Saturday, October 22, 2011

What Surprised Him Most About Humanity

Dalai Lama When Asked
What Surprised Him Most
A blog post on April 16, 2011 has been getting a great deal of attention for reasons which I do not understand.  It had sat dormant for months and then in the past couple of weeks, there is great interest.  The title of the blog post was "Dalai Lama What Surprised Him Most About Humanity".  While I do not know if he actually spoke these words, it was something that I either read or saw in a circulated email that was sent to me.  To be honest, I'm not sure how I came across this quote.

What the quote said was something that I thought showed a lot of wisdom and insight.  Of course, if the Dalai Lama is not the rightful owner of these words, then I would gladly give credit to the true source as long as it could be proven.  Still, with all this aside, the quote says so much if you really read it.

The problem that I have seen though is in the comments left on that post.  To me, the Dalai Lama stands for peace, understanding, respect and working together as one.  Yet, the comments that have been posted on this show anything but what he stands for, in my opinion.  It is hard to imagine how the people making the statements that they make, truly are following the ideals of the Dalai Lama.  Maybe they are searching and still wandering in the desert but it saddens me to read some of what has been said.


One person called another stupid because they did not see things the same way as this quote meant to them.  Another called someone simple minded.  How are comments such as these helpful to the dialogue of human interaction.  If you immediately discount what someone says to prove you are right, can this even be an engaging conversation?

The most difficult part for me though is that in the spirit of the blog I have worked on for years, this is unacceptable.  I want to foster people thinking outside their box and stretching their beliefs but I want it done in a respectful manner.  In fact, I find it down right rude that someone would go on a blog and behave in such a childish manner.

More importantly though, the quote says something that most humans need to not only hear, but understand.  Comments that were left on this blog post, showed anything but what the quote was about.  I'm perplexed because I do not understand the need to disparage others in the way that we do.  Surely there is more to being human than the comment practices we engage in!

So often these days, if you read a news article or blog, the comments left are unhelpful in my opinion.  They do nothing to lift people up and move us forward as a civilization.  In fact, I wish the internet didn't exist at times.  I remember back to the days when I ran a male survivor site and instead of it being supportive, people would lash out at one another as if to show who was superior or who knew more.

I wish it was as easy as asking people to think before they started typing or talking.  Unfortunately, it seems to be much more difficult.  There are ways to help each other and move us forward as a human civilization but the public discourse we see today is not accomplishing anything.

We make a choice every time we leave a comment on a news or blog article on the internet as to helping advance someone forward or pulling them down with us into the depths of our own despair.  I'm not sure about you but when I get to the end of my days, I don't want it to be known that I had any role in making this world more difficult than it is.


Related Blog Posts
1)  Dalai Lama When Asked What Surprised Him Most (Apr 18, 2011)
2)  Try Not To Engage (Sep 19, 2011)
3)  Commenting Online Without Thinking (Jun 7, 2011)





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