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Uncle Arahant’s Rules of Humanity
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Human Nature does not change. It is the same today as it was three hundred thousand years ago.
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Individual humans may change. They can become bitter. They can become afraid. They can become distrustful. But they can also learn and grow and become better people.
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We cannot change other people.
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Our trying to change other people often meets with opposition that makes them “worse” in our eyes.
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We can only change ourselves.
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We must want to change to stay positive and to grow in Spirit.
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Positive changes take work. It is easy to be or become negative. That is the cultural default setting. Being positive and making positive changes has to be a habit that is developed despite the culture and humans all around us. We have to train ourselves to think that way.
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Do not reject the bad with vehemence. It gives it energy. Simply dismiss it.
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Focus on and put your energy into the good things in life. Count your blessings. Find where God is hiding in each situation. Find the lessons that will make your life richer.
What are your rules for life among the humans, friends?
Published in Religion & Philosophy
An friend of mine has the following rule based on his low opinion of basic human nature…
When faced with any moral or ethical dilemma, the thing you least want to do is probably the thing you should do.
And recognizing that is the only reason a lot of people are still walking this earth.
Amen brother
I’m going to pushback a little on #3. We’ve had a huge collective change in attitudes on many issues. People are pliable. If a big enough mass of people agree and push an agenda, for good or ill, it creates a tipping point of change with the masses. We have a much different attitude when it comes to race and homosexuality than we did even 50 years ago. Communism and Fascism weren’t very popular in 1900. By 1920 they were all the rage. The left understands people much better than we give them credit for. Most people want to have the socially acceptable views. They know people in a liberal democracy want to be viewed as enlightened. Hence all the virtue signaling. Now you’re viewed as a cretin if you don’t think an 8 year old should be able to have transgendered surgery. Social pressure is a powerful force.
I would say that this doesn’t change the individuals. Most of them never think about this stuff. They would as easily go along with Antisemitism (and they do). They aren’t changing, they are accepting what is around them in the ether of culture.
I would also pushback on #3, but for a different reason. I agree it is difficult to change other people in the sense of overtly forcing them to change. But we can change them with our good example. This is the purpose of the veneration of saints. I’ve also known people in my own life who, through their good example, shamed me into becoming a better man (although they never knew this).
They set the example, but you made the changes. They didn’t make you feel shame. You did that. You found reasons to want to emulate them. You had humility. You were teachable. We cannot make someone else receptive, no matter what we do. The person has to be willing to learn, willing to change, willing to do better. And if they aren’t, there is nothing we can do. Yes, we can live as perfect exemplary saints, but if their attitude is, “This guy is a sucker, and I’ll take him for all he’s worth,” he’s not going to change.
I keep it simple:
Pay your bills.
Stay out of trouble.
I never figured out the latter.
Well, of course. If your point is we can’t change people who are resistant to change, I agree with you.
My point is that change comes from within. We cannot change anyone. Even someone receptive to our ideas, we are not changing. We may present some idea, but they have to accept it. They have to do something with it. It is part of what Jesus was teaching in the parable of the sower. We can cast our words on the ground of the minds around us, but that does not mean the seeds will take root, grow, and bear fruit. Someone else has to be like fertile ground and accept the seed. But the seed that fell on fertile ground is no different than that which fell on the rocky ground.
I find this to be one of the hardest things to do. I pray about it every day. Especially before I go to work. It is difficult when you work with the public (as most of you can attest). I didn’t read your post, @arahant, with politics in mind.
Politics are a human thing. They are downstream from human nature.
Which? Staying positive? It takes a lot of practice, but with practice, it becomes easier.
Some staying positive, but more the accepting the part about changing people. And here I don’t mean change their minds. I mean more change them in other ways. A coworker used to tell me all the time that I can’t change the way a person approaches her job. It’s just how they work. I am very task oriented and Type A. Some of my coworkers are not. They eventually get the job done, but it takes them forever and it drives me nuts. These are things you can’t change because they are “baked in”. That is when I just have to pray about it and move on. That’s what I meant when I said I didn’t read it with politics in mind.
Ah, yes, praying the famous prayer, “Oh, Lord, give me patience, and give it to me right now!”
I’ve borrowed one from my darling stepdaughter: “The best approach to retaining one’s youth and beauty is kindness” because it essentially echoes the lesson I took away, early in life, from one of my favorite stories, Snow White (the Disney version).
That lesson is that if you treat all living creatures, including the human ones, with affection and and kindness, you will be beautiful and you will achieve your heart’s delight, but that if you give in to anger, betrayal, jealousy, hatred and bitterness, you will turn into a withered and ugly old hag, and you will die a painful, lonely, and horrible death.
It’s true that you sometimes have to play the very long game to get the first part to work out. It would probably work out more often if there weren’t bad people in the world, but there are, and it doesn’t pay not to recognize that. The odds of the first part working out improve drastically if your “heart’s delight” is focused more on the state of your own soul than on the opinions of others or on the acquisition of material gain.
The second part is always true.
(Apologies. I’m a slow learner. It took me decades to figure out that Scarlett O’Hara isn’t actually the heroine of Gone With the Wind.)
I gave a talk at one of our local book clubs about my science fiction series (takes place in the 22nd century). One person asked me why my charcters talked and acted as they do today. I responded with “human nature doesn’t change.” I pointed out that while clothing styles might look different, and new technical lingo will make an appearance, humans will still be good, bad, greedy, hateful, loving, wise, and stupid just like they are today. I don’t think I changed his mind, but some of the other folks present agreed with me.
Of course, that was after beverages were served . . .
Yeah, we’re already a fifth of the way through the 21st Century. Are people any different than they were in the 20th? Not that I can tell.
Sometimes the rejection of the bad requires emphasis.
Use enough to get the job done.
Triple Like for this post, arahant. I fully believe every point; I’ve lived it. I like to tell the story that for years I tried to change my husband. Mind you, I thought he was an okay guy when I married him, but I could make him better. When I finally gave up trying to make him someone he wasn’t, guess what–he changed! He’s grown a lot in the 44 years we’ve been together, and I had nothing to do with it, except to encourage him and support him. And he’s acted the same way toward me: not trying to change me. Thanks.
1. Incentives matter. Get those right, everything else follows.
2. Be nice. Play hard. Call your own fouls.
3. Do not retaliate until you have been up and down the court at least five times. If you get any indication of remorse in that time, forget the offense.
4. Retaliation should be proportional to the offense. 10x is a nice round number.
5. Pray for wisdom, but strive to gain it without resorting to experience.
These are great, especially 4 and 5.
4. is wrong. Retaliation should make it clear that it wasn’t your maximum effort; that you in fact did exercise restraint.
Maybe, but how sure are you?
My maximum effort involves nukes.
I was thinking more around the scale of the Anglo-Zanzibar War, which either lasted 45 minutes, or only 38, depending on which timekeeper you were going by. The war started at a civilized 0900 (local time) and was over in time for tea. Heck, it was over in time for lunch.
Must focus on #8. It may save my sanity.
This is one of my favorite bits on the subject:
Prepare Him Room
My heart is big enough for God’s infinite and unconditional love!
Denials are the broom to sweep away untruths. God’s love is the handle of the broom. With God’s love, we sweep away old clutter, not in haste, not with vigor, but knowing that God has loved us in our turmoil. Allowing God’s love to guide our denials, we tidy our consciousness as a doting grandmother sweeps up after a toddler grandchild.
Let us prepare our hearts for God’s love. It only needs a small spot to start, for the longer it resides there, the more room it will declutter for the abode of love.
Isaiah 40:9, “O Zion, that brings good tidings, get you up upon the high mountain; O Jerusalem, that brings good tidings, lift up your voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid; say to the cities of Judah, Behold your God!’
We didn’t have to hear about the Kardassians. Arguably people were better for it.
There is, or rather once was a sort of neo-Platonic doctrine, weirdly popular for several centuries, that argued we’ve all been backsliding from Adam’s fall, so each subsequent generation was worse and more corrupt than the last (it is Platonic in the sense that Edenic Adam was the Platonic Pure Form of Man, so all the rest of us are bad copies, which also made this very gnostic). This had some weird and unfortunate repercussions on science and medicine, where recently acquired knowledge (like how to deal with scurvy using fresh food) was tossed out in favor ancient quack medicine.