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Human Nature - Blog Posts
People speak sometimes about the "bestial" cruelty of man, but that is terribly unjust and offensive to beasts, no animal could ever be so cruel as a man, so artfully, so artistically cruel.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Love Covers a Multitude Of Sins
Realising that all behaviour is the result of a complex web of cause and effect invites us to embrace a deeper understanding and forgiveness for ourselves and others.
While the specifics of each reaction may elude our understanding, shaped as they are by our own singular journeys—we can find peace in the knowledge that everything reflects this universal principle and grounds our relationships in the reality that non of us are right or wrong, allowing us to see the reflections of our shared humanity in one another’s actions.
"It's impossible not / to remember wild and want it back."
from "A Thousand Mornings" by Mary Oliver
Dreamwork, the Beauty and the Boundary Violation
Dreamwork is an interesting area of human life that easily gets caught up in a nightmare, so I wanted to write a short bit about that today and define what dreams (and nightmares) are, which can sometimes help stop the fall.
Dreams (and nightmares) are the brains way of resolving things that have not been processed in waking time. It is a bit like doing a format or defragging of a hard drive, sorting out the bits and pieces that either didn’t make a connection, or were just not sorted into the correct place so that they could be moved on from. In machines, that is processing. We are not machines, but as humans, it is pretty much the same processing story for us, with the exception that we are feeling beings, and that we get mystified by things sometimes.
Working out our dreams is something that we can all learn to do, and for those who can look objectively, whilst utilising empathy and an understanding of psychology, Dreamwork with others can be really eye opening for the receiver. The best part however, is that once you have started to work with someone else on Dreamwork, it becomes impossible to not then go forward in being able to realise the individual meaning of dreams for one’s self.
There is another side to the coin though. Dreamwork is a largely overlooked area for potential abuse that is worth remembering, in case it starts happening to ourselves or someone else that we love or care about deeply. Such an open, repeated vision into the boundaries of the personal psyche should only be shared with those that we undoubtedly know that we can trust.
Excerpt from 'I might say something stupid'
This summer was spent hotboxing my closet and eating mangoes on the living room couch. I forgot things as soon as people said them.
Nothing bad has ever happened. Not to me then and not to me now. I scrub at the wine stain on my jersey. I love open bar events.
I spent two weeks as a camp counselor even though looking at children makes me feel sick to my stomach. In each one I see myself and wonder how anyone ever hurt me.
Please make a post about the story of the RMS Carpathia, because it's something that's almost beyond belief and more people should know about it.
Carpathia received Titanic’s distress signal at 12:20am, April 15th, 1912. She was 58 miles away, a distance that absolutely could not be covered in less than four hours.
(Californian’s exact position at the time is…controversial. She was close enough to have helped. By all accounts she was close enough to see Titanic’s distress rockets. It’s uncertain to this day why her crew did not respond, or how many might not have been lost if she had been there. This is not the place for what-ifs. This is about what was done.)
Carpathia’s Captain Rostron had, yes, rolled out of bed instantly when woken by his radio operator, ordered his ship to Titanic’s aid and confirmed the signal before he was fully dressed. The man had never in his life responded to an emergency call. His goal tonight was to make sure nobody who heard that fact would ever believe it.
All of Carpathia’s lifeboats were swung out ready for deployment. Oil was set up to be poured off the side of the ship in case the sea turned choppy; oil would coat and calm the water near Carpathia if that happened, making it safer for lifeboats to draw up alongside her. He ordered lights to be rigged along the side of the ship so survivors could see it better, and had nets and ladders rigged along her sides ready to be dropped when they arrived, in order to let as many survivors as possible climb aboard at once.
I don’t know if his making provisions for there still being survivors in the water was optimism or not. I think he knew they were never going to get there in time for that. I think he did it anyway because, god, you have to hope.
Carpathia had three dining rooms, which were immediately converted into triage and first aid stations. Each had a doctor assigned to it. Hot soup, coffee, and tea were prepared in bulk in each dining room, and blankets and warm clothes were collected to be ready to hand out. By this time, many of the passengers were awake–prepping a ship for disaster relief isn’t quiet–and all of them stepped up to help, many donating their own clothes and blankets.
And then he did something I tend to refer to as diverting all power from life support.
Here’s the thing about steamships: They run on steam. Shocking, I know; but that steam powers everything on the ship, and right now, Carpathia needed power. So Rostron turned off hot water and central heating, which bled valuable steam power, to everywhere but the dining rooms–which, of course, were being used to make hot drinks and receive survivors. He woke up all the engineers, all the stokers and firemen, diverted all that steam back into the engines, and asked his ship to go as fast as she possibly could. And when she’d done that, he asked her to go faster.
I need you to understand that you simply can’t push a ship very far past its top speed. Pushing that much sheer tonnage through the water becomes harder with each extra knot past the speed it was designed for. Pushing a ship past its rated speed is not only reckless–it’s difficult to maneuver–but it puts an incredible amount of strain on the engines. Ships are not designed to exceed their top speed by even one knot. They can’t do it. It can’t be done.
Carpathia’s absolute do-or-die, the-engines-can’t-take-this-forever top speed was fourteen knots. Dodging icebergs, in the dark and the cold, surrounded by mist, she sustained a speed of almost seventeen and a half.
No one would have asked this of them. It wasn’t expected. They were almost sixty miles away, with icebergs in their path. They had a respondibility to respond; they did not have a responsibility to do the impossible and do it well. No one would have faulted them for taking more time to confirm the severity of the issue. No one would have blamed them for a slow and cautious approach. No one but themselves.
They damn near broke the laws of physics, galloping north headlong into the dark in the desperate hope that if they could shave an hour, half an hour, five minutes off their arrival time, maybe for one more person those five minutes would make the difference. I say: three people had died by the time they were lifted from the lifeboats. For all we know, in another hour it might have been more. I say they made all the difference in the world.
This ship and her crew received a message from a location they could not hope to reach in under four hours. Just barely over three hours later, they arrived at Titanic’s last known coordinates. Half an hour after that, at 4am, they would finally find the first of the lifeboats. it would take until 8:30 in the morning for the last survivor to be brought onboard. Passengers from Carpathia universally gave up their berths, staterooms, and clothing to the survivors, assisting the crew at every turn and sitting with the sobbing rescuees to offer whatever comfort they could.
In total, 705 people of Titanic’s original 2208 were brought onto Carpathia alive. No other ship would find survivors.
At 12:20am April 15th, 1912, there was a miracle on the North Atlantic. And it happened because a group of humans, some of them strangers, many of them only passengers on a small and unimpressive steam liner, looked at each other and decided: I cannot live with myself if I do anything less.
I think the least we can do is remember them for it.
As Humans we lose parts of our humanity when we use ourselves or others for the gratification of the self. It is only a loss when we enable sorrow, anger, avarice and profit-seeking behaviors. (These and many other things)
When we sow those seeds the fruit they bare are only novelties, baubles, and tchotchkes. Quite frankly they are an insult to the worth and efforts of the human spirit.
can you believe that we have fanfiction. that we have websites dedicated to fanfiction. that there is a place that you can go and read tens, hundreds, thousands and thousands of pieces of writing that strangers have made. people who are not "writers". people who come home at the end of the day and have feelings and say, i am going to put that into words. i am going to share those words. short, long, sweet, sad, horny, funny, wonderful words. we are all just human and we all love to make and remake and share that with others. can you believe that.
Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody
Mark Twain
The fact that humans are so obsessed with their outward appearance is so ironic considering the most beautiful thing about humans is their nature.
Man is the most insane species. He worships an invisible God and destroys a visible Nature. Unaware that this Nature he’s destroying is this God he’s worshiping.
Why don’t people today want to be the better versions of themselves?
Why does everyone say “accept me the way I am”?
Well, according to me, people are too lazy and oversmart these days that they think they’re well aware of everything but on the contrary, people are so full of themselves and are such KNOW-IT-ALL type of people, it scares me. The future that lies ahead of us is in danger because of such people who don’t want to do better, who just want to be lazy and prideful that they miss out on basic things in life.