Heroes

There is a lot going on in the world and it's making me feel really sick. There's fear that I'm not doing something I should be doing. Fear that this rampant sharing against hate is only providing a sense of self righteousness to those that speak out on social media, which is just the opposite side of the same coin. That gives me a good serving of anxiety - more than the haters promoting hate. Because, we're the only ones that can stop it, and maybe, just maybe, we're doing it wrong.

Public shaming overall is so dirty and wrong. I don't want to be part of that.  I feel like all I can effectively do right now is exude respect with every fibre of my being to every person that I meet - including the haters (perhaps most importantly them).

And by respect for haters - I don't mean acceptance of their ideas. But a healthy dose of respect that they are humans and somebody somewhere down the line fucked them up big.

I wonder what it would look like if every person who was so vehemently against hate did that. If they just became pristinely quiet in their heads and hearts and just went about their day with the utmost respect for all things, doing the next right thing that was within their reach.

That doesn't mean that hate crimes would suddenly become legal and that we wouldn't quietly and purposefully remove dangerous people that were acting out from the general population. We would just do it as a matter of fact and need.

What if we recognized that we, as a whole, failed great masses of people and created, facilitated, contributed to,  this mental unwellness. What if we had compassion for those people. What if we, at the very least, just asked this question?

If we truly are so justified. If we truly are the higher minds... is that not what we would do?

Or do we just scream our own ideals back?

I was sadistically sexually abused as a very young child over a five year period. I don't want that to ever happen to another living anything, and I've come to a conclusion that the closest I can come to being part of the change is to recognize predators as seriously flawed humans and have compassion for their illness (as someone affected by this, I can support those that seek to truly help understand and heal this affliction. I can believe that somewhere in those that do these acts, there is shame and pain for having done so. I can believe in them - it is truly all I have).

That was a very hard and humbling conclusion to arrive at but having done so... I can see with absolute clarity that the same is true here.

I don't want to invest in condemning. I want to invest in making it stop.

I do need to point out that I am aware that we need to know what is happening, therefore it is necessary to share what is happening. I want to ask though, where is that line between sharing to bring awareness and sharing in hate and self-righteousness?

Only I can know what I can contribute and it is my responsibility to myself to act on what I know I can do - quietly. There can be no heroes (if we are all heroes).