All suffering is the same.
- This is a loaded concept, but one I was advised to accept for my own sanity. Everyone suffers at one time or another - it's not a matter of why or how - it's a matter of regard that its happening and practicing compassion.
The goal is to perceive suffering as 'on/off' rather than a scalable condition.
Outrageous, I know. People in third-world countries unquestionably suffer more than I do, right? While I believe that to be true, that has little IRL, real-world application. I practice gratitude to account for the privilege I was born into. I practice this common-suffering concept to account for all my judgement-of-others I also was born into.
Facebook is a breeding ground for arguments about right and wrong but a base level of understanding and empathy would really do everyone a ton of good. Everything at it's core is either fear or love and if we left it at that we could all go about our business without all the hatemongering that the internet and IRL culture fosters.
Humans are tribal by nature and many can only typically have empathy within the limit of what they've experience within that tribe.
This is why Republicans needed to have family members come out as gay for them to open their mind to any sort of 'love is love' point of view. Many humans can not have empathy for concepts that don't actually touch their lives. "People are suffering because their love is prohibited," should be enough. It doesn't matter where or how their suffering falls on your personal spectrum.
An individualized spectrum of suffering doesn't count for shit. Turning off my quantifying and qualifying of others' suffering has given me unimaginable amounts of peace and a much larger capability for kindness. Turn on your IFTT recipe for 'If Suffering Then Compassion'.
Make striving for peace bigger than your judgment.All the love. x/Amy