Hurting Another

Let us take a fictional girl, Lucy, from from a fictional place, Riverdale.Dave and friends send an email joke teasing one of their friend, Tom with lucy and in the process commented on her voice. Mikhail found the comments derogatory. Dave and his friends didn’t. why didn’t they? Is everyone different? The famous statement some are trying to immortalize rather incorrectly: what is wrong to you may not be wrong to me…what makes you feel bad many not make me feel bad…

“TRIVIALIZING THE ‘ACTION’ AND LOSS OF ‘SENSE’ OF WRONG”

(Pope John Paul II, said the sin of the 21^st century is the ‘Loss of sense of sin’)

Dave and his friends said: Lucy should take it sportingly. Haven’t we been making jokes since childhood?. Mikhail said to them: Just because you all were doing something since childhood doesn’t mean it has become right. If all of you played liberal pranks and have got accustomed to it, why do you expect others to toe the line just because you have got used to this degree of practical humor? This would be arrogance.

“ SHE SHOULD STAND UP FOR HERSELF AND TELL US IF SHE IS HURT”

Dave went on: “If she is hurt, she should come and tell us” is what they had to say. Mikhail replied: Everyone cannot speak for themselves. Some people are weak. We should stand for weak people and fight for those who can’t fight for themselves. Lucy may not come and tell you because others may brand her as someone who was hurt at the drop of a hat. This would only add salt to her injury and she would resist showing others she is hurt. But that does not mean she has not been hurt. May be if lucy didn’t worry about the situation aggravating and gossip mongers doing the damage, She would havel express herself explicitly and voice out her feelings.

“WHY DON’T ‘YOU’ GO TO HER AND ASK HER?”

Mikhail asked them: you could also go and ask lucy if she is hurt. After all you sent the email and washed your hands clean off it. They said that two can play that game. Lucy could also come to us and tell us she is hurt. As I have said before she would not come for various reasons. they said: Lucy should learn to stand up for herself and learn to express how she has felt. The point here is-Refusal to be the first one to clarify: Pride

We are reminded that wisdom and truth has not come from Man alone…if Men as philosophers have tried hard in their primeval years, we have reached a stage of moral relativism sadly. We forget revealed wisdom through scriptures. One verse (inspired ) in/ by the Bible says

IT IS GOOD TO GIVE WHEN ASKED BUT BLESSED ARE THE ONES WHO GIVE WITHOUT BEING ASKED

Thus it would be ‘virtuous’ for them to go to her and clarify because they did not wait to ‘give’ her when she eventualy asked. But coming out virtuous from issues is another matter which will be dealts with little later.

IMPARTING MORAL LESSONS

The issue was whether to apologize or not. From there the focus has shifted on giving lucy ‘moral’ lessons. Dave and group have been so kind now to educate others on self esteem and morality. But is the timing right? Should one give moral lessons to people when it is one’s duty to introspect? When I have to ask myself, “Have I wronged anyone? Should I inquire about it?” Instead of doing Dave and friends are more concerned with giving others moral lessons: If lucy is hurt she shoud come and tell us,she should learn to stand by herself. We observe this phenomenon a lot. A lot of times it is noble when done in good conscience. If you allow someone to suffer because you desire that he cultivate in himself nobility or some lesson. Clearly, an ego that stops Dave from denying himself and resolving an issue because he is more busy educating the lucy in standing for herself and speaking out of her trials is only using a moral lesson as a tool to conceal his own pride. Also if we really find immense charity in ourselves, we can always serve others (who exploit us) and then remind them (impart moral lesson) they it wasn’t in their best interest to be served but you nevertheless did the same to alleviate their suffering.

DEGREE OF ACTION

Every action has a degree of impact. What we exploit is the ‘generelization of fun’ into justifying our actions. I may take the oddest pair in class, Tom and Lucy and pair them together: “Tom loves you Lucy, he wants to have a dance with you and take you for boat ride.” The degree of fun changes when you ‘derive’ fun from demeaning the subjects of the humor. Suppose Lucy apparently has an obnoxious voice and diction. An email with words: Tom fell in love with you the day he heard you speak. Your words were melody to his ears…he wanted to keep playing your voice like a gramaphone.

To say then that it was just ‘fun’ when the degree of fun has transgressed is to be a poor discerner of cause and consequence of action. May be inspite of the transgression of ‘degree of fun’, Lucy did not feel bad. Here we shift to another moral issue: Content and Consequence

Nature of Content and Consequence of content

There are two thing of principle difference:

· Something can be bad because someone felt bad

· Something can be bad because of the nature of Content which caused harm

If your ‘knowledge’ (I should not give others the power to affect me ect) is beyond the prowess of derogatory content then you would not feel bad. Is the content then absolved of its nature?

So one feels bad because the nature of content (what is written) makes them feel bad because you have moved beyond it but the Content may still be such that it has substance to cause harm. Its consequence is harm, if it does not cause any, does not mean any ‘harm-causing substance’ ceases to exist in the Content.

SHALLOW APOLOGY…AND A SHALLOW MEANING

I will revert back to IMPARTING MORAL LESSONS for a minute. There the story went… If lucy is hurt she will come and tell us, she should learn to stand by herself. This first establishes one thing- DAVE doESn’t think HE haS done anything worth ‘hurting’. Going by that principle, if lucy is hurt then she will find a voice and intimate dave and then as she is hurt, dave will subsequently apologize? So first, ‘when’ lucy is hurt she will let dave know, means dave doesn’t think he have done anything wrong and only when she has let him know (that she is hurt)…suddenly some thing wrong has been commited, overnight?For dave apologizes? What was not wrong until dave sent the email has suddenly overnight developed characteristics of wrongdoing by lucy’s intimation. And dave will apologize consequently? So either his apology is fake because he didn’t really find reasons to apologize to her until she actually confronted him. Or if the apology is not fake then surely the email has developed derogatory content mysteriously and escaped all moral reasoning, conscience and understanding until she made dave aware of her pain. The point here is: Introspection

LOSS OF MEANING IN ACTION AND EMOTION

If you wish to resolve issues in your life, you either resolve it like like a ‘report’ or keep it ‘real. A report is to certify that (say) ‘Adam Smith lived ninety years and did not sour any relation. He had severed ties with 7 people but resolved differences just before his death and thus has an impeccable sheet of leaving the world without any broken ties’

Do we live for a certificate? Why do you want to resolve an issue just because you want to see it resolved? Just because you don’t want to think that in your life you fought with someone and left it unfinished and bleeding. You wish to see everything complete with no void and hence compromise some principle matters and reconcile? It is important to reconcile but only with love and not with certificate ideology. “Lets just resolve it as college is coming to an end and I don’t want to remember that in college I had fought with someone.”- This is certificate mentality coming to our mind. we want to keep a clean record but life loses its meaning. A good plant breaks away from weeds as they would poison the plant and its fruits. In the same way you may sever ties if having the same would be a liability. Or you may continue to be in their life because you can see beyond their shortcomings and accept them so that by your strugggle and resistance someday they will see your strenght. But to resolve issues and reconcile with people to fill a void that bothers you is to provide yourself shallow comfort. God probably sends you graces to reconcile and you take refuge in all the tools and reasons (certificate) of the devil to seal the deal of ‘Reconciliation’. There is no meaning in an action if that action was not mourned for its cause. There is no meaning in virtue if that virtue wasn’t chosen². There is loss of meaning in emotions if they are just to ‘notify’ someone by an apology as a tool. When you mourn your action and then take refuge in apology, it has meaning as meaning has led you to a contrite heart and apology ceases to be a tool but becomes a path to a baptism of a relationship. Meaning is not only in a contrite heart’s introspection but what necessary action you take in order to let the same ‘meaning’ manifest into Action. This is how Emotion Meaning and Action are intertwined. Token Apology just to mend fences not territories of our mind and doing things just for getting ‘it done with’ so as to not feel a void. A void which has been left to fill with love and we place our certificate in the void and close it never to feel the emptiness [of the void] again.

BEING VICTORIOUS OUT OF SITUATIONS OR VIRTUOUS?

Most of us resolve issues or challenge life’s problems and incidences with an approach of ‘coming out victorious’. We will always add: Atleast we learned something…But It was a good experience…Atleast I know now how it feels… I have some idea now what it is.

We want to fix things, do only what is useful or will benefit us, keep company with those who will protect out intertest. Everyhing is done or said or lived to serve one interest or the other in order to be eventually victorious. What we don’t realize is this ‘victorious’ ideology leads ofen to ‘SHALLOW MEANING’ . A token apology or token presence any other act done just to be eligible or to emerge victorious from an activity or service may culminate into-dishonor to meaning. it is bringinig dishonor to vocation, life, the people we meet and relatioships. We are just trying to serve our interests with people and relationships until we come out ‘victorious’ through it but to what end eludes me.

Instead we can resolve to live our lives to convert every fight, argument, issue, cause, action, situation and circumstance into an opportunity to come out virtuous¹. Seeing everything as an opportunity to rise higher than oneself everytime and to dwell on how we can be better us human beings everyday and how every invisible thing (Virtues, God, Feelings, Understanding, Wisdom, senses, reason) can be used to heal and love the visible and aid the everything visible world to its rightful honor and purpose.

1.St. JoseMaria Escriva: Lord help me to convert every circumstance of my life into an opportunity to love you

2. Aristotle: A virtue is not a virtue if it is not chosen.