Something I Have Learnt Recently

ThailandTom

I have realised something recently about how I or we as people view others and react to others. We all have our own morals and our ways of acting in social situations, that is a given. But I have noticed how I label people mentally sometimes based on an event or events. Say for example me on here, sometimes I am brash, outspoken and maybe foolish, other times I may be compassionate, willing to put my opinion forward with no anger or whatever. If we base what we think about someone on a certain situation or event, every time we think of this person we will see them in that way when in fact they are ever changing. It is in effect creating a self of everyone else. Creating these selves may hide the positive aspects to their personality and prevent you from experiencing them and sharing in them, on the other hand you may be amazed or captivated by someone for a specific reason or event so you may miss their negative aspects and then get burnt for it.

tmottes

ThailandTom said:

I have realised something recently about how I or we as people view others and react to others. We all have our own morals and our ways of acting in social situations, that is a given. But I have noticed how I label people mentally sometimes based on an event or events. Say for example me on here, sometimes I am brash, outspoken and maybe foolish, other times I may be compassionate, willing to put my opinion forward with no anger or whatever. If we base what we think about someone on a certain situation or event, every time we think of this person we will see them in that way when in fact they are ever changing. It is in effect creating a self of everyone else. Creating these selves may hide the positive aspects to their personality and prevent you from experiencing them and sharing in them, on the other hand you may be amazed or captivated by someone for a specific reason or event so you may miss their negative aspects and then get burnt for it.

Have you noticed that for the most part people tend to act as you view them?

ThailandTom

hehe @tmottes nice little thought provoker there.

Colome

I don't presume to be wise, but i think that people are the way they are for a reason. What takes up their personality is based on experiences, likes and dislikes. Perhaps from their perspective negative and positive are different than your definition. In this aspect perhaps the best thing to do is realize is that most people just want to be happy. Their positive and negative traits leads to what they believe is happiness. In this way if you were to look at only their positivity and the things they like from their perspective you can gain happiness yourself just by being around them.For perspective is really everything isn't it. After all "we are what we think."

ThailandTom

Colome said:

I don't presume to be wise, but i think that people are the way they are for a reason. What takes up their personality is based on experiences, likes and dislikes. Perhaps from their perspective negative and positive are different than your definition. In this aspect perhaps the best thing to do is realize is that most people just want to be happy. Their positive and negative traits leads to what they believe is happiness. In this way if you were to look at only their positivity and the things they like from their perspective you can gain happiness yourself just by being around them.For perspective is really everything isn't it. After all "we are what we think."

My point was a person is not set in stone, their personality will fluctuate from situation to situation, from day to day. Just like you, you are not permanent, yet you have traits. However those traits are subject to change like everything is. Of course everyone wants to be happy, that is the natural goal of a human being, yet the vast majority stumble through life in ignorance not actually letting go of the goal, the self and everything else life has to throw at them. To be happy IMO is to be able to accept this is the way it is and to see it for what it is.

Wisdom23

I also agree with this but i think on some level the way we view others is partly to do with the way we view ourselves. If we can easily find flaws in ourselves then we can find floors in others whilst if we can love and except ourselves we can transfer this quality onto others

lobster

I have learned, that knowing and applying is the Middle Way
. . . and nobody said it would be easy . . . sometimes it is . . .

FullCircle

This reminds me of when we only know someone from what we witness and things we hear- and so we create a story in our heads about them. Then one day we get the chance to talk to them and turns out none of our story was true! I think awakening must be like realizing the whole story we've created about Ourselves isn't true!

pegembara

This reminds me of a story by de Mello which goes like this:

There's a story about Ramirez. He is old and living up there in his castle on a hill. He looks out the window (he's in bed and paralyzed) and he sees his enemy. Old as he is, leaning on a cane, his enemy is climbing up the hill -- slowly, painfully. It takes him about two and a half hours to get up the hill. There's nothing Ramirez can do because the servants have the day off. So his enemy opens the door, comes straight to the bedroom, puts his hand inside his cloak, and pulls out a gun. He says, "At last, Ramirez, we're going to settle scores!" Ramirez tries his level best to talk him out of it. He says, "Come on, Borgia, you can't do that. You know I'm no longer the man who ill-treated you as that youngster years ago, and you're no longer that youngster. Come off it!" "Oh no," says his enemy, ''your sweet words aren't going to deter me from this divine mission of mine. It's revenge I want and there's nothing you can do about it." And Ramirez says, "But there is!" "What?" asks his enemy. "I can wake up," says Ramirez. And he did; he woke up! That's what enlightenment is like. When someone tells you, "There is nothing you can do about it," you say, "There is, I can wake up!" All of a sudden, life is no longer the nightmare that it has seemed. Wake up!

tmottes

This all reminds me of a bit of sartre's idea of bad faith.