
Ask HN: How to be in peace with all the wrong in the world? - throwaway4141
I don&#x27;t know how to write this properly, sorry. I&#x27;m approaching 40 and I have no one I look up to as a role model (parents are fine but got the same problems as the general population).<p>People are usually being jerks, not thinking about others, supporting racist ideas, voting to put psychopaths in power, not respecting the laws everywhere, taking advantage of others, etc. The list is infinite and this is all I can see. Every. Day.<p>Is resignation the only way to keep sane? Going back to my home, working on my computer and avoiding interacting with others? Shrugging things off as &quot;that&#x27;s how they are&quot;?<p>It feels like I&#x27;m turning into my grandparents&#x2F;parents in that way: slowly but surely without energy to affect change. But while they seem fine, I can&#x27;t cope mentally.
======
DoreenMichele
First, realize that humans are bad about taking good things for granted and
only focusing on the negative. The first part of this is a good description of
that:

[https://saltyoldgal.blogspot.com/p/prevention-is-hard-to-
mea...](https://saltyoldgal.blogspot.com/p/prevention-is-hard-to-measure.html)

So, actively look for good news. There is good news out there, for example:

 _In 1986, there were an estimated 3.5 million cases of Guinea worm in 20
endemic nations in Asia and Africa.[3] Ghana alone reported 180,000 cases in
1989. The number of cases has since been reduced by more than 99.999% to 22 in
2015_

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eradication_of_dracunculiasis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eradication_of_dracunculiasis)

Try to make things a little better in your little world. Try to be helpful and
do good and yadda.

Also, make sure to take care of yourself. If you are hungry, tired, sick,
broke, etc. the world tends to look pretty bleak.

------
Nasrudith
Reading detailed history in detailed accounts may help. Both from how they
were the same and how they changed. Admittedly "risky" in how you may react
but it is dual purpose in also aiding guidance.

Seeing the cycles can be interesting like how military elites often wind up
diminished - often not violent revolution because that favors another set of
warrior elites often but trade undermining their power but being too useful to
purge - the alternative is being unable to maintain their forces. Nobles
became vestigial compared to magnates and tycoons.

Post Sengoko Jidai merchants went from lower than farmers but better than
untouchables to being allowed to carry one sword.

------
jstewartmobile
Whether you believe in it or not, read the Bible. It is full of symmetry. So
much symmetry that it will bring one thing into sharp focus: that all of the
awful qualities you recognize in other people are every bit as prevalent--if
not more so--in yourself.

Not going to have much luck taking the needle out of the world's eye while the
plank is still in your own.

~~~
yesenadam
So the OP is a racist sociopathic jerk? That seems to follow from what you
say. Also I don't know what u mean by 'symmetry'.

~~~
jstewartmobile
Geometric symmetry, reciprocity, karma, yin-and-yang... call it what you will.
We are not all that different. "Takes one to know one..."

Just saying that very few people are actually as blameless and de-clawed as
they imagine themselves to be. If OP ever acquired enough power to not really
give a shit what anyone else thinks, I'd put my money on him becoming every
bit as nasty. Not so sure on racism and sociopathy though. There are so many
ways to be a jerk.

If we want to go in the other direction with this, Nietzsche's "slave
morality" comes to mind.

~~~
yesenadam
Hi. Well, I've never heard that called _symmetry_. Trying to work out what you
mean: "Geometric symmetry, reciprocity, karma, yin-and-yang... call it what
you will" seems to be a list of a whole lot of totally different things, as if
they're the same thing? Then it sounds like you just mean, "People are the
same/similar to each other." I guess that's usually called 'equality' or
'similarity' or something. Uh and "Takes one to know one" sounds like a whole
other thing too.

The other matter: In reply to _People are usually being jerks, not thinking
about others, supporting racist ideas, voting to put psychopaths in power.._ ,
you actually said _all of the awful qualities you recognize in other people
are every bit as prevalent--if not more so--in yourself_ -

So I take that as meaning, in this case, "You are as much a jerk, a sociopath,
a racist, as them, if not more so". If it doesn't mean that, why say it? It's
easy to say biblical platitudes without facing/admitting the actual meaning in
the world, on a particular occasion, like this. If that's not true, then maybe
what you said isn't right - that thing about _all of the awful qualities you
recognize in other people are every bit as prevalent--if not more so--in
yourself_. Maybe you think that because something like it's in the bible, it
must be right.

Well, I guess this is a good example of "We are not all that different" \-
what you explained you mean in the end makes total sense.

(Not sure about the last paragraph..Nietzsche is a good friend!)

~~~
jstewartmobile
This is not biblical platitudes. This is you being focused on specific
manifestations of unkindness and disregard--like racism and sociopathy--rather
than the phenomena at large.

Like take this quote for example:

" _Maybe you think that because something like it 's in the bible, it must be
right._"

This is either your unkindness and disregard for me personally, for religious
people in general, or for all of the above. It's just that the tables have
turned to the point where this manifestation is socially acceptable, so you're
blind to it.

As for the Nietzsche, one has to wonder how many people are against racism due
to a deep moral sentiment--like the abolitionists of old? How many are against
it because it works against them--like minorities? How many are against purely
from the fear of repercussions--the HR department, or society at-large?

From what I've seen, people in that first group are an exceedingly rare breed.

~~~
yesenadam
Ah sorry to..provoke you. I don't know you personally. Don't know why you are
suddenly being..unpleasant. I didn't think I was unkind - I did say when you
explained you made total sense. The vast majority of my dear friends are
christians. And many christians do believe that because something's in the
bible, it must be right. So I thought maybe you do too. How that shows
unkindness or disregard to you, or blindness, I don't know.

By 'biblical platitudes', I meant, well, your point was the 'mote in your
neighbour's eye, beam in your own', right? That's why you were saying every
bad thing they saw in someone else, the same or worse was in them? Maybe I'm
wrong about that.

I was focused on specifically what you said. Sorry if you don't want to face
the implications of that. I'll try to forget about it too, I guess. Maybe we
aren't so alike? Good luck.

~~~
jstewartmobile
Nothing personal here. Just using your words to illustrate my point. They
seemed rather snarky in print.

------
analreceiver
Turn it around; be at peace because even in this world where doing wrong is
natural, you choose to do right.

------
tuesdayrain
Generally when I don't like something in life, I either 1. fix it or 2. stop
thinking about it. Anything else seems like a waste of time.

------
miles
> " _I 'm approaching 40 and I have no one I look up to as a role model
> (parents are fine but got the same problems as the general population)_"

Seneca reminds us[0] that we may be the sons of whomsoever we will:

"We are wont to say that it was not in our power to choose the parents who
fell to our lot, that they have been given to men by chance; yet we may be the
sons of whomsoever we will. Households there are of noblest intellects; choose
the one into which you wish to be adopted; you will inherit not merely their
name, but even their property, which there will be no need to guard in a mean
or niggardly spirit; the more persons you share it with, the greater it will
become. These will open to you the path to immortality, and will raise you to
a height from which no one is cast down. This is the only way of prolonging
mortality -nay, of turning it into immortality. Honours, monuments, all that
ambition has commanded by decrees or reared in works of stone, quickly sink to
ruin; there is nothing that the lapse of time does not tear down and remove.
But the works which philosophy has consecrated cannot be harmed; no age will
destroy them, no age reduce them; the following and each succeeding age will
but increase the reverence for them, since envy works upon what is close at
hand, and things that are far off we are more free to admire. The life of the
philosopher, therefore, has wide range, and he is not confined by the same
bounds that shut others in. He alone is freed from the limitations of the
human race; all ages serve him as if a god. Has some time passed by? This he
embraces by recollection. Is time present? This he uses. Is it still to come?
This he anticipates. He makes his life long by combining all times into one."

> " _Is resignation the only way to keep sane?_ "

Resignation is not likely to produce the good you seek.

Epictetus' _Discourses_ [1,2] offers advice on attaining and maintaining
tranquility, even in the midst of hardship.

If you have the time and interest, a meditation retreat may offer deeper,
experiential insight into the nature of existence; the topic comes up fairly
regularly on HN[3].

[0]
[http://www.stoics.com/seneca_essays_book_2.html](http://www.stoics.com/seneca_essays_book_2.html)

[1]
[https://archive.org/details/epictetusdiscour01epicuoft](https://archive.org/details/epictetusdiscour01epicuoft)

[2]
[https://archive.org/details/epictetusdiscour02epicuoft](https://archive.org/details/epictetusdiscour02epicuoft)

[3]
[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=vipassana&sort=byPopularity&pr...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=vipassana&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)

~~~
yesenadam
Great comment! All 3 are good suggestions. The first one is saying: the
greatest teachers, people, thinkers of all times and places are patiently
waiting, now, ready to teach you in _books_.

From Ruskin's _Sesame and Lilies_ (1865):

...a book is written, not to multiply the voice merely, not to carry it
merely, but to perpetuate it. The author has something to say which he
perceives to be true and useful, or helpfully beautiful. So far as he knows,
no one has yet said it; so far as he knows, no one else can say it. He is
bound to say it, clearly and melodiously if he may; clearly at all events. In
the sum of his life he finds this to be the thing, or group of things,
manifest to him;—this, the piece of true knowledge, or sight, which his share
of sunshine and earth has permitted him to seize. He would fain set it down
for ever; engrave it on rock, if he could; saying, "This is the best of me;
for the rest, I ate, and drank, and slept, loved, and hated, like another; my
life was as the vapour, and is not; but this I saw and knew: this, if anything
of mine, is worth your memory." That is his "writing;" it is, in his small
human way, and with whatever degree of true inspiration is in him, his
inscription, or scripture. That is a "Book."

Perhaps you think no books were ever so written?

But, again, I ask you, do you at all believe in honesty, or at all in
kindness, or do you think there is never any honesty or benevolence in wise
people? None of us, I hope, are so unhappy as to think that. Well, whatever
bit of a wise man's work is honestly and benevolently done, that bit is his
book or his piece of art. It is mixed always with evil fragments—ill-done,
redundant, affected work. But if you read rightly, you will easily discover
the true bits, and those _are_ the book.

Now books of this kind have been written in all ages by their greatest men:-
by great readers, great statesmen, and great thinkers. These are all at your
choice; and Life is short. You have heard as much before;—yet have you
measured and mapped out this short life and its possibilities? Do you know, if
you read this, that you cannot read that—that what you lose to-day you cannot
gain to-morrow? Will you go and gossip with your housemaid, or your stable-
boy, when you may talk with queens and kings; or flatter yourself that it is
with any worthy consciousness of your own claims to respect, that you jostle
with the hungry and common crowd for _entree_ here, and audience there, when
all the while this eternal court is open to you, with its society, wide as the
world, multitudinous as its days, the chosen, and the mighty, of every place
and time? Into that you may enter always; in that you may take fellowship and
rank according to your wish; from that, once entered into it, you can never be
outcast but by your own fault; by your aristocracy of companionship there,
your own inherent aristocracy will be assuredly tested, and the motives with
which you strive to take high place in the society of the living, measured, as
to all the truth and sincerity that are in them, by the place you desire to
take in this company of the Dead.

"The place you desire," and the place you _fit yourself for_ , I must also
say; because, observe, this court of the past differs from all living
aristocracy in this:- it is open to labour and to merit, but to nothing else.
No wealth will bribe, no name overawe, no artifice deceive, the guardian of
those Elysian gates. In the deep sense, no vile or vulgar person ever enters
there. At the [gates], there is but brief question:- "Do you deserve to enter?
Pass. Do you ask to be the companion of nobles? Make yourself noble, and you
shall be. Do you long for the conversation of the wise? Learn to understand
it, and you shall hear it. But on other terms?—no. If you will not rise to us,
we cannot stoop to you. The living lord may assume courtesy, the living
philosopher explain his thought to you with considerate pain; but here we
neither feign nor interpret; you must rise to the level of our thoughts if you
would be gladdened by them, and share our feelings, if you would recognise our
presence."

This, then, is what you have to do, and I admit that it is much. You must, in
a word, love these people, if you are to be among them. No ambition is of any
use. They scorn your ambition. You must love them...

~~~
yesenadam
Contd: Sorry about length, but I think that's a wonderful rant.

The best writing I know on particular favourite books/writers are Robert Louis
Stevenson's essay _Books Which Have Influenced Me_ [0] and Colin Wilson's book
_The Books In My Life_. Also Chesterton's _Twelve Types_ [1] and Emerson's
_Representative Men_.

[0]
[https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/s/stevenson/robert_louis/s848...](https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/s/stevenson/robert_louis/s848aw/complete.html#part3)

[1]
[http://www.gutenberg.org/files/12491/12491-h/12491-h.htm](http://www.gutenberg.org/files/12491/12491-h/12491-h.htm)

