It seems to me that there are more people hurting in this world than helping. There is a negative emotional cash flow. If you hurt, but are not giving, then you are either taking, or wanting.
The logic of Christianity, of love, is simple: if you want the world to attain a positive emotional balance, then you have to give rather than receive. You have to take the hatred you are offered and at least not make it worse, and ideally soften and even end it.
Looking at the world around him, the solution of Christ was eminently logical. He never ended Mosaic Law, but rather completed it, by pointing out the important parts. If thou shalt not kill, then thou shalt not kill ANY part of a person. Thou shalt not attack them, hurt them. Thou shalt honor that which is sublime in this world. Thou shalt honor those who made you who you are, and in so doing honor yourself and those who will follow you. Thou shalt not be envious and resentful.
As I see it, victory over another person consists not in attaining their submission, but rather in helping them untangle knots in their own lives that prevent their full creative expressive potential from manifesting, and thereby infecting the world with the new, the joyous, the beautiful. That is victory. That is winning. That is the goal. Everything else is failure in pursuit of success.
Coda:
Tonight I sat next to a woman at a bar wrestling with addiction to crack cocaine. I found this out because I am good at finding things out. She in any event wanted me to know that she was moving in with a man who did not do drugs, because she was going to conquer her habit.
I watched her, at once hopelessly furious with herself, helpless, lonely, longing, confident, sure, antagonistic, supplicating, earnest and disingenuous. Back and forth, in furious circles. I said the things one says, but I don’t think it will do any good. She is consuming herself, like a star in the grip of a black hole. She knows what she is doing, but the reasons she has to live for aren’t enough to keep her off drugs.
Did Elvis Presley commit suicide? Yes, in my view. So did Michael Jackson. The details don’t matter. If you are doing things to yourself that you know will shorten your life, you have chosen to shorten your life, no? A=A?
Christ came that we might have more life, which means more meaning, more love, more purpose, more “place”. We are not all that different.
She was on my left. To my right were two Indians with very thick accents who insisted they were born in America. Bring up the Middle East or Pakistan, though, and you got some fierce words and looks. Kashmir: “why don’t they just man up and bring it on?”
Circles–life is circles. Here is an example. I’m not drunk, either: this is how I am. It does collate from time to time, though, which is when I’m perhaps more worth reading. I feel deeply, but how does one blog that? You don’t, of course.