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The price of rightJanuary 23, 2005 | 12:34 AMDave over at The Grace Pages has a wickedly awesome post on the way we obsess about not looking weak or foolish, and why defending ourselves in the pursuit of being understood should not be our first priority. "It's about having the attitude of Christ. He didn't rush to defend himself every time. At the most crucial (pun intended) moment in his entire mission, he refused point-blank to prove himself to the world. It takes real guts -- a God-kind of power that the world sees only as weakness -- to stand there dumb as a sheep before his shearers and say nothing in the face of accusation. How hard I find that." Holy crap. So, Dave, are you saying I'm not supposed to shout back when someone labels my pacifism "cowardly?" What? WHAT? Should I really go about my life without explaining myself to death or busting any heads? Must I refrain from drilling my manifesto into the impressionable minds of my friends? I guess so. The older I get (damn that evil phrase) the more I learn that obsessively defending oneself doesn't take much strength or character. And it doesn't change any minds, either. But boy, show a little grace and people are fundamentally changed. There really is a lot of strength in "weakness." Comments:On The price of rightWhen I first read the title I thought it was "The Price is Right" but apparently that was my mind playing tricks on me. But I have to say I agree. One of the things that I recently realized is that when we go around trying to convince others that whatever believe we hold is true, it comes off as if we don't really believe in our position all that much ourselves and we're trying to convince ourselves it's true by making others believe what we believe. (If that makes any sense at all, and it might not because I'm really tired). Posted by: nikkiana at January 23, 2005 02:00 AMyes, it's me again. besides the fact that I think this post is awesome, I wanted to tell you that I accidenteally left that note in a december entry b/c I can't navigate sites for nothin'. :) Thanks for the interesting read! Posted by: Felisha at January 23, 2005 04:04 AMOK, I tend to do this, too. I comment quite a bit over on DavidCorn.com, and I tend to enjoy the verbal-combat aspect of it. Over at rense.com, Greg Palast has a good article, "Oaf of Office". I would warn against believing most of the other stuff you'll find there, though. Rense puts a lot of fringe-science and pseudo-science on his site; "alternative" medicine, aka quackery, infests the site as well, alongside Holocaust denial and satanic-conspiracy hokum. (I don't discount all conspiracies, but most of them are nonsense, especially those involving non-human persons. For an exception to my own rule, check out letsroll911.org By the way, I mentioned your site over on DavidCorn.com, so maybe you'll get some new voices around here. "There are monsters, there are angels/There's a peacefulness and a rage inside us all/There is sugar, and there is salt/There is ice and there is fire in everyone's heart/There are monsters, there are angels"---Voice of the Beehive, "Monsters and Angels" From the Phantom Zone, Monster from the Id Posted by: Monster from the Id at January 23, 2005 04:11 AMI forgot to mention, a good place to check before you buy any "alternative" medicine products or consult any such practitioners is quackwatch.com. From the Phantom Zone, Monster from the Id Posted by: Monster from the Id at January 23, 2005 04:14 AMD'oh! I meant quackwatch.org! From the Phantom Zone, Monster from the Id Posted by: Monster from the Id at January 23, 2005 04:17 AM"The older I get (damn that evil phrase)... HA! You think "twentysomething" is noticeably aging? Wait'll you hit 41! From the Phantom Zone, Monster from the Id Posted by: Monster from the Id at January 23, 2005 04:24 AMHi Drina A Simply beautiful post - I've linked to this. Cheers - Steve Posted by: Steve at January 23, 2005 03:39 PM
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Drina Vurbic 2004 |
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Sayonara.
