"Others have it worse than you do"

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More to the point, I went well off topic.

Hows it meant to help. I feel depressed about my own problems and someone says that I start feeling bad that other people are suffering as well.

I don't like it when people say that when i tell them about my issues. All it does is make me feel worse, it isn't helpful to anyone.

My response to the "think of the starving children in Africa" line:

"There are children starving in Africa? I feel great now!".

It shuts people up quickly.

+1

I should have thought of this one.

That sort of sarcasm probably makes them feel guilty to realize that they're using such a serious thing as a famine to try to make you eat your brussels sprouts. Serves them right, though. "Kids starving in Africa" should be a reason to donate to things like the Red Cross or whoever else is helping out over there. It should NOT be used as a way to try to force picky eaters into cooperating.

Yeah, the only thing that helps me to deal with suffering is to help alleviate it for others, sometimes. My mood will never improve if someone tells me that they have it worse than I do. That just makes me angry at the world.

I would never have thought of that myself. My brain doesn't think of sarcastic comments to make (though I can spot when other people make them).

I still get the nagging feeling that I should redistribute my own wealth. I was very religious as a child and probably read the New Testament too much. I got the message that that was what Jesus was telling people to do. Still, civilisation wasn't developed enough to have a concept of democratic socialism back then, so I suppose that was the best you could do.

There does seem to have already been a tradition of wealth redistribution before then:

http://hikergirl.tumblr.com/post/102855 ... es-article

I suspect the concept of democracy and equality is as old as the human race.......the moment one Homo Sapiens overpowered another and ended up better off, the victim would have wanted redress. Theft is like that, one wants one's stuff back. Socialism is just one form of organising, articulating and promoting that aspect of human nature. And there's no getting round it as far as I can see. In world terms, there is little or no correlation between the effort expended by a given individual and the rewards they receive. Nobody deserves to be poor except perhaps those who have been living well off the backs of others, as a punishment to force them to understand how it feels when the boot is on the other foot, and even then, once the lesson is learned, they're entitled to their fair share.

Engels thought the human race began with "primitive communism".........before technology was advanced enough to allow people to generate a surplus value from their labour (i.e. surplus to what they needed for their own survival), exploitation was pretty much impossible because if you took anything from a person in those days, they would simply die. Strong co-operation and camaraderie were essential to the group's very survival.........you could NOT survive without your mates. But once we learned how to create that surplus, we enabled a new social system - slavery - in which the strong steal that surplus value from the weak. The Old Testament gives us a flavour of how the victims felt about this. Quite how the Jews really escaped from Egyptian exploitation I don't know, but the text makes plain that they didn't see their underdog position as the natural order of things....there was some kind of organised resistance, though when exploitation is so starkly obvious, there was probably little need for any complex rhetoric or philosophy.

I must admit, I use the "starving children" line on myself when I'm getting into self-pity mode. ("Oh, you had to cut your internet time 5 minutes short to go to work? I'm sure the people whose children are dying for lack of clean water and a bowl of rice are really glad they aren't you.")

However, if my problems are actually big enough that I'm talking about them to someone in person, instead of just keeping quiet, it means I'm fairly severely overwhelmed with stuff and don't appreciate it being dismissed.

Yes, he was. But remember that to optimize the amount of good you can do for other people, you have to be functional yourself. If you want to be effective at anything, you need good food, a safe place to live, enough down time, decent medical care, etc.

Let's say you get really extreme and you eat nothing but ramen noodles so that you can give away your entire food budget to people who are hungry. The problem with that is that you can't stay healthy on that sort of a diet; and sooner or later you stop being capable of earning the money you were going to give away in the first place. Whereas, if you feed yourself a healthy diet, you can keep earning money and give away the extra after you have bought food for yourself. In the long run, keeping yourself fed makes you much more useful to others.

Or think of a situation that rescue workers often find themselves in: An accident or disaster victim is in a dangerous area and needs help. If the rescue worker rushes into the danger without thinking, he's going to be hurt, and then there'll be two victims to rescue. Instead, he should see to his own safety first; if he doesn't do that, he'll be unable to rescue the person he was trying to help.

So, yes--Jesus does say we should help others. But he also advised that we should be smart about it. And that includes sometimes buying things for entertainment, because if you don't relax, you'll burn out, and then you'll be no good to anyone.

One more thing: When other people help you, you are not obligated to refuse. This is part of living in an interdependent society: We all help each other. Sometimes, people will get the idea that if they are "helpers" they are morally or socially superior, and will put themselves in a category different from the people they help. But that's not so. We all give and receive help. The person you help today might help you next year when you're in a tough spot. It's not about having some kind of a woe-is-me martyr complex; it's about building a world where everybody matters.

^ That's basically the Buddhist middle way.

It is tricky to own stuff without it owning you, though.

[quote="mrspotatohead"Unfortunately, I tend to appear as if I am overreacting any time I react to anything, and even if I'm probably going to get over it soon, people tend to scold me for it.
[/quote]

same here.

I agree with your advice, but I'm not sure Jesus would:



I don't know of anything in the New Testament about smart giving or keeping a bit back for yourself, though it may be there somewhere.


I agree to some extent, but I think it has to be remembered that we're not obligated to give help either. True, we live in an interdependent society, but it's a propertarian society mediated by money, so we mostly sell our help rather than give it. And when we give our help, tactically we're in a strong position because we can withdraw that help at any time without penalty.......to some extent we're entitled to expect that a friend in need will be a friend indeed, or at least that they won't be too ungrateful about it.

Of course a true gentleman would simply try to help out, within reason, and he would know that co-operation and giving bring their own rewards......it's a good antidote to self-loathing, it's a fulfilling experience, putting a smile on somebody's face, to heal or soften their pain, to point to that one elusive piece of the puzzle they've been looking for, or just to answer a question well. But sure, one shouldn't let it go to one's head. Time was when I would never have accepted this, but I think we all have some kind of duty of care for each other. As the Doctor said, I never met anybody who wasn't important.

I'm sure people in war zones, drought, poverty and other afflicted areas must think, "Wow. Look at these Americans. They're so happy and fat, how can they be miserable or depressed?" Are they justified? It's a different kind of hell. To me it'd be hell to be born into a rich family but you have to put on airs, put on a brave face every day, always ready to smile for the camera because you're always being scrutinized and monitored. Different kind of hell. Living in an area where malaria is rampant? A living hell. Struggling with crippling depression? A living hell. Bending over backwards for thoroughly irritating customers or bosses? A living hell.
Dodging bullets every day? A living hell. Yeah, some will end your life faster than others, but in the end, all versions of living hell.