I generally agree with you. However, I do think there comes a point where reality is not as malleable as we might wish it were and some things are actually bad. I know that the line may not be as bright as we think and we may overlook many good things that come from bad things, but, if we truly embrace the idea that Everything is neither good nor bad, we lose reality and grow to accept things like “chemically and surgically altering the perfectly healthy bodies of confused teens is just fine” - but it’s not.
So, the question becomes: what do we do when truly bad things are happening around us, but we cannot prevent them no matter how hard we try? I do not think the answer is to assume all is well and try to change something in yourself at that point. It’s something else. I still don’t know what - but something other than thinking bad is good. You know what I mean?
I love this question! I think the answer is complicated, and I hope that I don't convey that what I'm encouraging is simple or black and white, and the last thing I want to encourage is denial. (This has actually been on my mind quite a bit recently. We discussed it just this past week in the community.)
So what do we do when truly bad things are happening around us, but we cannot prevent them no matter how hard we try? My concern is that these things make us cynical, cause us to build more defenses around our hearts, turn us against each other, and create more division and fear. Much of which I think factors into where we find ourselves.
I think we're far more effective in the world if we're whole ourselves. What I encourage in my community is to get crystal clear on your values heirarchy. Then assess whether your actions in the world and what you're giving your attention to are supporting you to be who you want to be in the world and in your relationships. For many who want to keep their families whole and have healthy relationships with their children who see the world so differently, they discover that activism is not "working" to achieve that goal.
From my perspective the ethical line that medicine crosses is muddy and varies greatly
depending on the personal and cultural values of any given individual. It's pretty clear to me that affirmative care is unambiguously harmful to the body, but so are so many other things that modern medicine offers as solutions to what ails us. The context matters. Our minds are powerful meaning makers, and for those who truly believe it's life-saving care, it just might be. I think (for many, not everyone) to label it as "truly bad" often shuts down curiosity; we stop trying to make real sense of the problem, which from my perspective is much, much deeper than social media and affirmative care.
My agenda here is to inspire more wholeness in ourselves so we can be in truly healthy relationship with our loved ones who need to feel safe to lean on us. It won't be everyone's way. Some are called to be warriors. What we see will determine what we do. I just see things much differently.
As always, thank you for your thoughtful question! It helps me to communicate where I'm coming from to the SMP audience.
I’d also add that “ancient wisdom” has played so much into where I’ve arrived in all this. Much of which was generated in ethically questionable times when people were enduring their own human-inflicted atrocities that they could do nothing about no matter how hard they tried. Lately I’ve experienced much gratitude for the simplicity of my own childhood. I think we might have been a pretty rare and lucky generation to get to grow up they way we did in the latter half of the 20th century.
Another Viktor Frankl quote that I love, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
I also think this is such an important message to model for our kids, so they don’t come to believe they’ve destroyed their lives if they’ve pursued a medical pathway and eventually regret it.
I generally agree with you. However, I do think there comes a point where reality is not as malleable as we might wish it were and some things are actually bad. I know that the line may not be as bright as we think and we may overlook many good things that come from bad things, but, if we truly embrace the idea that Everything is neither good nor bad, we lose reality and grow to accept things like “chemically and surgically altering the perfectly healthy bodies of confused teens is just fine” - but it’s not.
So, the question becomes: what do we do when truly bad things are happening around us, but we cannot prevent them no matter how hard we try? I do not think the answer is to assume all is well and try to change something in yourself at that point. It’s something else. I still don’t know what - but something other than thinking bad is good. You know what I mean?
I love this question! I think the answer is complicated, and I hope that I don't convey that what I'm encouraging is simple or black and white, and the last thing I want to encourage is denial. (This has actually been on my mind quite a bit recently. We discussed it just this past week in the community.)
So what do we do when truly bad things are happening around us, but we cannot prevent them no matter how hard we try? My concern is that these things make us cynical, cause us to build more defenses around our hearts, turn us against each other, and create more division and fear. Much of which I think factors into where we find ourselves.
I think we're far more effective in the world if we're whole ourselves. What I encourage in my community is to get crystal clear on your values heirarchy. Then assess whether your actions in the world and what you're giving your attention to are supporting you to be who you want to be in the world and in your relationships. For many who want to keep their families whole and have healthy relationships with their children who see the world so differently, they discover that activism is not "working" to achieve that goal.
From my perspective the ethical line that medicine crosses is muddy and varies greatly
depending on the personal and cultural values of any given individual. It's pretty clear to me that affirmative care is unambiguously harmful to the body, but so are so many other things that modern medicine offers as solutions to what ails us. The context matters. Our minds are powerful meaning makers, and for those who truly believe it's life-saving care, it just might be. I think (for many, not everyone) to label it as "truly bad" often shuts down curiosity; we stop trying to make real sense of the problem, which from my perspective is much, much deeper than social media and affirmative care.
My agenda here is to inspire more wholeness in ourselves so we can be in truly healthy relationship with our loved ones who need to feel safe to lean on us. It won't be everyone's way. Some are called to be warriors. What we see will determine what we do. I just see things much differently.
As always, thank you for your thoughtful question! It helps me to communicate where I'm coming from to the SMP audience.
I’d also add that “ancient wisdom” has played so much into where I’ve arrived in all this. Much of which was generated in ethically questionable times when people were enduring their own human-inflicted atrocities that they could do nothing about no matter how hard they tried. Lately I’ve experienced much gratitude for the simplicity of my own childhood. I think we might have been a pretty rare and lucky generation to get to grow up they way we did in the latter half of the 20th century.
Another Viktor Frankl quote that I love, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
I also think this is such an important message to model for our kids, so they don’t come to believe they’ve destroyed their lives if they’ve pursued a medical pathway and eventually regret it.
I agree so much with you here.
It's work to do this, but it's so rewarding.
Thank you