The more I've lived life and observed nature as well as human nature, I've come to the conclusion that I was wrong. For every spider Ive allowed to escape without consequences, I awake with a new spider bite, just as if I were to give a homeless man twenty dollars, he'd likely go spend it on something other than food or clothing.
The good will of humans towards other humans is not in itself detrimental towards mankind as a whole. A human choosing to be a vegetarian or vegan makes no positive or negative difference in the overall spectrum of life and death of animals. However, if a human in times without electricity, transportation, and reliable means of food were to choose not to eat meat entirely because it felt that it was inhumane to do so, the human race would likely not exist. Why? Before supermarkets and fast food, meat was a year round source of carbohydrates and protein. If we were to have evolved as a herbivore we might be more similar to a Panda now, who's inability to adapt to the dwindling bamboo resource has caused it to be threatened by extinction.
Sensitivity towards other living creatures is essential to sustainable life on earth. You shouldn't over consume any resource (I'm talking to you Pandas) if you hope to continue existence, but at the same time you cannot be blind to reality. Sometimes animals have to eat other animals. If those animals are intelligent enough, they learn to develop an adequate defense against predators.
There has been, in recent years, a movement toward acceptance and treating everyone as equals which, again, is not all bad. But living in a world where you can't be honest about the way things are and make a reasonable judgement on someone based on how they dress, what their belief system is, and if they are conscious enough to take care of themselves physically, is asking for the snake to bite you.
Should you hate a Muslim because they have a different belief than you? No! But you can look at a Muslim in comparison to an atheist and conclude the Muslim is more likely to strap a bomb to their chest and blow up a building. Should you hate someone because of their skin color? Absolutely not! But you can look at someone with sagging pants, a grill in their mouth, a chain around their neck and an all red outfit, and conclude that based on their upbringing, they most likely have a different sense of morality than you.
Just because you make assumptions, doesn't mean they're true, but no ones ever been a fool to logically play the odds in life.
It isn't popular to say in a world where everyone wants to be offended by everything, but if you're afraid to point out that Shabrille can't get a job because he doesn't speak proper English and can't pull his pants up for a job interview, he is much less likely to figure it out on his own. If you can't tell Billy Bob with two teeth and overalls that he's never going to leave his small Podunk town because he can't say his alphabet in the right order, he's probably going to die of alcoholism or mouth cancer before the age of seventy. If you can't tell Desiree that she's never going to get skinny as long as she eats fast food twice a day and drinks Dr. Pepper for breakfast lunch and dinner in between her pack of cigarettes she digs into once an hour, she's much more likely to die of heart disease in her fifties. If you pay your twenty-two year old son who lives in the loft upstairs one hundred dollars a week to take the trash out, he might have a harder time kicking the heroin addiction.
It may seem a little cruel, but they don't have the saying 'it is what it is' for no reason, because generally, it is. And if you're afraid to point out the obvious because you don't want to be considered a bully or one of the overused terms circulating social media now (fatshamer, islamaphobic, transphobic, homophobic, racist, misogynist, etc., etc.) then you are doomed to be stuck in a society with a consistent elephant in the room. If you can't adapt on an individual level to survive, then you won't survive. Basic Darwanism.
Does that mean call out every religious person, fat person, ignorant redneck or thug? Of course not, but it isn't ok to shy away from the truth in defense of someone's feelings either. The best conduit for growth is truth. Sometimes the best opportunity to objectively look at yourself and your flaws is when your heart is broken, and sometimes destruction is the best catalyst for growth. Nothing rejuvenates a landscape like a catastrophic fire, and it's ok to strike fire in the hearts of the complacent.
It's ok to be honest. It's ok to be realistic. It's ok to be blunt. And it's ok to still have compassion for other people's circumstances while being all of those things. And if you kill the spider, it's not always because you hate it or fear it, it's because in real life there are no handouts. In real life your kindness towards the spider will result in you being bit nine times out of ten. For your own protection, it might be in your best interest to kill it before it bites you.
Advocacy for social justice causes are a distraction from the real hard truths of life on earth and beyond, and while compassion may not be a detriment to society, distraction from reality is. If a society cant hold a standard for truth and honesty on an individual level, how can it on a cultural level? If you are dishonest in the reality of circumstances ( such as the Ferguson police shooting), then you are indirectly advocating a lack of honesty on all levels, from your children, your friends, your significant other, and even your own government.
John Lennon was not entirely correct to say 'all you need is love,' because, as best stated by Henry David Thoreau, "Rather than money, fame, or love, give me truth." And truth will be the starting point for a positive change in humanity.
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