"If the evildoing of men moves you to indignation and overwhelming distress, even to a desire for vengeance on the evildoers, shun above all things that feeling." - Fyodor Dostoyevsky, "The Brothers Karamazov"It is only human nature to be curious about horror. The paralysis that causes us to freeze and watch instead of move away from something awful fights with our genetic "fight or flight" impulse. There is that moment of watching we give ourselves to decide whether to fight or flee that causes so much mental anguish. We lose focus, clarity, the ability to control ourselves for that nanosecond before years of mental training, spiritual discipline, real thought take over and we decide to pollute our minds with horror or not.
This morning, I saw the headlines about the Florida "minister" who burned a holy book and the resulting beheading of innocent peacekeepers in Afghanistan. I made the mistake of looking at this horror show, a man with a flacid, bland face. I did not see an enlightened man at the height of his spiritual enlightenment, but a sad, fearful creature without spirit. How men a world away could consider this flyspeck as a threat against their beliefs is even more distressing and incomprehensible. Both Christian and Muslim religions have their zealots and bigots. Why should I see their useless faces? Why should I embed their hatred into my psyche? Why can't I shun their actions and their images. They add nothing to benefit me or the human race.
Perhaps I've grown complacent and lazy. It is time to work on my own thoughts, time to continue to tame the wild mind and find a way to be compassionate and detached without hiding from the challenges of a world approaching the edge - a world that I live in and can impact by shunning vengeance and hatred and the polluting images of those that promote chaos. If I can find the strength to take that decisive moment before fight or flight and use it to look within, I may be able to resist the lure of drama and high emotion that often suck me into a bad place.
Sometimes reading the news is like walking through a minefield, one must find a safe pathway around harmful sensationalism and ignorant "opinions" hiding among the real and important facts about today's world. I knew when I clicked on that man's image that I'd made a mistake. Maybe I'll learn from it.
