We tell people to never complain, to suck it up, to pretend everything is great, stuff is awesome and act extra super cheerful, no matter what. Then we have the gall to act surprised at the level of violence and crime.
Except, in truly schizoid fashion we also teach people to be afraid of everyone and everything most especially each other and their neighbors. Yet, we do not also teach them to properly fear themselves at the individual level. Oh, sure, religion tries but you should have a more personal reason for people to want to behave well than some giant angry deity in the sky is going to cause some really messed up stuff to happen to you eventually if you keep being a dick to people. My beef with established & organized religion shall perhaps have to go into another entry at a later point in time. We'll not get into that here and right now.
One concluding thought: Why does the news seldom ever do any spread about an investigation into the possibility of a correlation between decreased funding for social programs (which results in the shutting down of libraries, community centers and after school programs) and the level of crime in cities?
5 comments:
I used to co-run a Homeless shelter. To be quite honest it kind of dulled my senses. We helped a few people, to get a leg up, and get off the streets. Most of the folks in the area I lived in didn't want to be off the streets, they just wanted to be taken care of. Cities don't like to talk about their homeless, most of them are attached to a church somehow. They require the people there to go to a service before they may eat...which is bullshit. Many will turn a person away if they are intoxicated. They only alot so much money to fund these places, and only the strict ones seem to get funding. Our shelter was funded out of pocket and due to private donations. The city hated us. My partners in this venture ran too loose of a ship in my opinion. I lost my taste for it. It was a strain on my mental well being, and an endless money sucking pit, full of people who could never get enough.
True, there are some serial victims and running an NGO/nonprofit did strike me as sounding like a pain in the ass to get funding for.
The one I used to work at also had like some auxillary job finder and social services tacked on to try and help them get off the streets. Some sort of racket about helping them find housing too... our city called all of it "affordable" during the housing boom but then changed it to "luxury" when buying and rental got slow... >.<
Huh, did not know that about you.
I agree, well more than agree with-it, I live it and fight against-it everyday. This isn't just in the Us or Canada though, I've known people from all around the world and they all have the same mentality of putting-up a mask of lies to look happy while they bury their problems and often let these fester. People harbor all kinds of bad thoughts about others all the time and keep it all in, that's why people are so afraid of the concept of reading minds; so minded to having their individuality and time alone away from everyone else. That's how I see it anyways... (Comment too long? really?...)
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All my life I've been trying to somehow change that... to teach people that there is more to be gained from understanding and working together than by building-up shells and being so god-damn afraid of everyone else all the time! But the worst part of all, is that most of the time when you open-up to someone else and show your weaknesses openly; it scares the shit out of those cowards, even though all I'm trying to do is prove a point like saying "I have no reason to be afraid of you, not because you couldn't hurt me, I hurt all the time... but I'm not afraid because I know you don't mean bad."
Curious how doing that tends to make them feel like cornered rats.
Indeed.
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