Hi Laura
I was cheering inside reading your response to the couple in your restaurant. Good for you. Our societies are way less than perfect. Just maybe getting a visit from the police will change that man’s brain enough so that he thinks twice about hitting his child next time. Maybe your conversation with him helped too. All we can try and do is communicate and change thinking? Or at least influence others so that we respect that others have different ways of thinking and behaving…and that maybe another way might work better….
which leads into the hell joke I guess? I’m going back to your first response:
not sure if that was supposed to be humorous or upsetting.
I found it humorous, but I guess you found it upsetting? If yes, why (or how) did it upset you? I’m serious: if it upset you, that indicates some ‘defence’ mechanism against something precious of yours being attacked. And if you feel defensive….why? You know, same old questions, same old cause and effect possibly going on. The point is, if we’re sound and secure, there’s no need to feel defensive.
I'm not an N
I’d agree with you there. Do you say this because most often, it seems, Ns simply don’t have any sense of humour? (Okay, they like to laugh at other people’s misfortune, but I don’t judge that to be a sense of humour.) Just wondering why you wanted to say you’re not an N. I know you’re not, you know you’re not…..
but could someone please tell me how I'm supposed to react to this?
Hey this sounds odd to me. Do you really need someone to tell you how to respond? I’ve read many things here and elsewhere, heck, all the time I think to myself: wow, that really annoyed me, made me angry, made me feel defensive. And I wonder why? Why did I feel angry, upset? It’s usually because what’s been said connects with something in my personal life that upsets me. And I try and separate that from whatever new thing it is that’s triggered me. I try and see the new thing on its own.
So with Sela’s joke, well, you could think: this is Sela’s thread and it is for ‘anything’ so why not put a joke here?
Last thoughts:
but still not finding jokes about hell funny,
Okay, no problem. Do you ‘need’ to say so? I mean, do you think it is as important to say you don’t find hell jokes funny, as it is important for you to have done what you did with the couple in the restaurant? I think the restaurant actions were great, the helpful, courageous Laura in action. Acting on your beliefs in a situation where it mattered. A child’s life matters. As much as a hell joke? Nah, surely not. People are going to make hell jokes all the time, why should you be bothered enough to even comment? Does it matter what other people think and say about hell, to you?
since I know it's an actual real place
I’m not going into this one, and I bet you don’t want to either. It’s not a productive use of our time is it, for us to yak about beliefs? I know you believe what you believe and that’s okay. I don’t believe the same things. I accept that what you believe is true, for you. It isn’t true for me. We’re not going to agree on this. I don’t feel the need for you to agree with me. I hope you don’t feel the need for me to agree with you? But as for hitting babies….I agree with you 100% all the way. What a couple of jerks. It doesn’t matter to me whether hell exists or not: but for some kids, hey, hell exists right now here in life, on earth today. What you did to try and alleviate a child’s suffering is something that matters to me more than pretty much anything. Those actions of yours are the reason I like you and would stick with you in a time of crisis. I trust your intentions and that’s important to me. Phew, small exchanges, big response!
