Idiot Compassion Quotes

Compassion was the most important, perhaps the sole law of human existence.

Above all, I didn't want to fall into the trap that Buddhists call idiot compassion - an apt phrase, given John's worldview. In idiot compassion, you avoid rocking the boat to spare people's feelings, even though the boat needs rocking and your compassion ends up being more harmful than your honesty. People do this with teenagers, spouses, addicts, even themselves. Its opposite is wise compassion, which means caring about the person but also giving him or her a loving truth bomb when needed.

It never ceases to amaze me the precious time we spend chasing the squirrels around our brains, playing out our dramas, worrying about unwanted facial hair, seeking adoration, justifying our actions, complaining about slow Internet connections, dissecting the lives of idiots, when we are sitting in the middle of a full-blown miracle that is happening right here, right now. We're on a planet that somehow knows how to rotate on its axis and follow a defined path while it hurtles through space! Our hearts beat! We can see! We have love, laughter, language, living rooms, computers, compassion, cars, fire, fingernails, flowers, music, medicine, mountains, muffins!

Compassion was the principal and, perhaps, the only law of existence for the whole of mankind.

indulging others’ harmful behavior is what many Buddhist teachers call “idiot compassion.” If anything, true, not-idiot compassion should afford you more energy to make the necessary boundaries and changes.

In idiot compassion, you avoid rocking the boat to spare people’s feelings, even though the boat needs rocking and your compassion ends up being more harmful than your honesty. People do this with teenagers, spouses, addicts, even themselves. Its opposite is wise compassion, which means caring about the person but also giving him

Imagine walking along a sidewalk with your arms full of groceries, and someone roughly bumps into you so that you fall and your groceries are strewn over the ground. As you rise up from the puddle of broken eggs and tomato juice, you are ready to shout out, 'You idiot! What's wrong with you? Are you blind?' But just before you can catch your breath to speak, you see that the person who bumped into you is actually blind. He, too, is sprawled in the spilled groceries, and your anger vanishes in an instant, to be replaced by sympathetic concern: 'Are you hurt? Can I help you up?' Our situation is like that. When we clearly realize that the source of disharmony and misery in the world is ignorance, we can open the door of wisdom and compassion.

The beer got him, and, for a moment, a rush of idiot compassion urged him to hug a pinch-faced man in brown overalls who sat on a stool surrounded by primitive paintings of Jesus engaged in various farm chores (milking a cow, driving a tractor, killing a hog), but the desire to comfort the untalented, the misguided, left Wally before he could act.

In idiot compassion, you avoid rocking the boat to spare people’s feelings, even though the boat needs rocking and your compassion ends up being more harmful than your honesty.

The world can understand well enough the process of perishing for want of food: perhaps few persons can enter into or follow out that of going mad from solitary confinement. They see the long-buried prisoner disinterred, a maniac or an idiot!—how his senses left him—how his nerves, first inflamed, underwent nameless agony, and then sunk to palsy—is a subject too intricate for examination, too abstract for popular comprehension…And long, long may the minds to whom such themes are no mystery—by whom their beings are sympathetically seized—be few in number, and rare of reencounter. Long may it be generally thought that physical privations alone merit compassion, and that the rest is a figment.

Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön warns against what she insightfully terms “idiot compassion”—using kindness to avoid conflict when a resounding “no” is required. I completely agree. To preserve our emotional freedom, we must know where to draw the line.

Nastasha Filippovna,' said Myshkin softly and as it were with compassion, 'I told you just now that I would take your consent as an honor, and that you are doing me an honor, not I you. You smiled at those words, and I heard people laughing about us. I may have expressed myself very absurdly and have been absurd myself, but I thought all the time that I... understood the meaning of honor, and I am sure I spoke the truth. You wanted to ruin yourself just now irrevocably; for you'd never have forgiven yourself for it afterwards. But you are not to blame for anything. Your life cannot be altogether ruined. What does it matter that Rogozhin did come to you and Gavril Ardalionovitch tried to deceive you? Why will you go on dwelling on it? Few people would do what you have done, I tell you that again. As for your meaning to go with Rogozhin, you were ill when you meant to do it. You are ill now, and you had much better go to bed. You would have gone off to be a washerwoman next day; you wouldn't have stayed with Rogozhin. You are proud, Nastasha Filippovna; but perhaps you are so unhappy as really to think yourself to blame. You want a lot of looking after, Nastasha Filippovna. I will look after you. I saw your portrait this morning and I felt as though I recognized a face that I knew. I felt as though you had called to me already... I shall respect you all my life Nastasha Filippovna.

Successful friendship, like successful therapy, is a balance of deference and defiance. It involves showing positive regard, but also calling people on their self-deceptions. The Buddhists have a useful phrase for unconditional positive regard: “idiot compassion,” which is the kind of empathy that never challenges people’s stories or threatens to hurt their feelings. It consoles but also conceals. So Gottlieb challenged John, but not too aggressively. She realized she could only prod him at the pace he was comfortable with or he would flee. She was trying to make him curious about himself with her questions. “Typically therapists are several steps ahead

Davis’s fundamental ambition was to prove that dark-skinned people were created separately from light-skinned people. He was convinced that a person’s intellect and moral compass were indelibly written in the curves and apertures of the skull and that these were exclusively products of race and class. People with “cephalic peculiarities” should be treated “not as criminals but as dangerous idiots,” he suggested. In 1878, at the age of seventy-seven, he married a woman fifty years his junior. What her cranium was like is unknown.

she, being human, could not resist the satisfaction of pouring even more poison into her brother’s heart by exaggerating the calamity, even though she loved him sincerely and with compassion.

I believe that evil is directly proportional to idiocy. I believe that the territory you roamed in anguish before you disappeared is ruled by idiots. It isn’t true that criminals are masterminds. It takes a vast amount of stupidity to assemble the parts of such grotesque, absurd, and cruel machinery. Pure brutality disguised as a masterplan. Small people, with small minds, who don’t understand the abyss of the other. They lack the language or tools for it. Empathy and compassion require a clear mind. Putting yourself in someone else’s shoes, changing your skin, adopting a new face: these are all acts of genuine intelligence.

since it needs a singularly large dose of goodwill to believe that the governing classes are respectable and that the lower classes are worthy of assistance or compassion, it seems to me,’ des Esseintes concluded, ‘to be neither ridiculous nor insane to ask of my fellow man a sum total of illusion barely equal to that which he spends each day on his idiotic purposes,

The United States now fights wars with more care, precision, compassion, and humanity than wars have ever been fought in the history of the world. Anyone who doubts the purity of our intentions and the compassion and precision of the modern U.S. military should read some history, and if they still can’t appreciate how careful and respectful the US military is while conducting war, it’s because they’re a fucking idiot.

And what about your brother, Agus? Will he be entertaining us with his pipes?” “Agg,” Shanks rasped, wrinkling his nose. “I didn’t tell you? He ain’t with us no more.” A heavy fist slammed on the arm of the Viidun’s chair as he growled, “The idiot went off and got himself killed!” “What?” Derian and Eena replied in unison, both horrified by the news. “You heard me!” Shanks bellowed. “The crazy fool should’ve known when to duck. He died in a bloody challenge with some brainless Deramptium! A downright disgraceful way to die! I’m ashamed to say he was my brother!” “That’s a little harsh, isn’t it?” Eena muttered, mostly speaking to Derian. “What was that?” the Viidun demanded. Derian whispered a hush to Eena. Addressing Shanks, he expressed their condolences. “We are truly sorry for your loss. Your brother will be sorely missed. On the other hand, we look forward to welcoming you and your crew aboard the Kemeniroc.” Derian held up his right hand, extending his thumb and two adjoining fingers. “Strength, truth, and honor, friend,” he said, ending their conversation. “Strength, truth, and honor,” Shanks repeated. The screen went black. The captain turned to Eena who was still in shock. “You have to understand,” he explained, “the Viiduns are a fiercely competitive people with proud, warring ways. Their culture doesn’t call for much sympathy, especially when it appears one of their own has failed to live up to expectations.” Eena was still disturbed by the lack of compassion. “But that was his brother.” “I know. I can hardly believe it myself. Shanks and Agus were very close. They traveled everywhere together. All I can figure is it’s easier for Shanks to express his anger than his anguish.” “After all that, I’m not sure I want to meet him in person. He scares me,” she admitted. Derian laughed. “He scares everyone. That’s why you want to keep him as an ally and not make him an enemy.

You read The Idiot, right? Right. Well, ‘Idiot’ was very disturbing book to me. In fact it was so disturbing I have never really read very many fictions after, apart from Dragon Tattoo kind of thing. Because”—I was trying to interject—“well, maybe you can tell me about that later, what you thought, but let me tell you why I found it disturbing. Because all Myshkin ever did was good… unselfish… he treated all persons with understanding and compassion and what resulted from this goodness? Murder! Disaster! I used to worry about this a lot. Lie awake at night and worry! Because—why? How could this be? I read that book like three times, thinking I wasn’t understanding right. Myshkin was kind, loved everyone, he was tender, always forgave, he never did a wrong thing—but he trusted all the wrong people, made all bad decisions, hurt everyone around him. Very dark message to this book. ‘Why be good.’ But—this is what took hold on me last night, riding here in the car. What if—is more complicated than that? What if maybe opposite is true as well? Because, if bad can sometimes come from good actions—? where does it ever say, anywhere, that only bad can come from bad actions? Maybe sometimes—the wrong way is the right way? You can take the wrong path and it still comes out where you want to be? Or, spin it another way, sometimes you can do everything wrong and it still turns out to be right?

Alan Wallace illustrates this truth from the Tibetan teachings: Imagine walking along a sidewalk with your arms full of groceries, and someone roughly bumps into you so that you fall and your groceries are strewn over the ground. As you rise up from the puddle of broken eggs and tomato juice, you are ready to shout out, “You idiot! What’s wrong with you? Are you blind?” But just before you can catch your breath to speak, you see that the person who bumped into you actually is blind. He, too, is sprawled in the spilled groceries, and your anger vanishes in an instant, to be replaced by sympathetic concern: “Are you hurt? Can I help you up?” Our situation is like that. When we clearly realize that the source of disharmony and misery in the world is ignorance, we can open the door of wisdom and compassion.

The brutality of the regime knows no bounds. It does not remain neutral towards the people here; it creates beasts in its own image out of ordinary people who might have been neighbors instead. Even more dangerous was the fact that the fundamentals of humanity and the ABCs of life have been eviscerated from the hearts of many people here. State television destroys human compassion, the sort of fundamental empathy that is not contingent upon a political or even a cultural orientation, and through which one human being can relate to another. The al-Dunya channel stirs up hatred, broadcasts fake news and maligns any opposing viewpoint. I wasn't the only one subjected to internet attacks by the security services and the Ba'thists, even if the campaign against me may be fiercer because I come from the Alawite community and have a lot of family connections to them -- because I am a woman and it's supposedly easier to break me with rumors and character assassinations and insults. Some of my actress friends who expressed sympathy for the children of Dar'a and called for an end to the siege of the city were subjected to a campaign of character assassinations and called traitors, then forced to appear on state television in order to clarify their position. Friends who expressed sympathy for the families of the martyrs would get insulted, they would be called traitors and accused of being foreign spies. People became afraid to show even a little bit of sympathy for one another, going against the basic facts of life, the slightest element of what could be called the laws of human nature -- that is, if we indeed agree that sympathy is part of human nature in the first place. Moral and metaphorical murder is being carried out as part of a foolproof plan, idiotic but targeted, stupid yet leaving a mark on people's souls.

There are many people who have no idea what they should be living for, or the meaning of their lives, nor have they any guide to tell right from wrong. God looks down at people in that kind of spiritual fog, that spiritual stupidity, and he doesn’t say, “You idiots.” When we look at people who have brought trouble into their lives by their own foolishness, we say things like “Serves them right” or we mock them on social media: “What kind of imbecile says something like this?” When we see people of the other political party defeated, we just gloat. This is all a way of detaching ourselves from them. We distance ourselves from them partly out of pride and partly because we don’t want their unhappiness to be ours. God doesn’t do that. Real compassion, the voluntary attachment of our heart to others, means the sadness of their condition makes us sad; it affects us. That is deeply uncomfortable, but it is the character of compassion. (121)

laughed, it sounded as if he were in pain.” “What of his companion, the woman Selena? Did you meet her as well?” Jeod laughed. “If I had, I would not be here today. Morzan may have been a fearsome swordsman, a formidable magician, and a murderous traitor, but it was that woman of his who inspired the most terror in people. Morzan only used her for missions that were so repugnant, difficult, or secretive that no one else would agree to undertake them. She was his Black Hand, and her presence always signaled imminent death, torture, betrayal, or some other horror.” Eragon felt sick hearing his mother described thusly. “She was utterly ruthless, devoid of either pity or compassion. It was said that when she asked Morzan to enter his service, he tested her by teaching her the word for heal in the ancient language—for she was a spellcaster as well as a common fighter—and then pitting her against twelve of his finest swordsmen.” “How did she defeat them?” “She healed them of their fear and their hate and all the things that drive a man to kill. And then while they stood grinning at each other like idiot sheep, she went up to the men and cut their throats.…

Well—Bible school, Poland, it was a long time ago. Still. Because, what I am trying to say—what I was thinking in the car from Antwerp last night—good doesn’t always follow from good deeds, nor bad deeds result from bad, does it? Even the wise and good cannot see the end of all actions. Scary idea! Remember Prince Myshkin in The Idiot?” “I’m not really up for an intellectual talk right now.” “I know, I know, but hear me out. You read The Idiot, right? Right. Well, ‘Idiot’ was very disturbing book to me. In fact it was so disturbing I have never really read very many fictions after, apart from Dragon Tattoo kind of thing. Because”—I was trying to interject—“well, maybe you can tell me about that later, what you thought, but let me tell you why I found it disturbing. Because all Myshkin ever did was good… unselfish… he treated all persons with understanding and compassion and what resulted from this goodness? Murder! Disaster! I used to worry about this a lot. Lie awake at night and worry! Because—why? How could this be? I read that book like three times, thinking I wasn’t understanding right. Myshkin was kind, loved everyone, he was tender, always forgave, he never did a wrong thing—but he trusted all the wrong people, made all bad decisions, hurt everyone around him. Very dark message to this book. ‘Why be good.’ But—this is what took hold on me last night, riding here in the car. What if—is more complicated than that? What if maybe opposite is true as well? Because, if bad can sometimes come from good actions—? where does it ever say, anywhere, that only bad can come from bad actions? Maybe sometimes—the wrong way is the right way? You can take the wrong path and it still comes out where you want to be? Or, spin it another way, sometimes you can do everything wrong and it still turns out to be right?

It just goes to show you that the "R" and the "D" are meaningless - what really matters is whether someone believes in the spirit and unending compassion of the individual, or instead in the destructive power of the collective.

All Congresses and Parliaments have a kindly feeling for idiots, and a compassion for them, on account of personal experience and heredity.” For

Two weeks before coming to the hearing he had remarked privately, “All Congresses and Parliaments have a kindly feeling for idiots, and a compassion for them, on account of personal experience and heredity.

TOPOPHOBIA The Fear of Situations – Stagefright The average man has a pretty good opinion of himself. Lost in the anonymity of the crowd, protected by the mask he habitually wears against the scrutiny of the outside world, he performs his duties, does his work, fulfills his social obligations, and rests secure in his belief that he is equal to the ordinary emergencies of ordinary life. But take him away from this familiar environment, cut him off from the protective influence of his fellows, set him apart from the crowd, and however agreeable and flattering he may find his momentary distinction, he will miss the familiar devices that adorned his everyday life, the little tricks by which he “got by.” Set on a stage, he is viewed, as it were, naked, and in every gesture he reveals his incompetence. His erstwhile friends gaze at him across an empty space; their expectant air strips him of every studied platitude and leaves him stammering like an idiot. These people, whom he knows so well, are transformed into master-intellects, superior beings to whom he is as the anthropoid ape. Their merciless eyes penetrate to his soul, he feels their scorn as a whip on his back. His naked limbs knock together in terror, his teeth chatter, he feels icy hands clutching at his throat. The fond hopes that lured him to this traitorous pre-eminence desert him, and he babbles incoherencies in place of the golden words that were to win him applause. Back in the days when he was a child and the world was compassed by the walls of his house, he strutted before proud parents, gratifying his need for a stage on which to exhibit himself. Now his old love for personal display brings with it a concentrated fear that is the social punishment for his vanity.

Compassion, wisdom, power. When you have compassion and power but no wisdom, this is idiot compassion. Compassion and wisdom but no power—what can you achieve?” he shrugged. “All three are necessary, together.

In idiot compassion, you avoid rocking the boat to spare people’s feelings, even though the boat needs rocking and your compassion ends up being more harmful than your honesty. People do this with teenagers, spouses, addicts, even themselves. Its opposite is wise compassion, which means caring about the person but also giving him or her a loving truth bomb when needed.

Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön warns against what she calls “idiot compassion,” using kindness to avoid conflict when a definite no is required. There’s a right time to give and a right time to say no.

Above all, I didn’t want to fall into the trap that Buddhists call idiot compassion—an apt phrase, given John’s worldview. In idiot compassion, you avoid rocking the boat to spare people’s feelings, even though the boat needs rocking and your compassion ends up being more harmful than your honesty. People do this with teenagers, spouses, addicts, even themselves. Its opposite is wise compassion, which means caring about the person but also giving him or her a loving truth bomb when needed.

There’s certain types of men, Tara, that look for the best in people and use it against them. Compassion, forgiveness, a willingness to help, pity, love—that’s what they look for, and they use them against you. But those traits are not weaknesses. They’re strengths, and don’t ever let anyone convince you otherwise.” She shook her head. “Kevin’s an idiot. He can barely read. All my intelligence, and someone like him completely fooled me.” “You see the best in people. You can’t blame yourself for that.

idiot compassion, you avoid rocking the boat to spare people’s feelings, even though the boat needs rocking and your compassion ends up being more harmful than your honesty. People do this with teenagers, spouses, addicts, even themselves. Its opposite is wise compassion, which means caring about the person but also giving him or her a loving truth bomb when needed.

It never ceases to amaze me the precious time we spend chasing the squirrels around our brains, playing out our dramas, worrying about unwanted facial hair, seeking adoration, justifying our actions, complaining about slow Internet connections, dissecting the lives of idiots, when we are sitting in the middle of a full-blown miracle that is happening right here, right now. We’re on a planet that somehow knows how to rotate on its axis and follow a defined path while it hurtles through space! Our hearts beat! We can see! We have love, laughter, language, living rooms, computers, compassion, cars, fire, fingernails, flowers, music, medicine, mountains, muffins! We live in a limitless Universe overflowing with miracles! The fact that we aren’t stumbling around in an inconsolable state of sobbing awe is appalling. The Universe must be like, what more do I have to do to wake these bitches up? Make water, their most precious resource, rain down from the sky?

Above all, I didn’t want to fall into the trap that Buddhists call idiot compassion — an apt phrase, given John’s worldview. In idiot compassion, you avoid rocking the boat to spare people’s feelings, even though the boat needs rocking and your compassion ends up being more harmful than your honesty.

The doormat version of idiot compassion always involves allowing ourselves to feel walked all over in the name of idealizing what it means to be patient with another person’s aggressive behavior. It’s an unwillingness to face the uncomfortable truth that it’s okay to feel angry and irritated.

Thinking that we have to always burn our candle at both ends in order to benefit others is perhaps the greatest idiot compassion of all.

For once in your life be a total idiot, for the right cause, for there is no righter cause than the cause of humanity.

I wanted John to feel comfortable in therapy but not so comfortable that I wasn’t helping him. Above all, I didn’t want to fall into the trap that Buddhists call idiot compassion

Compassion, forgiveness, a willingness to help, pity, love—that’s what they look for, and they use them against you. But those traits are not weaknesses. They’re strengths, and don’t ever let anyone convince you otherwise.” She shook her head. “Kevin’s an idiot. He can barely read. All my intelligence, and someone like him completely fooled me.” “You see the best in people. You can’t blame yourself for that.” She wiped the last of her tears away. “Then you can’t either.” Yardley looked at Tara, and then she took her daughter’s hand and held it as they drove.

...kindness requires genius—that it's actually really hard. That facile kindness is not kindness, and that it will take you a while to have skills. To have kind impulses—to want to be kind—you can have right away. To be effectively kind is hard. It takes skill. It takes hard lessons. You'll never be perfect at it. To the degree you get anywhere with it, it’s the most rewarding thing ever.

You’ve taken the last of my Marmalade Surprises!” cries Mrs. Quoad, having now with conjuror’s speed produced an egg-shaped confection of pastel green, studded all over with lavender nonpareils. “Just for that I shan’t let you have any of these marvelous rhubarb creams.” Into her mouth it goes, the whole thing. “Serves me right,” Slothrop, wondering just what he means by this, sipping herb tea to remove the taste of the mayonnaise candy—oops but that’s a mistake, right, here’s his mouth filling once again with horrible alkaloid desolation, all the way back to the soft palate where it digs in. Darlene, pure Nightingale compassion, is handing him a hard red candy, molded like a stylized raspberry . . . mm, which oddly enough even tastes like a raspberry, though it can’t begin to take away that bitterness. Impatiently, he bites into it, and in the act knows, fucking idiot, he’s been had once more, there comes pouring out onto his tongue the most godawful crystalline concentration of Jeez it must be pure nitric acid, “Oh mercy that’s really sour,” hardly able to get the words out he’s so puckered up, exactly the sort of thing Hop Harrigan used to pull to get Tank Tinker to quit playing his ocarina, a shabby trick then and twice as reprehensible coming from an old lady who’s supposed to be one of our Allies, shit he can’t even see it’s up his nose and whatever it is won’t dissolve, just goes on torturing his shriveling tongue and crunches like ground glass among his molars.

It never ceases to amaze me the precious time we spend chasing the squirrels around our brains, playing out our dramas, worrying about unwanted facial hair, seeking adoration, justifying our actions, complaining about slow Internet connections, dissecting the lives of idiots, when we are sitting in the middle of a full-blown miracle that is happening right here, right now. We’re on a planet that somehow knows how to rotate on its axis and follow a defined path while it hurtles through space! Our hearts beat! We can see! We have love, laughter, language, living rooms, computers, compassion, cars, fire, fingernails, flowers, music, medicine, mountains, muffins! We live in a limitless Universe overflowing with miracles!

In idiot compassion, you avoid rocking the boat to spare people’s feelings, even though the boat needs rocking and your compassion ends up being more harmful than your honesty. People do this with teenagers, spouses, addicts, even themselves.

idiot compassion—an apt phrase, given John’s worldview. In idiot compassion, you avoid rocking the boat to spare people’s feelings, even though the boat needs rocking and your compassion ends up being more harmful than your honesty.

When the shame winds are whipping all around me, it’s almost impossible to hold on to any perspective or to recall anything good about myself. I went right into the bad self-talk of God, I’m such an idiot. Why did I do that? The greatest gift of having done this work (the research and the personal work) is that I can recognize shame when it’s happening. First, I know my physical symptoms of shame—the dry mouth, time slowing down, tunnel vision, hot face, racing heart. I know that playing the painful slow-motion reel over and over in my head is a warning sign. I also know that the very best thing to do when this is happening feels totally counterintuitive: Practice courage and reach out! We have to own our story and share it with someone who has earned the right to hear it, someone whom we can count on to respond with compassion. We need courage, compassion, and connection. ASAP. Shame hates it when we reach out and tell our story. It hates having words wrapped around it—it can’t survive being shared. Shame loves secrecy. The most dangerous thing to do after a shaming experience is hide or bury our story. When we bury our story, the shame metastasizes. I remember saying out loud: “I need to talk to someone RIGHT NOW. Be brave, Brené!” But here’s the tricky part about compassion and connecting: We can’t call just anyone. It’s not that simple. I have a lot of good friends, but there are only a handful of people whom I can count on to practice compassion when I’m in the dark shame place.

The Agenda 21 supporters have used the myth of global warming to terrify billions, and the global warming fraud (and it was and is a deliberate fraud upon the people) has been used ruthlessly to promote Agenda 21. The authorities we were taught to respect have betrayed us ruthlessly and without compassion or respect for the people they are paid to represent and protect. Global warming started off as a harmless (if idiotic) pseudoscientific fad but has become the new secular religion; a cult. Politicians, bankers, industrialists, television personalities, pop stars and millions of ill-informed acolytes share the absurd belief that the planet is getting hotter because of man’s activities and that soon the world will either be flooded so that there is no land left to sustain life or too hot for humans to inhabit. Zina Cohen’s book entitled, Greta’s Homework contains 101 truths about global warming that everyone should read.

I believe that evil is directly proportional to idocy. I believe that the territory you roamed in anguish before you disappeared is ruled by idiots. It isn't true that criminals are masterminds. It takes a vast amount of stupidity to assemble the parts of such a grotesque, absurd, and cruel machinery. Pure brutality disguised as a master plan. Small people, with small minds, who don't understand the abyss of the other. They lack the language or tools for it. Empathy and compassion require a clear mind. Putting yourself in someone else's shoes, changing your skin, adopting a new face: these are all acts of genuine intelligence.

Christ’s public life extended only over three years, and for this he had been silently training his mind for around thirty years. For years he had been breaking all the sociologically imposed ties of religious fundamentalism. For years he had been working in solitude to become liberated from the manacles of dogmatic bondage. And it is in the solitude that legends are born, and idiots are born in packs.

keeps up with modern ideas explained the other day that compassion is forbidden nowadays by science itself, and that that’s what is done now in England, where there is political economy.

We have to decide how to start our research,” Ashley said. “Like, should we look for information on the whole town, or just one specific area. Roo and I decided we should all focus on the Brickway.” “You decided we should all focus on the Brickway,” Roo mumbled, popping the tab on her can. Gage nodded. “Ashley’s right. If this is a walking tour, some kids in our class might not want to walk very far.” “If, in fact, anybody wants to walk on this tour at all,” Parker couldn’t help adding. “Come on…we’re not really going to do this ghost stuff, are we?” Ashley rolled her eyes. “Well then, maybe we should have transportation. Maybe we could use our cars?” “Our cars? Etienne and I are the only ones with wheels.” “What a perfectly brilliant idea, Ash.” Roo shot her sister a bland look. “Ghost BMW. No…wait. Ghost Truck. I’m all tingly with dread.” “Or Ghost SUV?” Despite Ashley’s wounded expression, Parker clasped his hands beseechingly at Gage. “Oh, pretty please, can we use your mom’s minivan?” Ashley’s lips tightened. “Parker, this is serious!” “Look, I know it’s half our grade.” Easing back down, he took a swig of beer and tried to reason with her. “But let’s face it--the whole thing’s pretty stupid. And impossible.” “It’s not stupid. And why is it impossible? All we have to do is research old places that might be haunted.” “And just how do you propose we do that? Oh wait, I know--let’s just knock on people’s doors. Excuse me, we’re doing a survey--are there any creepy ghosts living in your house? Ash, come on. We can’t force things to be haunted just so they can be close enough to walk to.” A disappointed silence fell. For several minutes everyone seemed lost in thought, till Etienne unfolded himself from the tree. “Don’t y’all know anything about your own town?” He walked over to the cooler and pulled out a beer. To Miranda, who watched him, he moved with all the grace and stealth of a predatory cat. “Well, I’m not going to flunk this project,” Ashley said crossly, “just because Parker’s an idiot.” Roo promptly frowned. “Where’s your compassion? Parker can’t help being an idiot.

Well, I’m not going to flunk this project,” Ashley said crossly, “just because Parker’s an idiot.” Roo promptly frowned. “Where’s your compassion? Parker can’t help being an idiot.

a condescending smile of compassion,