Compassion matters a lot

[trenton]

In the past this idea of compassion kept coming up on this forum.  I couldn't tell why people were saying it and it seemed moralizing.  My compassion was often limited to logically understanding that someone was hurt, but this is very limited.

A common pattern across all kinds of political issues that people laugh at the suffering of others when they don't understand what this person is going through.  This includes rape, sexual assault, drug addiction, child support, psychedelics, rising rates of virginity in men, and much more.  I our low consciousness we take joy in the situation when others talk about it.  I will give a few examples.

When asked why I lost my cell phone, I told answered that it was because I left it in my dad's car before he drove off because mom threatened to call the cops.  They not only fought over the fact that dad fled the state to avoid paying child support, but they both also had drug addictions and stole my money to avoid losing the house.  Apparently this was funny because my mom worked for the irs and should be able to afford all the drugs.  I understand that teaching kids about drug addiction will often fail if they lack true understanding and compassion for drug addicts rather than laughing at them or demonizing them.

I told my brother and cousin that Nazis used to throw babies into A pit of fire upon arriving to A death camp.  This was in response to my cousin saying that the Russian soldiers were just following orders and I told him that this was the same defense used for Nazi death camps.  They both started laughing and talking about the assembly line to pass the babies to the pit of fire.  My brother asked "why are we laughing?".  I told him it is because the horror I am describing is so far outside your paradigm and comprehension that it seems insane, ridiculous, cartoonishly evil, and impossible.  My brother agreed that it is insane.

A woman was sexually assaulted by a man who took off the condom during sex.  She didn't say anything out of the fear that he would hurt her more because he is clearly willing to break boundaries.  She was also a rape victim and telling the attacker to stop made it worse.  The community laughed at her and came up with reasons why the victim was a fool while shifting the blame away from the criminal.

A similar thing happens in scams.  People laugh at you for being stupid and gullible.  I had a close call with a fake job interview.  After the incident I told my friend at chess club and he never heard about fake job interviews either.  I told him about the red flags to look out for that he didn't know about.  People conflate stupidity with ignorance.  Ignorance can be corrected through education, but stupidity cannot be reasoned with.  Even so a lack of compassion for stupidity can be problematic as well.

I realized ego is going to be like this on every issue all the way until the end.  This creates the struggle between higher and lower consciousness, not left against right.  Even now I lack compassion for all kinds of people I don't understand.  I have to force myself not laugh as I logically understand that the situation is bad and the person needs help. I then choose to operate off of logic instead.  This is still a limited form of compassion and it creates inner conflict.  Only when something happens to me do I now have compassion for other victims.

How would your compassion for the homeless change of you had to live with no money or house for one month?

What if you had to go to prison for one month?

A big one Is psychedelics when people say "oh no your doing drugs" while laughing and refusing to look at the research.

Is there a way to improve compassion without subjecting ourselves to these things?  An interesting connection is that when enough people are hurt by something, the collective ego now cares enough to change.  Otherwise, they will be laughed at for being lazy criminals if they are homeless.

Most importantly, how should we approach the ignorant superiority complex in ourselves and others?  Ourselves is the easiest if we can write about it and self reflect even if we don't have access to psychedelics.  From here we can lead by example, and this seems like the best way.  Other egos may be too close minded to reason with. In my experience arguing can just cause people to dig themselves in even deeper by doubling down on their behavior to spite you.