Compassion and Strength

Compassion is underrated. Sure, people may talk about being nice to people, and being good to others, and understanding, but if some jerk cuts you off on the freeway, all bets are off.

I think many people think there is a choice to be made between being "nice" and being "strong". I think this is totally, completely, utterly wrong.

Compassion

Compassion is tied to empathy and understanding. If you feel someone's pain, you are less likely to contribute to it. If you know why someone is acting strangely, you are less likely to take offense. If you get someone's motivations, you might be able to see what they are trying to do, instead of just their attempts (often misguided attempts) to do it.

Strength

Strength means many things. It means courage, potency (i.e. you can accomplish things), toughness (i.e. you don't get hurt easily) and many other things. Some people think it means being mean sometimes, and again, I just don't buy that.

Crackpot Theory Time!

You can have strength without compassion, and compassion without strength, but best is both! And by "best" here I mean they reinforce each other. One without the other is counter-productive. One without the other actually undermines itself. This sounds like a a lot of talk, the following is the substance.

Strength without compassion

This one is easy. The high school bully is one bad day away from getting ganged up on by people who just won't take it any more. That road leads to a jail cell. And unless the bully's goal in life is to be the best bully in cell block 3, their expressions of strength are going to be severely limited. Abuse of strength makes enemies, and if you make enough enemies, sooner or later they will get the better of you. It holds true for people, corporations, and nations. Germany was very strong at the start of WWII. But oh boy did they make enemies.

Compassion without strength

Some people are compassionate but not strong. They allow people to walk over them. They give and give until there's nothing left. They love easily and get their hearts broken. They give so generously of their time and money that they have nothing for themselves in an emergency. And there's always an emergency. They have never taken to heart one simple lesson: Sometimes, the most loving thing you can say is "no".

Adding compassion to strength

Imagine two strong young men in high school. One is the bully. He's skulking around sneaking cigarettes, beating up people for their lunch money, and generally being strong with no compassion. The other guy is right out of a movie from the 50's. He's captain of the football team, class president, and he helps little old ladies across the street. He does not fear the bully. The bully fears him. The bully is big and strong, but he's not looking for a fair fight. The football captain is not looking for any kind of fight, but he might well choose to fight if the alternative is worse than a fight. He won't provoke the bully, but he might well dash in if he sees the bully beating up someone. This would not go well for the bully, who would then be outnumbered. The strong and compassionate guy may well go on to accomplish great things, and be stronger for knowing when to help.

Adding strength to compassion

People will ask for all sorts of things. A little understanding may help a compassionate soul figure out what they actually need. Having the strength to say "no" is essential. A child may well ask for a sack full of candy for breakfast. Understanding would say that the most compassionate thing is to give them something wholesome to eat. The child then busts out the puppy dog eyes, and maybe even the tears, and says "please please please!" It takes strength to hold out. It takes compassion to hold out in such a way that the child is happy to get the good meal.

More than that though, if you have x number of dollars to use for charitable spending, giving them to the first charity that asks leaves you with nothing to give the cause that you feel is really important. Sure, you could just reach deeper and give more, but you have to be able to feed your own family. You have to be able to keep yourself strong enough that you have more to give. You have to be able to invest in your own growth so that you have more to use to help others. And again, understanding helps. If one charity has a high overhead and little of the money given is used to help, and another charity is out giving sacks of candy to little kids and not good meals, and another charity is doing something to teach out-of-work parents new job skills so they can find good jobs, each dollar you give just plain helps more in the right place.

One final thought about strength and compassion

Imagine two dogs. One is a very small dog. The dog barks at everything. The little dog is threatened by everything, and has to declare in a yipping voice that he's on guard. The other dog is a big dog. Not one who has been taught to be mean, but a mellow, friendly big dog. The little dog is threatened by the big dog and starts barking, and jumping up and down, and just throwing a fit. The big dog is not threatened by the little dog. The big dog knows he is in no real danger, and has absolutely nothing to prove. He does not need to bark back.

Which dog do you want to be?

Time, Space, and things immaterial

A lot of people believe there is a physical world, and a spiritual world, and that while these influence each other in mysterious ways, they are two distinct things. I will not make any attempt at this time to say that this is so or not so. This is more about the consequences of such a metaphysical view.

Because of the completely metaphysical nature of this discussion, I'll get this out of the way right off the bat:

Crackpot Theory Time!

Time and Space are only relevant in the physical world.

The world of physical things includes time and space. These are inextricably linked. There simply is no time without space and matter. These are all aspects of the physical universe, and anything outside that universe, like, say, God, is not subject to them. It's important to note that I include time in this. Yes, time. A psychic who insists you have had past lives may or may not be on to something, but why only past lives? Time is an aspect of the physical universe, and theoretically at least, your soul is not. So why not future lives too? Why not simultaneous lives? Or, take it a step further, why not every life that has ever, or will be lived, all at the same time?

We are all one and the same

Quite a lot of people believe that we are all tiny bits of God's being. Just one soul. Ours. All of ours. Not just people you like, either. Every crazy mass murderer, every genocidal dictator, every corrupt politician, every good intentioned but annoying busybody, yup, all one soul. Sorta makes you squirm, eh? Admittedly, this is a bit more conjectural than my usual crackpot ideas, but it's a fun thing to consider, and it ties in with the next bit.

Speaking of God...

It's really easy for people to ascribe human emotions and motivations to some fatherly Zeus-like creator of the universe. But something omniscient and omnipotent probably would not experience things like jealousy, rage, anxiety, or really much of anything that a fire-and-brimstone sermon might contain. Going a bit further, the mind of an omniscient and omnipotent entity contains in a very real sense the physical universe. There's really no difference. Nor is there any distinction between our minds and bits of this larger one that, by definition, includes everything. Once again, we are all parts of one thing.

The cool part about these ideas

Now, I'm not much on religious dogma. Even if I made it up. So my crackpot ideas about souls and the universe are really just fun ideas... but... I kinda like the idea of a world in which empathy and compassion just make sense.