Saturday, November 23, 2013

21 Life Improvements from BJJ: 18-A Look Into a Future

The world can be saddening when you look at it. I don't mean death or famine or disease...those things bring about sadness, but their origins are, for the most part, natural. I got a real, but still somewhat detached reminder of this from my best friend who saw a man yesterday, shot and scared, in his last moments of life.

"Gosh. We really live on a clock. And sadly humans are the ones often stopping that clock for other humans" she tweeted.

Everything from war to racism to transphobia to verbal abuse, I genuinely believe, root themselves in stripping individuals, people, groups and cultures of their inherent, and easily apparent humanity. We all have a lot of words and ways to relate it, but the aggressors, at the end of the day lack empathy.

Empathy...true empathy...not just feeling bad when you see a starving child or sharing a post about the wrongs of racism, is a layered thing. It means you not only see the feelings of others...you not only experience the feelings of others...but that you then value those feelings. It terrifies me sometimes to see how long that road is for so many people and often nudges me deeper toward my natural cynicism.

I see jiu jitsu though. I see it force people to feel the humanity in others, even if only briefly, even if only in an effort to avoid tapping out, and it nudges me back. 

No comments: