Response- doing what's "Right"
Okay, I'm responding to someone's post. And to another person's response to that post.
It's about living "right"- how one lives, but also how one approaches others about living "right", or changes their opinions about how to live.
Let me preface with a story:
My grandfather is the leading nutritionist in the world. According to the Nutrition journal, if he has equals, they still follow his lead. He helps countries (like China) with malnutrition and disease. If anyone can claim to be "right" in his field, it's him.
And he tells us how to eat. And he has no respect for people who are overweight. None. Total prejudice (where with race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, etc. He has none that I have ever observed, even looking for it). He thinks overweight people are stupid because if they know better, how could they live this way? 3 of his 5 children had (or have) overeating eating problems and/or body issues. Any relationship there, possibly? He knows what's right, and if people don't do it, especially for their own health, it's just stupidity.
A friend of mine was a brilliant counter example. She leads as low impact a life as she can while living in a city. She is vegan, uses recycled everything, recycles everything, always brings a backpack to the grocery store to not use bags, researches places she buys things to make sure they aren't made with sweatshop goods or in sweatshops, from companies that are environmentally sound, etc.
That she does this is apparent to anyone who spends any time with her. but you will never hear about it from her unless you ask. She has never once said or implied that what she does or how she lives is better or that anyone else should do so. She will explain why she does things, if you ask. And I cannot help thinking that much of what she does is a better way to live, and consequently, I've taken on a lot of it, and come up with a number of my own
She leads by example.
Had she forced her views on me, I would have had less respect for her, and consequently (even irrationally) for her viewpoint and lifestyle.
There is something in not allowing people the freedom to make mistakes. That said, making mistakes that just effect you is different from damaging those around you, or the world. My response is that it's never just you (if you die of heart diease, who do you leave behind?), but also that to live anywhere in out society (have a computer, ride the bus, any of it, you are damaging the enviornment. Everyone on the grid, and even those off of it are contributing to suffering and also to enviornment damages. It's just a matter of where you choose to stop within that spectrum, of picking your posion.
I feel pretty sensitive to injustice, and the ick we all perpetuate in general. That said, I am not living in a way that makes me blameless. At all. Nor would I be if I were vegan. I would pretty much have to live in a house with natural power, growing my own food and weaving my own cloth, making my own clothes, firing my own tableware, etc.
And I've considered it. A lot. I've worked bits of it out over 5 years of research. But I haven't done it yet,(though I may well do some version of it). Even then I would still be polluting (you've got to fire that kiln), killing things, etc. We cannot step on the ground without killing. We can't breath without causing damage. Vegtables have lives as much as we do to. For me it is a matter of respecting and living in balance with it, and even then, living in a city, I am very far from.
I think that when people take the holier-than-thou approach, they will always find, if they look that there is someone "holier" than them, and that even those people aren't blameless. And also, that the approch itself is a blinding thing.
I respect people who choose to live mindful lives, who do their best, in whatever way they can to make the world a better place. I suppose I respect it even more when I agree with them as to what "better" is (but there's my bias- I'm sure pro-life people also belief they are making the world a better place).
But I respect people very little when they push it in that way, or assume that they are right, or even that because they are right that everyone should live like them.
Different people have different talents and drives for making the world better. I work on mine. And I mess up. It's part of the human thing, but mindfulness, big and small is where it is at for me. Influencing other people to try and be more mindful and to make the world a better place is a powerful and important thing (why teaching is so important to me), but just like teaching, example and letting them come to it on their own (and in their own way) is often a deeper, more lasting lesson.
It's about living "right"- how one lives, but also how one approaches others about living "right", or changes their opinions about how to live.
Let me preface with a story:
My grandfather is the leading nutritionist in the world. According to the Nutrition journal, if he has equals, they still follow his lead. He helps countries (like China) with malnutrition and disease. If anyone can claim to be "right" in his field, it's him.
And he tells us how to eat. And he has no respect for people who are overweight. None. Total prejudice (where with race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, etc. He has none that I have ever observed, even looking for it). He thinks overweight people are stupid because if they know better, how could they live this way? 3 of his 5 children had (or have) overeating eating problems and/or body issues. Any relationship there, possibly? He knows what's right, and if people don't do it, especially for their own health, it's just stupidity.
A friend of mine was a brilliant counter example. She leads as low impact a life as she can while living in a city. She is vegan, uses recycled everything, recycles everything, always brings a backpack to the grocery store to not use bags, researches places she buys things to make sure they aren't made with sweatshop goods or in sweatshops, from companies that are environmentally sound, etc.
That she does this is apparent to anyone who spends any time with her. but you will never hear about it from her unless you ask. She has never once said or implied that what she does or how she lives is better or that anyone else should do so. She will explain why she does things, if you ask. And I cannot help thinking that much of what she does is a better way to live, and consequently, I've taken on a lot of it, and come up with a number of my own
She leads by example.
Had she forced her views on me, I would have had less respect for her, and consequently (even irrationally) for her viewpoint and lifestyle.
There is something in not allowing people the freedom to make mistakes. That said, making mistakes that just effect you is different from damaging those around you, or the world. My response is that it's never just you (if you die of heart diease, who do you leave behind?), but also that to live anywhere in out society (have a computer, ride the bus, any of it, you are damaging the enviornment. Everyone on the grid, and even those off of it are contributing to suffering and also to enviornment damages. It's just a matter of where you choose to stop within that spectrum, of picking your posion.
I feel pretty sensitive to injustice, and the ick we all perpetuate in general. That said, I am not living in a way that makes me blameless. At all. Nor would I be if I were vegan. I would pretty much have to live in a house with natural power, growing my own food and weaving my own cloth, making my own clothes, firing my own tableware, etc.
And I've considered it. A lot. I've worked bits of it out over 5 years of research. But I haven't done it yet,(though I may well do some version of it). Even then I would still be polluting (you've got to fire that kiln), killing things, etc. We cannot step on the ground without killing. We can't breath without causing damage. Vegtables have lives as much as we do to. For me it is a matter of respecting and living in balance with it, and even then, living in a city, I am very far from.
I think that when people take the holier-than-thou approach, they will always find, if they look that there is someone "holier" than them, and that even those people aren't blameless. And also, that the approch itself is a blinding thing.
I respect people who choose to live mindful lives, who do their best, in whatever way they can to make the world a better place. I suppose I respect it even more when I agree with them as to what "better" is (but there's my bias- I'm sure pro-life people also belief they are making the world a better place).
But I respect people very little when they push it in that way, or assume that they are right, or even that because they are right that everyone should live like them.
Different people have different talents and drives for making the world better. I work on mine. And I mess up. It's part of the human thing, but mindfulness, big and small is where it is at for me. Influencing other people to try and be more mindful and to make the world a better place is a powerful and important thing (why teaching is so important to me), but just like teaching, example and letting them come to it on their own (and in their own way) is often a deeper, more lasting lesson.