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From: laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Re: getting over it... - (nf)
Message-ID: <3482@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 28-Jan-84 01:22:51 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.3482
Posted: Sat Jan 28 01:22:51 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 28-Jan-84 01:22:51 EST
References: <1379@pur-ee.UUCP>, <1651@utcsstat.UUCP>, <915@proper.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 45

No, Gordon Moffett, I am that incredibly insensitive.

The trouble is that I would like you and everybody else to be that
insensitive as well. Sensitivity is nice "understanding that someone
is in pain", but it is insensitivity "it's your problem and you
have got to do something about it" which is what is useful.

People who are suffering are no fun to be around, and they are no fun
on themselves. The idea is to do something so that people stop suffering.
Now, there are several sorts of pain, but the 2 most common are sheer
physical pain (ie I just dropped two boxes of lpr paper on my foot) and
emotional pain.

Okay. Physical pain hurts. But, when you stop doing that which causes the
pain, it stops.  Emotional pain tends to drag on, and on, and on.

What is emotional pain? Every single case I can come across is the pain
of dissapointment -- the world didn't give me what I expected of it.

So, assume that we have identified the problem. Now what do you do when
people are in pain?

if you think that you can "stop their pain" then you are either terribly
conceited or you do not understand the problem. The problem is *not* that
"they did not get X which they wanted", the problem is that they wanted
X in the first place to such an extent that not-X would put them into a
state of pain. Unfortunately, nobody can fiddle with somebody else's
insides to make them become less attatched to the world as-they-would-like
it. This one is one that everybody has to do for themselves. It is also
doable.

So, what you have to do is convince somebody that it is worth their while
to give up the attatchment and not be in pain any more. This is a lot
harder than it sounds, firstly because a lot of people love their pain,
(or at any rate, llike it enought hat they aren't willing to try something
else) and secondly because you have to find out more-or-less precisely
what it is that you were attached to in order that you can drop it.

But, until you are convinced that your self-pity is your own problem,
there is no way that you will look and try to find out what it is that
youare attatched to which is causing the problem. Until then, you are
busy blaming it on something else, which is a cop-out.

Laura Creighton (NOTE NEW ADDRESS)
utzoo!laura