Ignoring myth and belief differences

The purpose of the article and the story above was simple - you and I are the same ultimately

The golden rule is just that- when we recognize ourselves in others we act to minimize pain in others as we would to ourselves

Imagine the world as a one person play with each role played by the same person but in different costumes: you

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exe34 3 hours ago | parent [-]

I found it very hard to apply the golden rule as someone who was abused as a child. I don't care how I'm treated, so I can treat you in any way, however cruel.

By accident I discovered that if instead of imagining how you would feel if I did this bad thing to you, I imagined how the one person I loved would feel. Suddenly I had a working version of empathy, which I use to this day. I don't treat others as I would want to be treated - I treat them as I would want them to treat my loved one.

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vacuity 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I do not know your circumstances, but see what you think of this:

I have a nascent theory about human feelings, which goes that the basic feelings we experience are usually perceived through extensive filtering by our personal, social, cultural, etc., beliefs/experiences. The convincing conscious perception of a feeling may be misinterpreted to an extent. Anger is an emotion that can often become misdirected. Supposedly, sexual arousal can be interpreted in translation from fear[0].

Someone who is suicidal may consider suicide seriously, but feel an urge to live in the process of suicide. Circumstance may make certain feelings clear, but by examining removed from circumstance, the person had the capacity for both feelings. There is some "essence" to the person that those feelings, brought on by circumstance, only scratch the surface of. Observing a narrow range of circumstances and assuming it is the essence is a mistake.

I think that more or less every person, in their essence, understands human decency. It may be that some people truly don't have the capacity to appreciate it (thought: aliens?), but usually, I think the real culprit is learned behavior through various factors, and innate cognitive biases. I don't mean to say that it is easy to change people, because the opposite is generally true, but I think it is worth thinking about.

That said, if there was someone who truly needed to, say, murder the way we need to eat, I say that they would do no wrong by murdering, but that we would do no wrong by apprehending them. I wish to get to people at their essences, not their accidents.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misattribution_of_arousal

	▲	exe34 3 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		100%, our emotions have two components: the initial feeling and the thought-derived reaction. It's like when a toddler falls over and looks back at the mother to decide whether or not it was hurt badly enough that it needs to cry. the Stoics taught this over 2000 years ago. it is not what happens but how we categorise it that matters.

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thisislife2 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Felt bad hearing about your childhood but am really glad you found a way to get past it to start trusting people again. It must have been a difficult process for you but I am glad you shared your worldview with us - I find it more "selfless" than the golden rule.