Thanks Jesse. Beautifully written and a balanced, thoughtful, respectful view. You live your own words. I appreciate your willingness to share your thinking and I appreciate you. I'm glad you were born! Ellen
Thank you for exercising the "courage to be disliked" Jesse!
I'm pretty sure some of your readers may find arising in their minds thoughts that don't agree, at least at first reading, with this essay, and also inner accusations of "that's easy for you to say, you 'privileged white man.' "
Knowing you fairly well I would hazard the opinion that far from taking your "privileges" for granted, your tendencies are in the opposite direction of taking more than your full share of responsibility for the plights of others, at least until the last couple of years. I have been listening to the audiobook version of what to me is an amazingly brilliant and insightful book that you recommended many moons ago, not coincidentally titled "The Courage to be Disliked."
I've found so many resonant ideas in my listening to this explication of Alfred Adler's under-appreciated theory of psychology and resulting philosophy. I'd have to write a too lengthy book report here to even begin to do justice to the many ideas in the book that are serving to be extremely helpful to me. But I will mention two.
The first is the idea that life is not a competition, except perhaps with oneself to become and express fully who one is. So wherever one finds one's self on the any of many continuums, be that economic, artistic, physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, etc. we are not, by nature, competing, but simply accompanying one another on the journey to finding happiness. And if life is not a competition then the goal isn't "winning" and there are no "losers," and judgment of the worth of others or of oneself is unjustified.
And the second idea is that I cannot, and should not try, to do others' "work" on life's tasks. Because of my big heart I have spent most of my life trying to do others' work for them. And that was because I did not have the courage to be disliked, to attend only to my own work unless someone asked, and I could be of true assistance to them, in which case I would be more than happy to aid in ways I can.
It takes courage to trust and believe in other's innate capabilities regardless of circumstances and to resist fixing their lives according to our own ideas of what has value for them. I find the current social justice impulses I have are mostly about ME, not about them. It's about me not feeling guilty, or sad, or scared. It's about me trying to protect myself from others disliking me.
I love your choice to fuel the vision of the future you want to live in rather than focus your attention on what NOT to do. The "what NOT to do" is, for me, just avoidance of courageously being who I actually am in this moment, what my unique point of view is, and letting it be other's task to deal with their dislike of me. It's not fun to be disliked. For me it is intensely NOT fulfilling to be in dislike of others. So my work seems to be showing up in courage and transforming the impulse of "dislike" into a wonderful, consciously chosen attitude instead of curiosity and respect for people who see things very differently than I do, even people who might be expressing hatred towards me.
Thanks for all the deep thinking and clear expression. I hope others find help and support in your modeling of courage.
“Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.” Wow that is beautiful.
Compassion for those locked in fear and hate, compassion for those with a limited perspective (and that’s all of us), compassion for us all as we experience, learn, and grow.
'cancelling' is a new label on a very old punishment and my instinct has always been that it's a bit lazy and childish. Emotionally speaking, I can certainly understand the instinct, I've engaged in it myself, but it was lazy and shortsighted nonetheless. All my heroes are people who somehow were able to rise above their very legitimate feelings of anger choose to the much harder path, e.g. Xernona Clayton, https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/apr/28/xernona-clayton-the-civil-rights-legend-who-befriended-a-kkk-leader-and-changed-his-mind. What a spiritual bad-ass she was! An apropos quote from Malcolm Gladwell on a relevant story about cancelling, https://www.pushkin.fm/episode/the-judgment-of-helen-levitt/ "Exclusion is not justice, it's cruelty". And what have we learned to expect from sowing seeds of cruelty?
Another great post, Jesse. Thank you for attempting to bring clarity to the vague sense of discomfort many are feeling these days. About myself, I can say this, and I'm not nearly as eloquent as you, so this will be in fairly simple terms. I also strive not to judge people, not to hate or even dislike people. I strive to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, and for those with whom I disagree with, attempt to understand their perspective and the root causes underlying our differences. That said, in my almost 50 years on this planet so far, I have come across exactly three people in my life for whom I simply cannot do that. These three people, I think I truly hate, as much as I hate to use that word. Obviously I'm not going to name them here. The characteristics that these three people share are that they are compulsive liars, they don't hold themselves accountable for anything, they will say anything they can to get you to do what they want, they will take every advantage they can get at the expense of others, and never apologize for anything. I don't think I will ever become enlightened enough to overcome the feelings I have for these people, and I don't think I want to. I think if I did somehow get to that point of enlightenment, I would have betrayed my own principles and lost sight of what I stand for.
Since I don't pay much attention to the news anymore, I hadn't heard about that shooting, but it's unfortunate that this post might have been just as current almost any week of the year.
Thanks Jesse. Beautifully written and a balanced, thoughtful, respectful view. You live your own words. I appreciate your willingness to share your thinking and I appreciate you. I'm glad you were born! Ellen
Thank you for exercising the "courage to be disliked" Jesse!
I'm pretty sure some of your readers may find arising in their minds thoughts that don't agree, at least at first reading, with this essay, and also inner accusations of "that's easy for you to say, you 'privileged white man.' "
Knowing you fairly well I would hazard the opinion that far from taking your "privileges" for granted, your tendencies are in the opposite direction of taking more than your full share of responsibility for the plights of others, at least until the last couple of years. I have been listening to the audiobook version of what to me is an amazingly brilliant and insightful book that you recommended many moons ago, not coincidentally titled "The Courage to be Disliked."
I've found so many resonant ideas in my listening to this explication of Alfred Adler's under-appreciated theory of psychology and resulting philosophy. I'd have to write a too lengthy book report here to even begin to do justice to the many ideas in the book that are serving to be extremely helpful to me. But I will mention two.
The first is the idea that life is not a competition, except perhaps with oneself to become and express fully who one is. So wherever one finds one's self on the any of many continuums, be that economic, artistic, physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, etc. we are not, by nature, competing, but simply accompanying one another on the journey to finding happiness. And if life is not a competition then the goal isn't "winning" and there are no "losers," and judgment of the worth of others or of oneself is unjustified.
And the second idea is that I cannot, and should not try, to do others' "work" on life's tasks. Because of my big heart I have spent most of my life trying to do others' work for them. And that was because I did not have the courage to be disliked, to attend only to my own work unless someone asked, and I could be of true assistance to them, in which case I would be more than happy to aid in ways I can.
It takes courage to trust and believe in other's innate capabilities regardless of circumstances and to resist fixing their lives according to our own ideas of what has value for them. I find the current social justice impulses I have are mostly about ME, not about them. It's about me not feeling guilty, or sad, or scared. It's about me trying to protect myself from others disliking me.
I love your choice to fuel the vision of the future you want to live in rather than focus your attention on what NOT to do. The "what NOT to do" is, for me, just avoidance of courageously being who I actually am in this moment, what my unique point of view is, and letting it be other's task to deal with their dislike of me. It's not fun to be disliked. For me it is intensely NOT fulfilling to be in dislike of others. So my work seems to be showing up in courage and transforming the impulse of "dislike" into a wonderful, consciously chosen attitude instead of curiosity and respect for people who see things very differently than I do, even people who might be expressing hatred towards me.
Thanks for all the deep thinking and clear expression. I hope others find help and support in your modeling of courage.
“Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.” Wow that is beautiful.
Compassion for those locked in fear and hate, compassion for those with a limited perspective (and that’s all of us), compassion for us all as we experience, learn, and grow.
This post moves me deeply. Thank you for your thoughtfulness, self-contemplation, and open heart.
'cancelling' is a new label on a very old punishment and my instinct has always been that it's a bit lazy and childish. Emotionally speaking, I can certainly understand the instinct, I've engaged in it myself, but it was lazy and shortsighted nonetheless. All my heroes are people who somehow were able to rise above their very legitimate feelings of anger choose to the much harder path, e.g. Xernona Clayton, https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/apr/28/xernona-clayton-the-civil-rights-legend-who-befriended-a-kkk-leader-and-changed-his-mind. What a spiritual bad-ass she was! An apropos quote from Malcolm Gladwell on a relevant story about cancelling, https://www.pushkin.fm/episode/the-judgment-of-helen-levitt/ "Exclusion is not justice, it's cruelty". And what have we learned to expect from sowing seeds of cruelty?
As always, thanks for the thoughtful writing.
Another great post, Jesse. Thank you for attempting to bring clarity to the vague sense of discomfort many are feeling these days. About myself, I can say this, and I'm not nearly as eloquent as you, so this will be in fairly simple terms. I also strive not to judge people, not to hate or even dislike people. I strive to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, and for those with whom I disagree with, attempt to understand their perspective and the root causes underlying our differences. That said, in my almost 50 years on this planet so far, I have come across exactly three people in my life for whom I simply cannot do that. These three people, I think I truly hate, as much as I hate to use that word. Obviously I'm not going to name them here. The characteristics that these three people share are that they are compulsive liars, they don't hold themselves accountable for anything, they will say anything they can to get you to do what they want, they will take every advantage they can get at the expense of others, and never apologize for anything. I don't think I will ever become enlightened enough to overcome the feelings I have for these people, and I don't think I want to. I think if I did somehow get to that point of enlightenment, I would have betrayed my own principles and lost sight of what I stand for.
Since I don't pay much attention to the news anymore, I hadn't heard about that shooting, but it's unfortunate that this post might have been just as current almost any week of the year.