[Na Horuk]

Some great music there. Thanks for sharing, the music and your thoughts.
Edit: and I really love psy trance and goa trance and most of the sub-genres from those.

[Rupert]

I have the same little saying on the edge of my bookshelf, but everyone you meet is "fighting a hard battle". It's attributed to Plato. I don't know if this is correct or not; I forget where I found it.
But we would all do well to remember it, when we're having a bad day ourselves, to be a little more compassionate to others.
Photography has helped me through some difficult times because I find it so totally absorbing. For a while, the rest of the world disappears, while I think about composition & exposure etc. Indeed good therapy, whether you do it alone or with others.

Have you ever thought what the world might be like if we all had a big dose of compassion for our fellow man in their time of need, and not knowing when that time might be, just applied it continually? It doesn't seem or be our nature, but I do know we care....most of us anyhow. We just get too caught up in "me" far too often to notice that others have problems too...often much worse than our own.
Regards!

[absoluteallie]

I work at home doing medical transcription ( so I'm alone all the time hearing about terrible illnesses and tragedies). I also suffer with SAD. A few years ago I was given an Ott light by a family member who no longer wanted it. I'm not sure what exactly this light is made of. I think it's supposed to mimic daylight...anyway, I LOVE that thing! It makes me feel content when I have it on. I've never priced them, but I can say for sure if anything happens to it I will replace it immediately.

[Clicker]

We all have mental issues, it's just that some are more obvious than others

[Ratmagiclady]

Have you ever thought what the world might be like if we all had a big dose of compassion for our fellow man in their time of need, and not knowing when that time might be, just applied it continually? It doesn't seem or be our nature, but I do know we care....most of us anyhow. We just get too caught up in "me" far too often to notice that others have problems too...often much worse than our own.
Regards!

Well, I think people do compare too much, whether that may be by way of wanting to feel superior or whether they would like to think they know/can relate, Rupert.

Too often people mistake compassion for 'sameness,' and that's what can lead to all manner of trouble. Seasonal-affective difficulties such as relative age and infirmity may present us with in the world right now may be quite different from what was once called 'manic depression.' (Or, in fact PTSD, of which there's been a lot more going around for a lot longer than most people recognize, again, when people are coming back from what passes for 'war' these days.) It's actually not quite the same experience, and that's probably exactly where seriously-bipolar and lots of other folks may have troubles fitting in: cause it's not just people having a worse version of modern malaise, ...it's actually about being squeezed out of ever-tightening requirements of what constitutes 'part of humanity.'

I dunno, but I think 'compassion in time of need' is actually kind of *easy.* And not in a bad way. Some people claim people 'choose homelessness' and the like, but it's kind of like a war: inherently-distressing and unlikely to be very productive, but it's *simple.* It's not the poverty you choose, but it's very easy to put something ahead of one's own self whent you figure you'll die by next week anyway, (welcome to acute PTSD, by the way) and when you have the vigor to do something for someone, you're *happy* there. Maybe in a funny way. The frustrating thing is you might be playing whack-a-mole with the problems the world dumps on those that don't fit into their ever-narrowing standards, and when you start slowing down, you want to start *building* something.


And then you're in the same place as anyone else with a roof over their heads trying to keep *that* another week or month. And so much is frankly just the same as walking down the street like you were begging, 'Get a job!' 'Hire me, then.' 'Umm, umm, no I can't......'


And they wonder why everyone's going nuts. Nowadays the people on the Right sound crazier than a number of schizophrenics I've warmed up in ATM kiosks with in the past.


Meanwhile, there's a lot of talk and blame: demands for more performance for less compensation under ever more restictive conditions, ...all about a certain sort of people 'competing' at the same things with less and less to go on, and absolutely *nothing* is done to find work for the people we *have,* including damaged ones.


No wonder it seems everyone's losing it, no matter how many more people get shut out of certain categories of 'Good enough.'

It's hard not to verge into P&R territory if we really want to take this past platiudes, I know.

Sometimes, though, the platitudes are the very problem. I think this especially goes for bipolar type people, autistic type people, all kinds of people. Even people bugged-out about the world right now. Even older people. Really. I wouldn't last long if I didn't have shelter right now, and I like to think I manage passably for someone who actually wasn't expected to see her 25th birthday on purely physical counts.

I don't think compassion is so hard as some people make it out to be, though, Rupert. I think it's very simple, once some very tenuous standards fall away.


The hard part is really, what do people do without a *place.*

[Rupert]

Well, to be clear Ratlady, I was including myself in my question of what the world might be like with a little more compassion. The reality is, I can't feel your headache and you can't feel mine. We tend to have compassion only when we can relate, and far too often we can't or won't relate. It's just human nature....and I see it in Squirrels too!

The only difference is that we can make a conscious effort to change our behavior......with mixed results, but still better than no result at all. I'm betting I am no more compassionate than you are......or you than me. We just measure it differently...you think?

Regards!