#on compassion

[dinasaursinlove]

compassion is like if kindness, empathy and passion had a threesome.

[klorophile]

PadMay 2018, Day 2 ~ How should Padmé be remembered?

The amygdala, a part of the brain famous for playing a role in emotions. Just like Padmé Amidala, as opposed to the Jedi who are taken as the protagonists of the Prequels and are against feelings getting in the way. Emotions are very important to her and her role in the story. She is not afraid to find her motivation in them, to show and act on them. Obi-Wan, as a Jedi, makes it clear he doesn’t like politicians because he knows them to be people-pleasers who won’t mind lying and manipulating, but Padmé does seem to gain his trust because she certainly is not one of the cold power-hungry bureaucrats: She is a politician because she loves people and wants to protect them and make the world better. Probably a little like the idea behind the Jedi, at least in the beginning. Except she is allowed to feel compassion, for real… Personally, unconditionally, in its pain, sadness, joy, fear, anger, … When we are wondering who between the Jedi and the Sith are right, sometimes, it can look like the answer would be Padmé. If we had to remember only one little thing about her, I would say: She was a politician because she had compassion. She is the heart or the amygdala of the story. Of course, Anakin has and expresses a lot of feelings too, obviously, but maybe he might not have been able to if Padmé hadn’t been here to tell him that it’s okay, normal and human. She is the bearer of the emotions. If Palpatine turns ugly at the end of the Prequels to show how into evil he is, what does it say about Padmé that Anakin compares her to an Angel, “the most beautiful creatures in the universe” in the very beginning? Luke is the “New hope”, who was the first?

[packing-bags]

A lot of us have survivor's guilt.  ... And one of the many lessons that I hope that I learned is that I underestimated people. People are good and kind, but I went around so ready to be looked down on and to be held in contempt - I'm a fighter and a scrapper and you look at me cross-eyed and I'll take you out! And I was prepared for that.  What I was unprepared for was the compassion, and the understanding. And it was such a life-changer for me that people - they get it, they get it somehow more than I did.

Jeanette Walls interview with NPR, 2015

[thequotablescollector]

"I believe compassion to be one of the few things we can practice that will bring immediate and long-term happiness to our lives." – Dalai Lama XIV

[thequotablescollector]

"Love and compassion are necessities... without them, humanity cannot survive." – Dalai Lama XIV

[arorazip]

Compassion towards animals is so natural to us that only through conditioning could we become callous towards their suffering and death.

✨ LeoTolstoy

[intoxicatedfandom]

The Red Hand Files

ISSUE #271 / FEBRUARY 2024

Holy shit, Nick, I just read Mark’s question and your response. (Issue #270) It was devastating. It appears that answering to people’s grief is somewhat cathartic for you. The pouring of emotions, and open dialogue of such agonizing life experiences is not something that comes easy to most. Is it cathartic?

MILE, MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA

Have you not been through enough personal trauma to actually want to read the recurring theme of suffering and despair from all of us? Is it therapeutic or inspirational in anyway?

CAROLINE, MULHOUSE, FRANCE

What do you think of the other ‘Nick Cave’ the Chicago born artist? Do you like his sound suits? Are you a fan?

DANNY, MONTREAL, CANADA

Dear Mile, Caroline and Danny,

Some of the letters sent to The Red Hand Files are so raw, and their details so affecting, that they can indeed take their toll, and so I try to exert a certain self-protective remove when answering them. I suppose I do this by practising compassion rather than empathy - being moved by someone’s suffering and wanting to help, rather than putting myself in their position and feeling their pain. Standing a step away and seeking to assist someone in need, rather than being disabled by their despair, seems to be the way to manage these things. I have found this works, as Bob Dylan poignantly sang, ‘most of the time.’

I don’t find the process of replying to these letters cathartic or therapeutic, although it may well have been when I started The Red Hand Files. Neither do I find writing my replies inspirational, in the sense that it does not inspire me, for example, to write a song. Mostly I see what I do as a human duty, I feel I am playing my part in what has become an ever-expanding and robustly vulnerable community of soul-barers. In this space I have come face to face with a kind of truth – a truth that has embedded itself in my life, and which demands something of me, whether I like it or not. I don’t mean that it is some kind of burden, it is anything but, for duty is often the very thing that ultimately bears the greatest rewards. To act dutifully is to acknowledge that things matter, that things have value and are worth caring for.

The Red Hand Files have become a quietly instructive influence over the way I try to live my life, which is openly and with curiosity. They are a kind of existential condition, a means by which to navigate the world, a way to be. They have also, perplexingly, brought to light a kind of ministering impulse that I am both proud of and somewhat embarrassed by. Whatever it is that is going on here at The Red Hand Files, it is a true privilege to be a part of it and I thank you all for that. It is never more than I can handle.

Danny, I have admired the work of the American artist, Nick Cave, for many years. In creating his soundsuits he famously and audaciously turned the rage, grief and helplessness he experienced after the LAPD’s beating of Rodney King into deeply joyful, even rapturous art. The soundsuits became a kind of ecstatic armour. Perhaps, in their quiet, faltering way, The Red Hand Files are not dissimilar in their intent – an attempt to transmute suffering into a kind of knowing and shielding joy. Joy as armour. Love as shelter. I don’t know. I hope so.

Love, Nick