Pity vs Compassion

WORDS

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion. –Dalai Lama

Two words that seem different to me after seeing them from another perspective: Pity and Tolerance

It was in a book on Buddhism that I first learned that pity is an emotion that places you in a superior position, mentally, than those you feel pity for. So rather than feeling pity for anyone else, it would be preferable to feel compassion.

I’ve heard some say that compassion is a genuine concern for others while pity is concern for yourself (like, how to ease your own guilt by giving to others, or how to appease your own sense of obligation)… and that pity allows (even fosters) “feelings of superiority and contempt and thus of shaming and humiliating its recipients”.

If I’m not mistaken, Nietzsche touched on this in The Antichrist. “Pity stands in opposition to all the tonic passions that augment the energy of the feeling of aliveness: it is a depressant. A man loses power when he pities.” (Although I think Nietzsche was more opposed to pity in regards to his stance on natural selection.)

Anyway, it’s food for thought.

The other one is “tolerance”. I used to say I wanted to be more tolerant of others or I was working on tolerance, etc. But today I read something that made me look at that work in a different way.

The idea is that tolerance represents the fact that you still hate something that someone does, but you just don’t bitch about it. Whereas “allowing” means you be you and you let others be themselves.

Shrug… more food for thought.


MSG?

So, about 30 minutes after I had my dinner (top ramen), I start to get a migraine. Maybe I’ll make an effort to avoid MSG for awhile and see if that makes a difference.


Getting another week's worth started
Photographed the new pieces today. Meh. Not thrilled with my photos, but they’ll have to do.

I’m kind of getting into a flow/schedule kind of thing. Make jewelry when/where I can throughout the week, then shoot on the weekend and begin to list. Hopefully, most of the new stuff goes up Sun-Tues.

Coming up next I have four pendant necklace, one necklace of Iolite, three chunky Lampwork bracelets, and two pair of earrings.


AMNESTY

I heard a news story that kinda bugged me today. The police did a “sting” where they advertised an amnesty program for people who hadn’t been in contact with their parole officers. So these guys come forward and… are arrested.

I’m okay with the one where they make those fake “you just won $200!” and then bust the guys when they come to collect their prize winnings. But fake amnesty… I mean, what’s gonna happen now when they have a REAL amnesty program? No one will trust it’s real, they won’t risk being arrested instead, so they just stay out there.

Seems weird and short-sighted to me… but I’m sure there’s just something I’m not getting.


Well, back to photo-editing now…


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