Thanks for your kind comment :) I was a bit emotional writing this (obviously, lol) - I'm using this blog to blow off the edge of my harshest emotions about the events of my life, so they don't spill over into my actual life any worse than they already have. From a week+ out, I can see that I have a prominent honor/dishonor aspect close to the core of my personality, and this event tripped it HARD. I'm mostly proud of myself that I was able to work through it, and that it didn't fundamentally interrupt my spiritual path.
I do perceive that in a different life, in a different culture, I would have swung the axe myself to cut the heads off of my enemies, with righteous and cold precision. Perhaps I even did. I believe with certainty that my current life path is more virtuous, as I now decide as a rule to choose forgiveness wherever possible and to live in as much harmony as possible with the complexity of other humans - but there's some value even in the harshest edges of a personality. Makes it so you don't just roll over, I guess.
I made a sacred vow, actually, that I would not defend the city of Portland online any longer, and so I will not. But... thank you, for offering a defense of my lived experience. This city - my city, still - is sad and fallen in many ways, and has yet further to fall. But I know it will never entirely be erased from my heart, nonetheless. These bittersweet emotions come along with living through History, and understanding more deeply the nature of things.
no subject
I do perceive that in a different life, in a different culture, I would have swung the axe myself to cut the heads off of my enemies, with righteous and cold precision. Perhaps I even did. I believe with certainty that my current life path is more virtuous, as I now decide as a rule to choose forgiveness wherever possible and to live in as much harmony as possible with the complexity of other humans - but there's some value even in the harshest edges of a personality. Makes it so you don't just roll over, I guess.
I made a sacred vow, actually, that I would not defend the city of Portland online any longer, and so I will not. But... thank you, for offering a defense of my lived experience. This city - my city, still - is sad and fallen in many ways, and has yet further to fall. But I know it will never entirely be erased from my heart, nonetheless. These bittersweet emotions come along with living through History, and understanding more deeply the nature of things.