Standing in ruin, smiling.
Once upon a time, I was a positive person. It is not that I am not a positive person now but perhaps, my focus has shifted to take in more of the world, or at least, a fuller slice of perspective than I had previously taken. My view may have been too narrow and although I was seen in a generally good, happy-go-lucky light, it never really got me where I wanted to be going.
It is a funny paradox isn't it? People want to be surrounded by smiles and positive vibes but, when they are they take them for granted and limit their ability to enact chance. For the most part in this world, happy people affect very little. At least, publicly happy people. I remember being told by someone close to me many years ago to "smile less" as smiling people are untrustworthy. I thought it was funny at the time but under consideration, he was right.
How can someone smile when they have seen the mess, pain and suffering of this world? They are either blind to it or, sadists. There are many blind to be sure, those who bury their head in the sands of entertainment and distraction like addicts laying on the soiled mattresses of a drug den. There are also many sadists who take pleasure from inflicting pain on others.
The worst sadists in my opinion are not the ones to cause physical pain, it is the ones who take those who are trying their best to help make the world a little better and crushing their spirit. It is heartbreaking to see so much opportunity wasted through passivity and greed. The sadists know about greed well yet they veil it behind what they claim as 'reality' and 'the system allows it'.
Reality is what is but what it is always changing, always shifting and what is today could be obliterated tomorrow yet, in terms of humanity, the obliteration is a slow process of inaction. The system allows it is another poor position as the system can change, but, only when the system does change. Unfortunately, the sadists seem to want the system to stay the same as it benefits them. Greed.
I think that this is the largest disappointment I have had here, that people who claimed to be different, like minds looking to create a world of less suffering are no better than the world of the present full of sadists looking to inflict pain on anyone trying for new. Perhaps that is a worse suffering than the reality of the other world as it crushes the last pieces of hope and causes the last curl of lips to fade.
Maybe that is the beauty and terror Da Vinci caught in Mona Lisa as she witnessed the reality that no matter her hopes, dreams and views of the future, it takes a community to change and unfortunately, the sadists make the rules and hold them in place through their ridicule of those who are trying to play for improvement.
The smile may be close to gone but, the head is yet to be buried in the sand. As painful as reality is and as filled with suffering the path may be, change is always possible.
Until it is not.
Taraz
[ a Steemit original ]
As one of the greatest minds of our time has said at one of his last lectures:
"So, if you feel like you're in a black hole don't give up. There's a way out."
There is always a way out but when that way requires the cooperation of many? Humanity is an interesting problem because to solve the large issues it faces requires many but, the nature of humanity itself seems to be hardwired not to want more than small groups. To overcome the gap we seem to have to change our own nature.
We must also change our own ways of thinking by rewiring our own brains to escape a lifetime of brainwashing..
"The worst sadists in my opinion are not the ones to cause physical pain, it is the ones who take those who are trying their best to help make the world a little better and crushing their spirit."
Thanks @tarazkp for this post. That statement above was my high point.
So true.
Being postive everytime is being untrue to ones self. Life has we see it is positive and Negative. We need to take it has it is and view it the way it comes
Change will always be possible. It is a constant in the fabric of this world. The thing is, will the change be for the better or for worse. I believe that the distance between facing pain and becoming a sadist is quite short.
Basically sadists are creations of their environment. I say this with the sense of the environment either forcing negative change on a broken man who used to be filled with laughter and light or it encourages and nurtures the seed of sadism within another and gives him or her the opportunity to explore wickedness.
When we ignore that which is wrong, we gradually become immune to the effects of such wrongful behaviour and soon we start seeing the rightness of such behaviour and that is a short distance to becoming perpetrators of acts that would have made us cringe before. This is the way of things.
Can we be better than this? I hope so. Am I sure that sadists will cease to exist in this world? I doubt it. For as long as there have been heedless sheep, there have ever been cunning wolves to lead them to their deaths.
In the last years everything has been bad due to wars and sad news. Some people cant control their emotions anymore. But it is said that 10% of the people can change the energy from negative to positive. So if we decide to do it together we can influence anything on this planet.
Looking around there is not much reason to smile except for family and friends.The only place you see more of that in is in Emoji land.
I love this perspective. I don't consider myself to be one or the other. I simply hope for and believe in change. I don't know how not to when I know it's within our power. It might be slow, it might be hard, but it's still possible.
I tend to ride the fence in regards to much of the New Age movement and similar philosophical cultural paths because it focuses so heavily on happiness above all. And not because I don't believe in choosing happiness - I do. I ride the fence, because I see value in acknowledging the bad along with the good. That's how we know what to fight for. And how we stay balanced and aware of true reality. That doesn't depress me. It sometimes makes me sad. But it motivates me, too, more than anything. A quest for constant happiness with nothing to challenge it is a path to docility, IMO. I'd rather choose to be fully aware.
I do like the way you put this into words. I feel similar myself. Change is always possible. Until it is not. So why bring down those who are trying while we still have time? It seems a waste. Maybe because it is.
If this is true. Then we do we go on? We must strive to make things better no matter how many doors are slammed in our faces. We are the privalidged. Sadists be gone. No time for games of greed.
While I think you make some very valid points here, I don't believe that
I think that's narrowing it down a little too much...I think one should be able to smile, even knowing the horrors of the world, because despite all those horrors, there are rays of light and there is also beauty.
I really love the ending of your post <3
I was thinking this the other day listening to people like Tony Robbins, but then the realist in me looks around and sees poison in peoples food, constant wars and suffering, and the 1% getting away with literal murder, there is that saying that goes something along the lines of 'people that really think struggle to be happy' I can't remember whose quote it was but it really rang true for me.
I think that we're doing better than we think, sometimes we forget that our life is a little, little, liiittle fraction of the history of humanity. We just need to see the changes that happened along the way.
How long since gay marriages are allowed? Since women are allowed to vote? How many years have passed since the WWII? How bad was life for black people 50 or 60 years ago? What about slavery?
Sure, there is a lot of things wrong in the world right now but if you look at the past there was worst stuff happening and It slowly changed. And the good thing is that the positive changes seems to be the ones that stay with the pass of time.
The problem is that we want to see the change in our lifetime, we want to end with all the wrong doing in the world and have a margarita by the beach without worrying because we live in the perfect world. That's not gonna happen, we will not live in a perfect world but we CAN start a change for a better world, it already started in several places.
The thing is to start, is like a business you may have a lot of good ideas but nothing will happen if you don't take action on those ideas now, and your profits will not come immediately it will take time for you to see any outcome from your job.
Anything can be change tyrants have gone down, corruption have
destroyed empires and definitely the distrust in smiles can and should be changed if not for our generation for the generations of the future.