Response to Ignorance in Others

Curiousity not conflict, exploration not expression. :silly:

Miss_Leah wrote: I've been praised for my ability to maintain composure when under fire, BUT being temperate and reasonable in the face of raging emotion seems to induce further rage.

Repressing anger is not the best way to deal with it. In a way, you are pre-judgeing your anger as wrong, and the prejudice puts you at odds with yourself. You'll have to go deeper into why something bothers you if you want to be able to brush it off with no detriment to your health.

Miss_Leah wrote: In that case, should one remove oneself from around ignorant people, or continue to strive to shine a light into their minds?

Where should an aspiring Jedi draw the line when choosing their battles and dealing with conflict?

"A Jedi uses the Force for defense. Never for attack".

I've found, like others have expressed in this thread, that it is often pointless to try to educate others about their own stupidity. They won't listen. They don't care. And you gain nothing from it.

Who gains? Only when you actively defend someone being victimized, then you are actually effecting change. Because the bullies won't learn anything, but it will mean the world to the person you helped out of a tight spot.

Adder wrote: Curiousity not conflict, exploration not expression. :silly:

I really like that saying a lot. I've tried to always say if I've said something offensive or step out of bounds call me out on it directly, msg me, poke me, hit me with a frying pan however, if there's a way I can better myself or better understand how something I said was offensive or over the line, I can prevent the act of doing so again in the future, or at least with the disclaimer of in my opinion.

It's my belief(and also in my opinion, see what I did there!), everyone will have a view, a stance, a place to stand on, a foundation as it we're, but most importantly they will define it as their opinion. We are all entitled to have one, and we should all strive to respect those views of others. We can not expect others to respect our views as being Jedi if we're not willing to respect their views as being christian for example.

You can also go deeper down the hole with that too, for there's not just Jedi here, but those who follow a sith code, those who follow the older Jedi code, the newer jedi code, grey jedi codes what have you. We are all going to have different perspectives and views, its the willingness to understand and respect those views that makes us understand more, and have more knowledge, from which we gain wisdom of our paths and life in general.

The analogy I always like to use is a beach ball in the center of a room full of people surrounding it in a circle. Everyone has a different view of the beach ball, everyone can describe the beach ball from their point of view. Some will have a similar point of view, others won't be able to see whats on the other side. There is no way to see the entire beach ball(as in all sides of it 360 degrees) at the same time from every possible degree angle(at least not without a crap load of camera's and then a crazy amount of monitors and even then would be hard to see every single angle). Let's not even talk about whats going on inside the ball or above or below etc. But the point of that setup is you have to at some point rely on the perspectives of others to better understand the concept that is the beach ball.

More importantly, we have to be willing to submit to the fact that our opinion, and our foundation, and our beliefs from our own perspectives, we are staring at a beach ball, but the other side of the beach ball might be a cut out area and a glass of water. We could be wrong about it all, or just wrong about parts, or just have a very good idea. I think its better to think of it that way as it saves you from getting hurt or frustrated if your foundation kinda falls out from underneath you or someones perspective threatens it. We are here to crave and understand and respect, not so much play king of the mountain.


Hopefully that made some kind of sense...thats my opinion anyway.