Response and Morphing. (Re-Work B)
Is Optimism a progressive skill that can be learned and be applied?
Short answer: Yes.
However bad things do happen to you and me. Bad things happen to good people. Good things happen to bad people. The Ancients had a number of different ways to cope or gain a better perspective on the circumstances of their and our lives.
My contention is that the obvious response is probably the best one.
Of course that is the simplest answer.
What do I mean?
How we Respond to the difficult circumstances of our lives is the usual or common answer? Probably the best way is not to be circumspect about the adverse situation.
Choosing to not act out of a belief of not wishing to hurt means we become paralysed to do anything. Which can be interpreted as indifference in the face of grief or trauma of a suffering friend or spouse.
But is that the right answer?
There are perhaps circumstances where acting with a mirroring of the behaviour of a hurting individual is almost always better. Weep with the hurting, laugh with the comic . True!
Should there be some Accountability?
But there are some scenarios where individual and national transformation is needed, resolution of injustice, evil and their victims. Accountability on an individual or societal level is important to recognize and enact. For example, the following up of accountability of the current UK scandal of the Pakistani grooming gangs and other comparables, like the newsworthy PR war machine in Hamas' Gaza. Or the probable arrest of former President Obama and others.
Escalation?
However if we mirror some behaviour or indulge in comparable ways then...
For example,
If i respond in kind to your angry feelings, then the circumstances could spiral or cycle in kind as well.? Thus violence gets violence and so on. Out of control.
How do we stop?
So what else can we do? Someone has to alter their usual reciprocal action. Otherwise you and I could continue to develop an overwhelming situation.
Is Disobedience good?
Perhaps one way to affect change on a national level is to adopt, peaceful disobedience like Gandi and Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King Jr.
Such Attempts have successfully morphed the culture and country.
However in China,peaceful protests were squashed by extreme repressive violence. In Soviet Russia the similar responses occurred. Tragedies are everywhere Wisdom is needed.
Unforeseeable situations are occurring even in strong democracies. Where reason prevailed,significantly, unrest dissipated or was resolved. But gradually,the West, though it had disseminated its core beliefs, became the model almost everywhere, nevertheless adverse forces within the West undermined its very foundation. An issue is,what happened to Free Speech and Freedom of Expression? Free Elections don't make a democracy,other core values are needed as well.
Where did we go wrong?
Did we go wrong? Or is this situation the outcome of the.swing of other subtle dark forces over-correcting the original need for change? An example in the turbulent 60s ;did Germaine Greer need to write the wrong? Yes! The solution was needed. Or for other first- cause feminists to carry and push on the feminist movement? Do they need a bra? Or hiking boots? Men are keenly learning but should they care with the confusion that's rife.
Sweepstakes?
Is it like some say, disgruntled and unhappier persons who became vocal swept the field with a broom of rugged dystopia collecting more, but not necessarily unhappy combatants?
(Sorry for the mixed metaphor.)
While good is on the decline, evil rears its ugliest.
But like every book and most movies,the unwritten rule of "good always triumphs" is monumentally true.
Evil has its day, but good wins each way.
Of course, some ask that question, who defines evil or good?.
That's an argument for another day.
