Reply #183: enough with sad, maybe? [View All]

[Two Americas]

Poverty does not just happen by some accident or something. It is sad when a rock falls on my head. It is not sad when someone throws a rock at me so they can steal from me.

"Sad" is what we get about things to which we have surrendered, things about which we can do nothing about.

Notice that no one here ever tells us nit to be sad, and then portrays that as merely a personal unpleasant emotion and gives us advice as to how to get rid of it so we can go back to being slap happy dappy la ti da numbskulls? Happy happy happy. That kind of self-indulgent and shallow "happy" in the midst of this nightmare is insanity, not mental health.

But people will tell you to not be angry about what is happening, to not be determined, to not be "radical," to not be "obsessed." They will tell you to "adjust" to it and to make the best if it and do the best you can. "Making the best if it" would be fighting for the well being of others, dropping all of the petty and self-centered concerns and start screaming in outrage and putting everything at risk - since it is already anyway - and fighting, not adjusting. Fighting now - not worrying about the right way to fight or the right time to fight. Now, with all we have. We can't waste time on sadness.

There are things to which the sane response is anger, sadness and depression. There is something seriously wrong with people who are not feeling those emotions. Those emotions do not exist in a vacuum. What sort of people could be "adjusted" while others are suffering so terribly. Nor is it sufficient to merely feel these emotions. We don't stand by passively and watch a child drown and merely feel sad about it. How is this different? Do we say to ourselves "oh I don't know how to solve drowning children" as an excuse? Do we say "there are different opinions?" Do we say "these things take time?" Do we say "don't get me wrong, I care about drowning children, but...?" Do we say "well hopefully Obama will save the drowning child, if we all get behind him?" Do we say "oh well children have always been drowning, and as sad as it is what can we do?" Do we say "I donate to the drowned children fund" or "I voted for the politician who is against drowning?"

How is this different? Why is our reaction so different than it would be if we saw one child drowning?

What is truly sad is not the conditions, it is our passivity and paralysis and unwillingness to fight back.