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Oct. 23rd, 2007 12:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stormdogAs I noted, I spent a little while while reading the Dalai Lama's Ethics for the New Millennium. It reminded of the beliefs that lead me toward Zen. The blurring of the line between self and others, self and the world around, and self and universe. I'm hearing that message in odd places lately. From this book that I happened to pick up when looking for something to distract me while sick. From the mouths of characters in a science-fiction television show ("We are all star-stuff. The universe made manifest, trying to figure itself out."), and from random bits in Livejournal pages, or in coversations.
At home, in the abstract, I can manage to believe that there isn't such a great difference between things that are good for me and things that are good for others. Between my self, and the rest of the human race. Thinking about how interconnected everything in the universe is even on the level that can be readily observed and comprehended, it is completely natural step to see that any act that harms someone else, in the end, harms yourself. As with so many other patterns in life, one that fits on a global level--the interconnectedness of ecosystems in the web of life that shows that harm to one species harms all species--serves just as well to model another global system; the interconnectedness of our own race. Harm to one of us is harm to all of us. Ask not for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
It's a hard thing to keep in mind here at work. It's difficult for me to feel connectedness with people who I can't help but feel are so staggeringly dumb as to be near hoplessness. It's something I need to work on, I'm sure; they can't really be that bad. I let work get to me too often. I get stressed, frustrated, upset, too often. I alternate between unbelieving admiration on some days for the bodhisattvas who vow to never achieve enlightenment until all other beings have become enlightened first (some of the people I deal with regularly make me question the attainability of such a goal), and simply, on other days, wanting to slap the people in the face who fail to follow our documented process on the same thing for the tenth time in a row. The more I deal with people outside my immediate circle, the more I feel cynical about human nature, intelligence, and future prospects. That's probably the wrong direction to go in, but how do you reconcile wanting to believe in everyone with the actuality of having to face so many real, wrong-headed, close-minded, uncaring individuals?
Andrea told me on the way to work this morning that she has this trepidation about the future. I do too. Nothing I can pin down. It just seems like something's out there. Coming closer.
At least I have something to look forward to this weekend. There's a halloween party that Andrea's taking me to on Friday, and on Saturday,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
posicat is taking us for a visit to Great America. Andrea's never been there, and I haven't seen the inside of the park since long before I first moved away from Wisconsin. I should be able to get through the rest of the week 'till then. Right?
At home, in the abstract, I can manage to believe that there isn't such a great difference between things that are good for me and things that are good for others. Between my self, and the rest of the human race. Thinking about how interconnected everything in the universe is even on the level that can be readily observed and comprehended, it is completely natural step to see that any act that harms someone else, in the end, harms yourself. As with so many other patterns in life, one that fits on a global level--the interconnectedness of ecosystems in the web of life that shows that harm to one species harms all species--serves just as well to model another global system; the interconnectedness of our own race. Harm to one of us is harm to all of us. Ask not for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
It's a hard thing to keep in mind here at work. It's difficult for me to feel connectedness with people who I can't help but feel are so staggeringly dumb as to be near hoplessness. It's something I need to work on, I'm sure; they can't really be that bad. I let work get to me too often. I get stressed, frustrated, upset, too often. I alternate between unbelieving admiration on some days for the bodhisattvas who vow to never achieve enlightenment until all other beings have become enlightened first (some of the people I deal with regularly make me question the attainability of such a goal), and simply, on other days, wanting to slap the people in the face who fail to follow our documented process on the same thing for the tenth time in a row. The more I deal with people outside my immediate circle, the more I feel cynical about human nature, intelligence, and future prospects. That's probably the wrong direction to go in, but how do you reconcile wanting to believe in everyone with the actuality of having to face so many real, wrong-headed, close-minded, uncaring individuals?
Andrea told me on the way to work this morning that she has this trepidation about the future. I do too. Nothing I can pin down. It just seems like something's out there. Coming closer.
At least I have something to look forward to this weekend. There's a halloween party that Andrea's taking me to on Friday, and on Saturday,
posicat is taking us for a visit to Great America. Andrea's never been there, and I haven't seen the inside of the park since long before I first moved away from Wisconsin. I should be able to get through the rest of the week 'till then. Right?
