Indirectly Hurting Quotes

Is God somehow responsible for the suffering of this world? In this indirect way, yes. But giving a child a pair of ice skates, knowing that he may fall, is a very different matter from knocking him down on the ice.

Before I began research for this book I was not consciously aware that women were aggressive in indirect ways, that they gossiped and ostracized each other incessantly, and did not acknowledge their own envious and competitive feelings. I now understand that, in order to survive as a woman, among women, one must speak carefully, cautiously, neutrally, indirectly; one must pay careful attention to what more socially powerful women have to say before one speaks; one must learn how to flatter, manipulate, aree with, and appease them. And, if one is hurt or offended by another woman, one does not say so outright; one expresses it indirectly, by turning others against her. Of course, I refuse to learn these "girlish" lessons.

I have seen the past, the present, and the future. I have realized that there is only one sin in this whole world – that is to hurt another living being, who means you no harm, through your direct or indirect intentional actions.

An up-front enemy is rare now and is actually a blessing. People hardly ever attack you openly anymore, showing their intentions, their desire to destroy you; instead they are political and indirect. Although the world is more competitive than ever, outward aggression is discouraged, so people have learned to go underground, to attack unpredictably and craftily. Many use friendship as a way to mask aggressive desires: they come close to you to do more harm. (A friend knows best how to hurt you.) Or, without actually being friends, they offer assistance and alliance: they may seem supportive, but in the end they’re advancing their own interests at your expense. Then there are those who master moral warfare, playing the victim, making you feel guilty for something unspecified you’ve done. The battlefield is full of these warriors, slippery, evasive, and clever.

We fail to take responsibility, to act productively in the interest of ourselves and others. And in our attempts at a better life, we are often severely limited or thwarted by the immature and socially inept behavior of ourselves and others. There is a great fabric of relations, behaviors and emotions, reverberating with human and animal bliss and suffering, a web of intimate and formal relations, both direct and indirect. Nasty whirlwinds of feedback cycles blow through this great multidimensional web, pulsating with hurt and degradation. My lacking human development blocks your possible human development. My lack of understanding of you, your needs perspectives, hurts you in a million subtle ways. I become a bad lover, a bad colleague, a bad fellow citizen and human being. We are interconnected: You cannot get away from my hurt and wounds. They will follow you all of your life—I will be your daughter’s abusive boyfriend, your belligerent neighbor from hell. And you will never grow wings because there will always be mean bosses, misunderstanding families and envious friends. And you will tell yourself that is how life must be. But it is not how life has to be. Once you begin to be able to see the social-psychological fabric of everyday life, it becomes increasingly apparent that the fabric is relatively easy to change, to develop. Metamodern politics aims to make everyone secure at the deepest psychological level, so that we can live authentically; a byproduct of which is a sense of meaning in life and lasting happiness; a byproduct of which is kindness and an increased ability to cooperate with others; a byproduct of which is deeper freedom and better concrete results in the lives of everyone; a byproduct of which is a society less likely to collapse into a heap of atrocities.

After every abortive escape attempt, he returned to his mother, doing so both after the separation from Verlaine and at the end of his life, when he had finally sacrificed his creative gifts by giving up his writing to become a businessman, thus indirectly fulfilling his mother’s expectations of him. Although Rimbaud spent the last days of his life in a hospital in Marseille, he had gone back to western France immediately before that, where he was looked after by his mother and sister. The quest for his mother’s love ended in the prison of childhood.

I still found codependents hostile, controlling, manipulative, indirect, and all the things I had found them before. I still saw all the peculiar twists of personality I previously saw. But, I saw deeper. I saw people who were hostile; they had felt so much hurt that hostility was their only defense against being crushed again. They were that angry because anyone who had tolerated what they had would be that angry. They were controlling because everything around and inside them was out of control. Always, the dam of their lives and the lives of those around them threatened to burst and spew harmful consequences on everyone. And nobody but them seemed to notice or care. I saw people who manipulated because manipulation appeared to be the only way to get anything done. I worked with people who were indirect because the systems they lived in seemed incapable of tolerating honesty. I worked with people who thought they were going crazy because they had believed so many lies they didn’t know what reality was. I saw people who had gotten so absorbed in other people’s problems they didn’t have time to identify or solve their own. These were people who had cared so deeply, and often destructively, about other people that they had forgotten how to care about themselves. The codependents felt responsible for so much because the people around them felt responsible for so little; they were just taking up the slack. I saw hurting, confused people who needed comfort, understanding, and information. I saw victims of alcoholism who didn’t drink but were nonetheless victimized by alcohol. I saw victims struggling desperately to gain some kind of power over their perpetrators.

The misogynist use either direct control or indirect control to gain his objective. He may directly state, plead, or demand that you give up a job, a class, or a friendship, or he may begin to attack indirectly those areas that are threatening to him, making it so miserable for you to continue with them that you give them up just to keep the peace. But, no matter what method your partner uses, the result is the same: You have seriously limited your world to suit his needs.

The implication that the change in nomenclature from “Multiple Personality Disorder” to “Dissociative Identity Disorder” means the condition has been repudiated and “dropped” from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) of the American Psychiatric Association is false and misleading. Many if not most diagnostic entities have been renamed or have had their names modified as psychiatry changes in its conceptualizations and classifications of mental illnesses. When the DSM decided to go with “Dissociative Identity Disorder” it put “(formerly multiple personality disorder)” right after the new name to signify that it was the same condition. It’s right there on page 526 of DSM-IV-R. There have been four different names for this condition in the DSMs over the course of my career. I was part of the group that developed and wrote successive descriptions and diagnostic criteria for this condition for DSM-III-R, DSM–IV, and DSM-IV-TR. While some patients have been hurt by the impact of material that proves to be inaccurate, there is no evidence that scientifically demonstrates the prevalence of such events. Most material alleged to be false has been disputed by someone, but has not been proven false. Finally, however intriguing the idea of encouraging forgetting troubling material may seem, there is no evidence that it is either effective or safe as a general approach to treatment. There is considerable belief that when such material is put out of mind, it creates symptoms indirectly, from “behind the scenes.” Ironically, such efforts purport to cure some dissociative phenomena by encouraging others, such as Dissociative Amnesia.

A woman may believe that because she is suffering she has the right to be taken care of and to be pitied; most important, she may view it as justification for not taking any action to make her life better. However, suffering doesn't change anything. Backdoor, indirect attempts to communicate are never effective because they don't confront the issues. Also, the misogynist is rarely sensitive to his partner's feelings. If he does recognize that his partner is suffering, his attitude is liable to be that it has nothing to do with him. The woman's suffering is considered further evidence of her deficiencies. If she breaks down physically or emotionally, it may only add to his contempt for her weakness. In his eyes, she becomes pathetic as well as deficient.

happened to them. And the more confident they became, the more sensory details they added to their false memories (“the place smelled horrible”).22 Researchers have created imagination inflation indirectly, too, merely by asking people to explain how an unlikely event might have happened. Cognitive psychologist Maryanne Garry finds that as people tell you how an event might have happened, it starts to feel real to them. Children are especially vulnerable to this suggestion.23 Writing turns a fleeting thought into a fact of history, and for Wilkomirski, writing down his memories confirmed his memories. “My illness showed me that it was time for me to write it all down for myself,” said Wilkomirski, “just as it was held in my memory, to trace every hint all the way back.”24 Just as he rejected the historians at Majdanek who challenged his

According to Finnish psychologist Kaj Björkqvist, by the time a girl is eight years old she is unlikely to express frustration and anger toward others physically. Girls are, on the other hand, as verbally aggressive as boys. Instead of hitting or shoving, girls will use verbal, nonverbal, and socially manipulative skills to hurt others—mainly other girls. Girls will insult and denigrate each other; they will also hold grudges for a very long time. Björkqvist and others have shown that girls are “significantly more likely than boys to become friendly with someone else as revenge”; and that girls will gossip and suggest the “shunning” of another girl. According to Björkqvist, indirect aggression is a type of “hostile behavior [that] is carried out in order to harm the opponent, while avoiding being identified as aggressive.” Björkqvist and others developed a scale, known as the Direct and Indirect Aggression Scale, which measures physical aggression (hitting, kicking, tripping, shoving, pushing, pulling), and verbal aggression (yelling, insulting, teasing, threatening to hurt the other, calling the other names), on the one hand, and on the other hand, indirect aggression (shutting the other out of the group, becoming friends with another as revenge, ignoring, gossiping, telling bad stories, planning secretly to bother the other, saying bad things behind the back, saying to others: “let’s not be with him/her,” telling the other’s secrets to a third person, writing notes in which the other is criticized, criticizing the other’s hair or clothing, trying to get others to dislike the person).

When you have an honest heart, you do not get engaged nor get involved with any smear campaigns nor black propaganda! When you have an honest heart, you do not malign nor take advantage of generous people who helped and trusted you! When you have an honest heart, you do not shit on people whom you used and abused for three years! Do not fall into a political naïvety and become a victim or a doormat nor have your generosity and honest heart be used and abused by unscrupulous political movers, abusive, aggressive political harridans who scam gullible generous hearts by asking donations, funds, services, foods, urgent favours, and after using you and abusing your generosity, trust, and kindness; whereby these unscrupulous and deceptive political movers, abusive, aggressive political harridans intentionally and maliciously create forged screenshots of evidence convincing their audience or political groups that you are a mentally ill person, a brain-damaged person as they even brand you as "Sisang Baliw," or crazy Sisa, a threat, a risk, a danger, they maliciously and destructively red-tag your friends as communists, and they resort to calumny, libel and slander against you, to shame you, defame you, discredit you, blame you, hurt you, make you suffer for having known the truth of their deceptive global Operandi, and for something you didn’t do through their mob lynching, calumny, polemics mongering, forgery, and cyberbullying efforts. Their character assassination through libel and slander aims to ruin your integrity, persona, trustworthiness, and credibility with their destructive fabricated calumny, lies, identity theft, forged screenshots of polemics mongering, and framing up. Amidst all their forgery, fraud, libel and slander they committed: you have a right to defy and stop their habitual abuse without breaking the law and fight for your rights against any forms of aggression, public lynching, bullies, threats, blackmail, and their repetitive maltreatment or abuse, identity theft, forgery, deceptions fraud, scams, cyber libel, libel, and slander. When you defend human rights, you fight against corruption and injustice, help end impunity: be sure that you are not part of any misinformation, disinformation, smear campaigns and black propaganda. Do not serve, finance, or cater directly or indirectly for those dirty politicians. Those who are engaged in abusively dishonest ways do not serve to justify their end. Deceiving and scamming other people shall always be your lifetime self-inflicted karmic loss. Be a law-abiding citizen. Be respectful. Be honest. Be factual. Be truthful. You can be an effective human rights defender when you have clean and pure intentions, lawful and morally upright, and have an honest heart." ~ Angelica Hopes, an excerpt from Calunniatopia Book 1, Stronzata Trilogy Genre: inspirational, political, literary novel © 2021 Ana Angelica Abaya van Doorn

The deeper irony is that the evidence of sin that are always found in and around the body of Christ may become indirect intimations of its holiness. It could not be a holy church if it had clean hands, as if severed from its task of saving sinners and healing human hurt.

I feel that a book is never written by the writer alone it's written by him and everyone around him be it directly or indirectly

Shukladhyan (pure contemplation of the Self, the Soul) is the direct cause for moksha (liberation). Dharmadhyan (auspicious contemplation; to hurt no one, give happiness to others) is the indirect cause for moksh (liberation). Artadhyan (inner mournful contemplation that hurts the self) is a cause for a birth in animal life form (non-human). Raudradhyan (wrathful contemplation that hurts the self and others) is a cause for a life in hell.

ENLARGING OUR HORIZONS Most of us as Christians tend to think of the sovereignty of God only in terms of its immediate effect upon us, or our families or friends. We're not too interested in the sovereignty of God over the nations and over history unless we are consciously and personally affected by that history. We are only vaguely interested in the political turmoil and wars of distant nations unless, for example, a missionary friend of ours can't get an entrance visa to his country of ministry. But we must remember that God promised to Abraham and to his seed that all nations will be blessed through Christ (Genesis 12:3, 22:18; Galatians 3:8). Someday that promise will be fulfilled for, as recorded in Revelation 7:9, John saw "a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb." God has a plan to redeem people from all nations and to bless all nations through Christ. However, as we look around the world today what do we see? We see over one-half of the world's population living in countries whose governments are hostile to the gospel, where missionaries are not allowed, and where national Christians are severely hindered from proclaiming Christ. How do we trust God for the fulfillment of His promises when the current events and conditions of the day seem so directly contrary to their fulfillment? We can take a lesson from the example of Daniel. Daniel understood from the Scriptures in the prophecy of Jeremiah that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years, and realizing that seventy years was almost complete, Daniel set himself to pray (see Daniel 9). He recognized that his people were in exile because of their sins and he recognized that a sovereign God, and only a sovereign God, could restore them from their exile. He trusted in the sovereignty and faithfulness of God, therefore he prayed. We might say he pleaded God's promise to Jeremiah. Neither God's sovereignty nor His promise to restore the exiles caused Daniel to lapse into a fatalistic, do-nothing attitude. Daniel realized that God's sovereignty and God's promise were intended to stimulate him to pray. Because God is sovereign, He is able to answer. Because He is faithful to His promises, He will answer. Daniel prayed and God answered. As we saw in chapter four, God moved the heart of the Persian king to permit and even encourage all the exiles who wanted to, to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple. As we look at the condition of the world today, so utterly hostile to the gospel, we must also look at the sovereignty of God and at His promises. He has promised to redeem people from every nation, and He has commanded us to make disciples of all nations, We must, then, trust God by praying. Some will go to Those nations as God opens doors, but all of us must pray. We must learn to trust God, not only in the adverse circumstances of our individual lives, but also in the adverse circumstances of the Church as a whole. We must learn to trust God for the spread of the gospel, even in those areas where it is severely restricted. God is sovereign over the nations. He is sovereign over the officials of our own government in all their actions as they affect us, directly or indirectly. He is sovereign over the officials of government in lands where our brothers and sisters in Christ suffer for their faith in Him. And He is sovereign over the nations where every attempt is made to stamp out true Christianity. In all of these areas, we can and must trust God.

ENLARGING OUR HORIZONS Most of us as Christians tend to think of the sovereignty of God only in terms of its immediate effect upon us, or our families or friends. We're not too interested in the sovereignty of God over the nations and over history unless we are consciously and personally affected by that history. We are only vaguely interested in the political turmoil and wars of distant nations unless, for example, a missionary friend of ours can't get an entrance visa to his country of ministry. But we must remember that God promised to Abraham and to his seed that all nations will be blessed through Christ (Genesis 12:3, 22:18; Galatians 3:8). Someday that promise will be fulfilled for, as recorded in Revelation 7:9, John saw "a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb." God has a plan to redeem people from all nations and to bless all nations through Christ. However, as we look around the world today what do we see? We see over one-half of the world's population living in countries whose governments are hostile to the gospel, where missionaries are not allowed, and where national Christians are severely hindered from proclaiming Christ. How do we trust God for the fulfillment of His promises when the current events and conditions of the day seem so directly contrary to their fulfillment? We can take a lesson from the example of Daniel. Daniel understood from the Scriptures in the prophecy of Jeremiah that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years, and realizing that seventy years was almost complete, Daniel set himself to pray (see Daniel 9). He recognized that his people were in exile because of their sins and he recognized that a sovereign God, and only a sovereign God, could restore them from their exile. He trusted in the sovereignty and faithfulness of God, therefore he prayed. We might say he pleaded God's promise to Jeremiah. Neither God's sovereignty nor His promise to restore the exiles caused Daniel to lapse into a fatalistic, do-nothing attitude. Daniel realized that God's sovereignty and God's promise were intended to stimulate him to pray. Because God is sovereign, He is able to answer. Because He is faithful to His promises, He will answer. Daniel prayed and God answered. As we saw in chapter four, God moved the heart of the Persian king to permit and even encourage all the exiles who wanted to, to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple. As we look at the condition of the world today, so utterly hostile to the gospel, we must also look at the sovereignty of God and at His promises. He has promised to redeem people from every nation, and He has commanded us to make disciples of all nations, We must, then, trust God by praying. Some will go to Those nations as God opens doors, but all of us must pray. We must learn to trust God, not only in the adverse circumstances of our individual lives, but also in the adverse circumstances of the Church as a whole. We must learn to trust God for the spread of the gospel, even in those areas where it is severely restricted. God is sovereign over the nations. He is sovereign over the officials of our own government in all their actions as they affect us, directly or indirectly. He is sovereign over the officials of government in lands where our brothers and sisters in Christ suffer for their faith in Him. And He is sovereign over the nations where every attempt is made to stamp out true Christianity. In all of these areas, we can and must trust God.

When women don’t assert themselves properly and instead let others walk all over them, they resent it, either consciously or unconsciously, and stockpile unexpressed angry feelings. Those resentful feelings that weren’t expressed in the original situation will tumble out and be expressed indirectly in other situations, leading to unpredictable explosions over minor annoyances or to subtle, passive-aggressive expressions [...] any woman who believes that Christians should be “sugar and spice and everything nice” 24/7 is going to build up an imposing stockpile of simmering anger. And that festering resentment is rocket fuel for passive-aggressive responses

if you are talking with a direct person, present your ideas in a straightforward, logical manner, but if you are speaking with an indirect person, use a more feeling-oriented, participatory style. [...] when you find yourself having to tell other women what to do, your savviest choice is often to adopt their indirect style. That’s not being manipulative or weak. That’s being smart.

Whenever I associate with someone, may I think myself the lowest among all and hold the other supreme in the depth of my heart! ... When Isee beings of wicked nature, pressed by violent sin and affliction, may I hold these rare ones dear as if I had found a precious treasure! ... When others, out of envy, treat me badly with abuse, slander and the like, may I suffer the defeat and offer the victory to others! ... When the one, whom I have benefited with great hope, hurts me very badly, may I behold him as my supreme Guru! In short may I, directly and indirectly, offer benefit and happiness to all beings; may I secretly take upon myself the harm and suffering of all beings! ...

Here are a few of the defenses that many people carry inside, sometimes for the rest of their lives: AVOIDANCE. Avoidance is usually about fear. Emotions and relationships have hurt me, so I will minimize emotions and relationships. People who are avoidant feel most comfortable when the conversation stays superficial. They often overintellectualize life. They retreat to work. They try to be self-sufficient and pretend they don’t have needs. Often, they have not had close relationships as kids and have lowered their expectations about future relationships. A person who fears intimacy in this way may be always on the move, preferring not to be rooted or pinned down; they are sometimes relentlessly positive so as not to display vulnerability; they engineer things so they are the strong one others turn to but never the one who turns to others. DEPRIVATION. Some children are raised around people so self-centered that the needs of the child are ignored. The child naturally learns the lesson “My needs won’t be met.” It is a short step from that to “I’m not worthy.” A person haunted by a deprivation schema can experience feelings of worthlessness throughout life no matter how many amazing successes they achieve. They often carry the idea that there is some flaw deep within themselves, that if other people knew it, it would cause them to run away. When they are treated badly, they are likely to blame themselves. (Of course he had an affair; I’m a pathetic wife.) They sometimes grapple with a fierce inner critic. OVERREACTIVITY. Children who are abused and threatened grow up in a dangerous world. The person afflicted in this way often has, deep in their nervous system, a hyperactive threat-detection system. Such people interpret ambivalent situations as menacing situations, neutral faces as angry faces. They are trapped in a hyperactive mind theater in which the world is dangerous. They overreact to things and fail to understand why they did so. PASSIVE AGGRESSION. Passive aggression is the indirect expression of anger. It is a way to sidestep direct communication by a person who fears conflict, who has trouble dealing with negative emotions. It’s possible such a person grew up in a home where anger was terrifying, where emotions were not addressed, or where love was conditional and the lesson was that direct communication would lead to the withdrawal of affection. Passive aggression is thus a form of emotional manipulation, a subtle power play to extract guilt and affection. A husband with passive-aggressive tendencies may encourage his wife to go on a weekend outing with her friends, feeling himself to be a selfless martyr, but then get angry with her in the days before the outing and through the weekend. He’ll let her know by various acts of withdrawal and self-pity that she’s a selfish person and he’s an innocent victim. —

Although the relationship may have many happy moments, it won’t hide the fact that you may also feel like you’re suffocating. You can’t spend time alone, you constantly feel guilty about things you should not feel guilty over, and also frequently mentally exhausted. You may also find your relationships with friends and family starts to suffer, and your co-dependent partner begins keeping you in a bubble. Instead of the relationship empowering you, you start to feel shut off from the outside world. You may entertain thoughts frequently of calling it off, but you become scared of “hurting” your partner. Indirect threats of self-harm or even suicide keep you from initiating a breakup.

God is sovereign over the nations. He is sovereign over the officials of our own government in all their actions as they affect us, directly or indirectly. He is sovereign over the officials of government in lands where our brothers and sisters in Christ suffer for their faith in Him. And He is sovereign over the nations where every attempt is made to stamp out true Christianity. In all of these areas, we can and must trust God.

Dharmadhyan (auspicious contemplation, to not hurt anyone, to give happiness to others) is an indirect cause for moksha (liberation), and shukladhyan (awareness and contemplation as the Self, Pure Soul) is a direct cause for attaining Moksha (liberation).

Shukladhyan (internal state that renders the constant awareness of ‘I am pure Soul’) is the direct cause for moksha (liberation). Dharmadhyan (absence of adverse internal state of being that hurts the self and others) is the indirect cause for moksha. Artadhyan (adverse internal state that results in hurting the self) is a cause for a birth in animal life form (non-human). Raudradhyan (Adverse internal state of being that hurts others) is a cause for a life in hell.

God is sovereign over the nations. He is sovereign over the officials of our own government in all their actions as they affect us, directly or indirectly.

Without You Everything Is Hideous How are you? , sweetheart, here I am writing these letters and your thought does not leave me and here you are still the closest to me since that day, which did not end until now. I scatter my letters in front of your beautiful eyes to tell you that I am wrong and guilty ; Although I have not forgotten you for a moment, even while I am trying to convince myself that everything is finished from your point of view, but I make up for it and say well, this is enough for me to try to snatch her icy heart again, this heart that loved me with all sincerity that innocent childish heart that never hated One even over the one who is because of him has left me for a long time due to false suspicion I remember all your letters, so I read them from time to time How nice it was to call me a childish nickname - capturing like your cheeks a happy nickname. You didn’t know all my reasons, sweetie I indirectly told you about the biggest reason when I told you to read “So Forgive Me ”You are the most beautiful thing that has happened to me since I knew you. My beauty, today I want to tell you that you forgot something one day. You asked me: Have you loved before? So I told you : Yes I did it was a long time ago when I was a teenager; I never thought that I would love again after I was wounded by that deep wound, when I was left alone, the wolves of loneliness and separation scattered me, and no one comes to me to pull me from the bottom of the debris that happened in my heart, And to be honest, I was not afraid for myself as much as I feared for your tender heart; I don’t ever want to be the lover who leaves his lover, especially if it is you. My beautiful woman, I wanted to make sure that my heart never beats for anyone but you It’s not easy, believe me I admire you since we became close, since we started speaking in the innocent language of children, since you used to say to me you are late to respond, even if I was late for a few seconds since night became for us a second day we talk about it until dawn and more Since you were quarreling with others trying to make them understand my point of view. How delicious days were when you looked at me from a distance and smiled, and when I heard your laughter as much as I was jealous, my heart beat with joy All your conditions were beautiful even when you quarreled with me I am not here trying to tell you that I am innocent, I am not I hurt you many times but I swear it was not with intent They were rather fleeting and spontaneous things. I admit that I have hurt your pride and here I am now bearing the consequences of this matter, and I swear it is not an easy thing. But, my flower, when you told me that excuse to stay away from me for three months, it smashed me, how can someone take my moon from me? The one that shone my eyes and melted the ice around my heart after my heart became so attached to her that I became so addicted to her that when I talk to any girl I call her by your name. My little girl I lost my love previously, and I do not want to lose you, because I know that you are a twin of my soul, even if you deny this now, but in the depths of your heart you know the validity of this matter. I apologize for every moment that made you think with pain I just wanted to protect you from fleeting feelings or just those feelings that were attracted to you And I know you crave someone to love you just because you are beautiful I wanted to protect you from the feelings of a teenager And if it was a year or less late to reveal it You know that valuable things no matter how late they are, their value will be better, finer, sincere and thinner, and you deserve strong, sincere feelings that stem from the depths of the heart and from the depths of the soul feelings befitting you I see in you all the beauties in life And without you, everything is Hideous You have all my feelings, beautiful cheeks.

With a determination to achieve the highest aim For the benefit of all sentient beings, Which surpasses even the wish-fulfilling gem, May I hold them dear at all times. Whenever I interact with someone, May I view myself as the lowest amongst all, And, from the very depths of my heart, Respectfully hold others as superior. In all my deeds may I probe into my mind, And as soon as mental and emotional afflictions arise – As they endanger myself and others – May I strongly confront them and avert them. When I see beings of unpleasant character Oppressed by strong negativity and suffering, May I hold them dear – for they are rare to find – As if I have discovered a jewel treasure! When others, out of jealously Treat me wrongly with abuse, slander, and scorn, May I take upon myself the defeat And offer to others the victory. When someone whom I have helped, Or in whom I have placed great hopes, Mistreats me in extremely hurtful ways, May I regard him still as my precious teacher. In brief, may I offer benefit and joy To all my mothers, both directly and indirectly, May I quietly take upon myself All hurts and pains of my mothers. May all this remain undefiled By the stains of the eight mundane concerns; And may I, recognizing all things as illusion, Devoid of clinging, be released from bondage.

The best portrait of this psychology comes from that very dead, very white European male: William Shakespeare, in his Othello. Iago just hated Othello, but he could not hope to defeat him in open confrontation. How then could he destroy him?  Iago’s strategy was to attack him where it would hurt most—through Othello’s passion for Desdemona. Iago hinted indirectly that she had been sleeping around, he spread subtle lies and innuendo about her faithfulness, he succeeded in raising a doubt in Othello’s mind about the most beautiful thing in his life, and he let that doubt work like a slow poison. Like the postmodernists, Iago’s only weapons were words. The only difference is that the postmodernists are not so subtle about their intended targets.

When Iran exported its jihad to Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine, and the Muslim Brotherhood in several regions around the world, these all indirectly threatened the United States. These terrorists threatened our greatest ally in the region, Israel, while destabilizing countries we depend on to help bring security to that area. These terrorists harm our allies with violence while sowing hatred for our values, thus hurting our national interests abroad. Until 2001, these organizations had not historically attempted to carry out terrorist attacks on the American homeland. With the Sunni-Shiite divide once again put on the back burner to tackle a bigger enemy, the relationship between al-Qaeda, another Sunni terrorist organization, and the Shiite regime in Iran is all about destroying the United States of America. Their relationship began a long time before the United States even knew about al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden as public enemy number one.1 Today, ISIS is perhaps public enemy number one. Yet the most interesting trait common to ISIS, al-Qaeda, Iran, and every other Islamic terrorist group is this: they are all motivated by the same anti-Western, jihadist ideology.