Comments on: For Sharisa, and anyone else facing attempts at erasure.

By: Ron

Ron — Fri, 18 Apr 2014 17:05:51 +0000

thankyou. I appreciate your experiential insight that bullying is an erasure because it ignores the real person by focusing on an illusion. It is not only overt bullying behaviour that erases people by focusing on our illusions – this is an accurate definition of any sort of prejudice and discrimination. I reread this entry every few months.

By: Sam Holt

Sam Holt — Sun, 17 May 2009 18:13:53 +0000

“Remember that when they attack someone you are not, they are not attacking you. They are just attacking something they think is you, an illusion in their heads.”

I’ll remember this quote, or at least it’s sentiment, for the rest of my life.

By: amir jabri

amir jabri — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 06:03:53 +0000

Hi, I’ve been having alot of problems with bullies, and now at the age of 30 it is becoming a show-stopper for alot of my dreams and ambitions in life. I think I have asperger’s on top of things, I like what was written here on bullying and hatred, and I have come across many people in my professions who have benefitted professionally at my expense. I am learning to make it harder to take advantage of in the future by limiting my involvement into projects to a bare minimum to get by.

By: The Integral

The Integral — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 04:57:40 +0000

depends………on what his specific needs are and whether or not the typical school would be able to provide what he needed in terms of assistance………para or aide or whatever……..extra help with doing assignments and stuff…….in-class help if he needed it………..also it depends on the environment………and where he’d feel more comfortable……that’s what I can say for the moment

By: jsmom

jsmom — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 21:00:27 +0000

I have a question.. I have this struggle to where my son should go to school.
‘typical’ school setting 2x a week (3hrs) or to special needs setting 2x a week (3hrs(.
I have a question to all who are in the spectrum.
If you didn’t have to deal with bullying, which type of setting would you have chosen to go to?
thanks

By: The Integral

The Integral — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 19:06:37 +0000

Just stopping by this blog to say hello……

gotta go eat my lunch and then continue with my math homework………

By: Philip

Philip — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 15:54:19 +0000

Here is the correct link (I hope) to the lecture by Elie Wiesel I referred to in my previous message: http://storiesforspeakers.blogspot.com/2008/03/elie-wiesel-on-indifference.html .

Self-hate is not seeing yourself as you really are, but through the distorted prism of one’s own self-loathing. But loving a person (or self-love) is also not always seeing that person as they really are. Sometimes it idealises them or ignores or downplays their faults or even crimes. Though love is always more truthful than hate in seeing the reality of the other person.

Forgiveness is liberating. It is being free of a burden. It is refusing to let the person who has done you wrong in some way to have a hold on your thoughts, on your life. It is not wanting to harm them or wishing them harm. It is loving the divine in them from a position of fundamental equality.

Forgiveness is not necessarily reconciliation, the restoration of broken friendship. True forgiveness is given freely, not out of a sense of duty or religious obligation. It is not bestowed out of condescension, or to humiliate the other person. It is not condoning evil or being indifferent to it.

These reflections on forgiveness are taken from the final chapter of the book ‘Forgiveness and Other Acts of Love’ by Stephanie Dowrick. She describes forgiveness as perhaps the supreme virtue.

A Christian woman priest who was injured in the terrorist bomb attacks on the London transport system on 7th July 2005, has written about how she is unable to forgive the bombers, in spite of believing that as a Christian, and particularly as a priest, that she should do so.

Sometimes it is easier to forgive other people than to forgive oneself. A person with low self-esteem may believe that they deserve to be treated badly, but that they are unable to reach the standards they set for themselves.

I have forgiven the people who have burgled my house, who have stolen money and other possessions from me, who have done me wrong in different ways. I don’t believe that this makes me particularly virtuous. I am aware that it may be because of my temperament, my personality.

By: Philip

Philip — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 15:55:24 +0000

Thank you bev honold. However much of my analysis of ‘The Lord of the Rings’ was taken from ‘The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide: Reader’s Guide’ by Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond, and from ‘Master of Middle-Earth: The Fiction of J.R.R.Tolkien’ by Paul H. Kocher.

Elie Wiesel, philosopher, novelist and Holocaust survivor, said in the lecture “Building a Moral Society” which he gave at DePauw University in Indiana on 21 September 1989, that “[t]he opposite of love is not hate but indifference.” http://storiesforpeakers.blogspotcom/2008/03/elie-wiesel-on-indifference.html.

A Google search for ‘fear opposite love’ comes up with a whole stack of hits.

By: Lisa

Lisa — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 13:46:29 +0000

I read somewhere: The opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference.

By: Stefan

Stefan — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 19:09:13 +0000

I read something a few months ago; it may have been in a comment on this blog, or it may have been in a newspaper column. The writer said that the opposite of love is not hate, but fear.