I empathise with the advice, even aspire to it. Despite that, I abhor a bully getting away with being a bully and would feel discontent not putting up a fight on principle.
Attachment is discontent.
Peace is a perfectly valid option for people to pick. If they can master it, they can weather any depredation the world throws at them. Which may be many if society continues to slip slide into fascism.
However I believe most good things in the world came at the behest of violence - again not necessarily physical, but at minimum people sacrificing personal peace. Woman's suffrage, black suffrage in America, the civil rights act, LGBT rights in the UK, the overthrow of the kmt military dictatorship in Taiwan. Endless examples.
I'm still thinking about this all the time, I wrote about it a while back: https://blog.calebjay.com/posts/accept-or-reject/
Absolutely. I would further assert that path of least resistance is very often not the right one. The art, as I think you imply, is in "knowing" when to pick up a fight and persist, vs. when not.
I think you're right on this, and if I implied it I think it's because that's where my thoughts have been heading without me realizing it.
When I wrote that blog post I was still in a mindset of "expend maximum effort at all costs." A new review strategy of my day to day and month to month life made me realize that this way of doing things wasn't making me more effective, just leading to peaks and troughs.
I've recently accepted that energy is a finite resource that needs to be recharged. Practically, that meant I needed to figure out what costs my energy and what renews it, and as I plan my days and weeks, schedule around this paradigm.
I think my activism is one of those things that's trickier because it energizes to an extent because it actualizes my values, but also it's tremendously energy draining because it takes time and huge amounts of willpower to do any given action - like overcoming my poor local language ability and nervousness to confront an illegally parked car blocking pedestrians.
So that's another aspect of this peace vs violence dynamic you've got me thinking about in a new light - yes, you need to choose your battles, if nothing else temporaly so you can put the battle at a time you'll have the energy to deal with it.
Maybe. For me at least, the art is in what you choose to value in different contexts, rather than in absolute terms. Thinking about this specific case, I might value my own peace of mind, money, and time much more highly than justice or retribution.
Other times, something we value is taken from us and living in the past, spending our days wishing for it, etc. can prevent us from "moving on". It can become an anchor or baggage.
For my part, I feel that there's value in critically examining parts of your life and deciding what really matters. If something matters, fight for it. If it turns out something didn't, or it doesn't any more, let it go so you can make room in your life for more important things.
Maybe, just maybe, it's time for the greedy rich to let go.
- Dune, the gom jabbar's test for humanity
Julian Bashir: "It's not your fault things are the way they are."
Lee: "Everybody tells themselves that. And nothing ever changes."
Bashir's statement is a true one, made out of compassion. Lee's statement is almost comically/logically/obviously false in a real Universe, unless you're in a fictional TV series designed to not ever change. Except of course for the plot arc, which again, true to Bashir's statement is not anyone's fault.
To ignore something means choosing not to notice, acknowledge, or respond to it — even though you’re aware it exists.