Photo credit: Architect of the Capitol
109 On the threshold of wealth
The prophecy
This happiness blog
accommodates sadness (article
63) by appropriately practicing
empathy. Glee over misfortune is insensitive. Denying suffering
is mislabeling of reality. When someone suffers injury, it does
not help to incur the same injury so as to feel the same
pain. Article 45 taught the
need to preserve strength for overcoming the effects of the pain.
If you are limping, I share the pain by using two healthy legs to
carry you.
The expectation that
autocratic rule by the minority will abruptly end in America this
month is simplistic. The country’s pain is not a person. It is
anger. The pain will endure as long as the anger, regardless
of personnel changes. We must not expect that replacing the
actors changes the script. If any of us continue to follow the
discordant playbook, we are perpetuating the pain into the
future. Attempting to get even and to override others is scripted
discord.
Putting others first—again
A fundamental teaching
here relates self to others. A good illustration is the phrase
“getting ahead.” Article 71 pointed out
that getting ahead of the rent payments is good and
getting ahead of other people is evil. From the ground up, from
the moment of birth, America teaches its rising generation to
“get ahead.” That fosters not only dissatisfaction and
discontent, it also drives people apart as competing
entities.
My self-awareness is not realizing that I
am better than other people. Much to the contrary, it is
awakening to the reality that I am ordinary like other
people. Sentience is to be aware that I exist in the context of
my equals—that is, the human species. The series building up to
article 78 replaces discord with “we” by blending self with
other, culminating in
article 106. Today I observe that anger is a
characteristic symptom of regarding self over others.
Separation alleviated
Taken together, we people
are a priceless collection. Being bonded in mutuality is the
foundation of happiness, the only assurance of completeness.
Viewed apart, separated from each other, we are ineffective
competitors. Triumph over the other expresses selfishness, not
completeness. Imagine the discord in a family if any member takes
pleasure when another member of the family does not
succeed. That flies in the face of the most primitive level of
decency. The meaning for which I exist is the benefit I am to the
family. That is the strongest motivation for my excellence: I
exist in a happier state because of my effect on others. Their
happiness is the tide that lifts my boat.
Is it fair to point out
that I am not a writer if there are no readers? My chosen new
occupation is evident interdependence, and happiness is the
effect I receive in return for the effect I have on you. I am
aware that my effusive happiness must not mask my understanding
of and empathy for less happy people. The “share the pain”
principle above is that I must not cause pain to either of us to
equalize us at the low end. I must invite, lift, and carry the
shared load to bring us both to the high end. What is good for
you blesses me.
Application
It is time to apply the
panacea taught in Article 95:
understanding. Winners and losers of elections, such as
the terms are used, need to emulate the candidate Owl of
articles 79 and
80. Those articles
detail the process of making each other look good without taking
credit. Every change, every resetting of course, provides some
degree of fresh start in this constructive process. It was so
beautifully expressed in George H. W. Bush’s emphasis on the
“kinder, gentler America.” With a dramatic personnel change
underway, we have the perfect moment to institute that more
divine order.
I call us to
selflessness. We are all sentient beings intelligent enough to
realize mutual benefit. Success over others is the opposite of
that.
My accumulated teachings
about other ahead of self apply to this moment of history. Those
who concentrate on fulfilling themselves will spin off into their
own silo worlds in what they think is their superiority—the “not
heaven” described in
article 99. Those who understand the allegory of article 50 will become
aware that there are others in the building and will share the
light.
I choose to study our
disappointments and reorient them into positive expectations.
What neither side achieved by brute force will be exceeded as
each concentrates on meeting the needs of the other. There is no
joy in a partisan victory. Our joy lies in being the new America
where we sincerely care about the least of these (our
neighbors).
I remind readers that
laws do not make us who we are. They reflect who we are. If we
are great, it is not because of the economy. It is the state of
our magnanimity. When we elevate others above ourselves, over 200
million Americans have our backs. Let’s not let them down. Each
benefit to my neighbor enriches every one of us.
Being For Others Blog copyright © 2021 Kent Busse
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