake up to the realization that you have an important meeting in 30 minutes. You leap out of bed, throw some clothes on, grab your keys, and rush out the door. You’re halfway to your car when you see it.
It’s not a moment of zen, but of economics.
Somebody has slashed your tires.
The main objection to @YesYoureRacist doesn’t cut much ice with me. The project is not an “invasion of privacy” or a “violation of rights.” The Charlottesville marchers engaged in public action with the explicit purpose of attracting attention. Mission accomplished. They got noticed.
Suicide is purposeful action. Therefore, to understand why people commit suicide we must understand what felt uneasiness they have decided is too much to continue tolerating. It may be many things, but this much is true as it concerns suicide: life itself has become intolerable, and the knowledge needed to make it tolerable is not currently known.
I’m obviously going to argue against revenge, so I should just say that now rather than acting like it’s going to surprise you. Instead, let me present my arguments against revenge, then offer up a different approach.
I don’t want my children feeling superior to others, that they are owed something from them. I want them to learn that persuasion and negotiation, kindness and acceptance, are the best ways to make and keep friends. That when they view others as an opportunity for mutual benefit, as versus someone to be used and then discarded, they will develop better, stronger, and longer-lasting relationships with others.
There’s a fatal flaw in your plan. Your business model, or market, or pricing, or something about your crazy idea is going to stop you dead in your tracks. Of course. That’s probably why no one else has done it yet. Or maybe that’s why you’re going to succeed where they failed.
If the world is abusive, you are probably a negligent parent by not abusing your child. As a huge advocate for children, gentle parenting, unschooling, etc. that would seem like a crazy position, but roll with me for a minute.
Given the profundity of their differences, how could you devise rules that would separate two uniquely born creatures for purposes of making one a master and the other a slave? How do you decide that the person with the redder skin must forfeit land to the person with less red skin? Color itself, if not infinitely variable, has as many possibilities as there are living individuals on the Earth.
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.
Instead of trying to simplify your whole life, tossing out all your clutter and paring your schedule to just meditation and writing your novel … how about just simplifying one thing?