Monday, July 11, 2011

The Issue of Compassion In My Latest Essay

I have a big problem with people who don't show much compassion.

And as soon as I say that I begin to wonder about my own capacity for compassion. Do I really show compassion for other people? Or is this some idea that I have embraced intellectually but not practically?

It is unclear to me. But it is good that I am still doubting my own capacity for compassion. This way I'll be more vigilant in the future, more sure to show compassion.

But this new essay of mine is definitely pushing me to think about the issue of compassion. But it is frustrating me because I don't feel like I'm pushing the issue explicitly enough. I'm skirting around it, working my way towards it. I'm taking a big detour so that I can address the issue of compassion.

I'm taking all this time to talk about habits and mediums, about history, about theory of mind. But what I want to get at is compassion.

I feel that developing a philosophical defense of compassion, empathy, and love is the most important thing I can strive for. It is so intense to think like that. I don't know how to do it. But I feel like that is the problem that I am working towards. From all kinds of different angles, I feel that I am working my way towards the issue of compassion. Empathy is a step towards compassion. What I want is compassion. What I want is love.

Sometimes my thinking collapses under the weight of all the themes I want to address. I simply don't know how to think about these things.

What is the state of our current society? Why is love and compassion so hard to come by? Why are my relationships so often impersonal and odd? Why is my life this way and not some other way?

In any case, I feel that my latest essay has the potential to push me in some really good directions. I'm thinking about things that matter to me, that I feel good about. But I am approaching them through a concept (of mediums) that is unfamiliar to me. I don't know how to think about this issue of mediums. But I think that by focusing on mediums I'll be able to ask interesting questions. I think that I'm still working towards the issue of relationships, only I'm doing it through the issue of mediums.

Bleh.

My thoughts are jumbled jumbled jumbled.

My outline is so messy. I'm going in so many different directions. I'm trying to do so many different things. I just don't know how to do them. I don't know how to talk about all of my different themes in a coherent way.

And most importantly, I don't know how to make the essay emanate my desire for love and compassion. I don't know how to make love and compassion my central them.

I seem to only be able to tap dance around them.

I want people to love one another.

I want people to empathize with one another.

I want people to show compassion for one another.

My life is painful enough.

I need some compassion.

I think we all need compassion.

I just don't know how to develop this point philosophically.

But I'm working towards it.

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