quietism
We make our own wind
- Feb 3, 2025
- 75
There's this expression I saw yesterday and it's been on my mind all day. "It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness." It makes me think of the many times I've seen people in life choose to smile when they're sad, choose to find positivity in an overwhelmingly negative situation. And I really want to believe and inspired by this expression, but it also leaves me feeling deeply conflicted.
I don't usually like being around people who complain. Complaining can have value if the other person genuinely isn't aware of the problem. Rarely, complaining can motivate people to enact change if this happens. But if both people are already on the same page, or if the listening party fails or chooses to empathise with the central issues, it's a degrading experience for the person complaining and can give a malicious actor the opportunity to socially ostracise them.
And of course, sometimes I may feel like complaining, but I think almost every time when I do, I'd much rather just be cuddling and doing fun things with the other person instead. But then there are also times when due to an incredibly bureaucratic mindset, complaining is the only route of action, or it's explicitly required to get any kind of chance meaningful change, such as justifying a policy proposal or trying to pull some rhetorical stunt to rally activist support. I feel like it's really immoral to expect/encourage people to do this, compared to providing resources for others to do their own ethnographic research and come to productive conclusions. Even when the other parties aren't interested in doing the research, it still feels wrong to try and use an appeal to emotion on them. But appeal to emotion is also frighteningly common and this has worried me for a long time.
I've been watching this anime called Ergo Proxy. In it is my favourite character Pino, this little girl, by which it's explained through the plot that she only really knows how to be kind and find positivity, even in extremely bleak situatuations. It's like, this kind of innocence in the face of adversity, I think it's a little creepy, but also extremely endearing and I feel I'd be really comforted and empowered by having a real person like that in my life. So I also want to be that person for others too, in a way, a bright light and shining star in darkness, that doesn't contradict their or my own suffering.
Where do you fall on this spectrum? Would you want to be close friends with a girl like Pino? Would you be, or are you, like that? What is friendship, really?
I don't usually like being around people who complain. Complaining can have value if the other person genuinely isn't aware of the problem. Rarely, complaining can motivate people to enact change if this happens. But if both people are already on the same page, or if the listening party fails or chooses to empathise with the central issues, it's a degrading experience for the person complaining and can give a malicious actor the opportunity to socially ostracise them.
And of course, sometimes I may feel like complaining, but I think almost every time when I do, I'd much rather just be cuddling and doing fun things with the other person instead. But then there are also times when due to an incredibly bureaucratic mindset, complaining is the only route of action, or it's explicitly required to get any kind of chance meaningful change, such as justifying a policy proposal or trying to pull some rhetorical stunt to rally activist support. I feel like it's really immoral to expect/encourage people to do this, compared to providing resources for others to do their own ethnographic research and come to productive conclusions. Even when the other parties aren't interested in doing the research, it still feels wrong to try and use an appeal to emotion on them. But appeal to emotion is also frighteningly common and this has worried me for a long time.
I've been watching this anime called Ergo Proxy. In it is my favourite character Pino, this little girl, by which it's explained through the plot that she only really knows how to be kind and find positivity, even in extremely bleak situatuations. It's like, this kind of innocence in the face of adversity, I think it's a little creepy, but also extremely endearing and I feel I'd be really comforted and empowered by having a real person like that in my life. So I also want to be that person for others too, in a way, a bright light and shining star in darkness, that doesn't contradict their or my own suffering.
Where do you fall on this spectrum? Would you want to be close friends with a girl like Pino? Would you be, or are you, like that? What is friendship, really?
