Perhaps you think this wasn't a good choice, but I say to you this... I am a woman, you are a man, that changes what choices can be good for us. You talk from the hypothetical, I have lived experience, that changes things too. And then, my dear, there is the simple fact that we are different people and different people need different courses of action, treatments and the freedom to choose what is healthy and best for them. Finally, we get to the most basic point of all, I said "no," and I think you'll find the definition of that word is quite clear. No means no, asshole, so if you're done humiliating me, the door is right where you left it.
A marathon is one step at a time. Heroics are one good choice at a time - choices to do the right thing even when it is the harder thing to do. You're made of the right stuff kid, I believe in you.
As Aristotle alluded to, as is spoken of in "Nicomachean Ethics," when science and the arts are made subordinate to another aim such as military or money, it fundamentally alters them and changes their results and nature, moving from healthy diversity of discovery to a funnelled narrow view. Yet the sciences and the arts are born out of a feeling of goodness, "The good is that at which all things aim."
And it became the fashion in those times for the rich to buy homes for the poor. They got them cheap and the charities made them beautiful inside and out. The homes were then either donated or put into long trusts so they would always be homes for those who needed them. It was true investing, investing in what really matters to our nation, our kids and their parents. As for accumulating interest? It did. But it was the right sort of interest, that in the wellbeing of our hearts and the mending our our society. As things turn out, a "Housing act" can be an "Act" of generosity and nothing to do with the law. I guess it became part of our "lore" instead, part of our instinct for fairness and doing right by each other. We all cried from happiness. There were back to back renovation shows on the television showing the homes that were made so lovely and with such love. We watched the families move in, the relief only a sense of home and security can bring. I think we were born anew in those times, everyone of all faiths and backgrounds "mucking in." Those were good times, that transition. We got to feel good again and that had been missing for too long. Nobody cared about the "rich list" anymore, the only list anyone talked about was the "homes or land donated list" and they were new superstars in their own way - the ones who chose giving and showed that love was the more powerful force within them.
Good choices are made not on the journey, but in a moment, at a fork in the road. This is how the brain is; it is how we are. Forward motion comes best when the primitive drive and the higher social brain agree on a path. Let's say there is someone new in your life you would like to get to know better. Well, your primitive drive and social brain agree with each other, the social brain may wish to help them, show empathy and make a loving bond. The primitive brain may see them as a potential mate or ally in difficulty, yet the primitive brain is also ready to hurt them if they become threatening... and this happens regardless of our dominant conscious thoughts. You may have chosen to acknowledge only part of this reasoning, or all of it, or none of it, either way it is there. No choice has been made, it is all potential, as if you were driving down a road toward a fork and had made no choice as to which direction to take. The brain is ready to respond to the environment and chart a new course if necessary. The brain that can see though the lens of its own need and the lens of the needs of the other, open enough to make a loving bond yet able to close the door to the heart if there is emotional coldness from the other, is healthy. And this model of good choices comes up in everything we do.
We travel our road with all options open, yet over time our choices start to build a habitual preference for love or indifference, to bond or not, for acceptance or hostility, and this changes our brain development. So, how can we make more choices for empathy? Well, if we go back the driving down the road analogy, what is playing on your "radio"? What are your background thoughts? Do they hold you to a moral line, a predisposition to love and be kind? Do they excuse you for coldness and selfish behaviour? Are you playing the songs of love or selfishness? Because there is the balance between your higher social brain and your primitive drive. This is the point of choice.
"Did you ever wonder if our "good" choices are our "god" choices? That they are the ones we do from a sense of love and duty for others and the self? Because, Andre, I think they are."
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