Looks234
Kraken
- Joined
- Aug 11, 2020
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Look, I don't know you and you don't know me. I don't presume to know what is best either, but I want to make a case against having this mindset because I think that, in the broadest terms, the course of human civilization depends on it. To preface, I am not saying that this attitude towards life is "wrong", or that a more compassionate and optimistic attitude is "right", but I want to point out that these two opposing ways of seeing the world impact our actions throughout life and thereby perpetuate themselves into other people's mindsets. I am saying that it's up to each one of us -- you included -- to decide which type of world we want to live in -- a "survival of the fittest" world or a compassionate world -- and then act accordingly.
For example, you personally have likely only adopted this attitude because other people who hold this exact mindset have screwed you over enough times to harden you into thinking this way. This taught you that the world is largely full of uncaring and uncompassionate strangers. If you then act accordingly, pursuing your own agenda at the expense of others, you will only perpetuate that cycle, instilling this mindset into another person and so on.
I absolutely recognize how ruthless we can be towards one another. And I also fully agree that there is value in that recognition; you can save yourself and your family a ton of hardship by being on the lookout for people potentially shafting you and yours. But the state of your community, your country, and even the world is only a sum total of all of our actions combined.
The opposite of the above can hold just as true; if you treat the world as if it were largely full of people who try to do good and hold compassion towards one another and then you act as if that were true -- showing care and compassion to those around you -- then you will perpetuate that mindset instead and you will touch some people along the way and inspire them to live too in compassion and generosity.
I think as a society, we are definitely moving away from compassion and it has had an extreme snowballing effect. I guess my argument is that if you personally wish the world weren't heading towards a "survival of the fittest" mentality reigning supreme and unchallenged, then I earnestly believe that it's your duty to be a force for the opposite mindset. Thanks for reading and I sincerely wish you the best, whether this has swayed you or not.
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