Boggbear Offline

44 Single Male from Lysekil       53
         

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Interesting difference in circumstance.

I find it interesting how we can sometimes put completely different labels on people despite them doing what is in many ways similar acts.
There are two people in particular that I am thinking about at the moment (but as I just finished a bottle of rum I may be a bit drunk and this not making much sense) and so those two will serve to illustrate my thoughts.

We have at one hand a person of unknown character, name and disposition; he has to his "name" a confirmed kill count of 5, or 7 depending on whom you ask.
His name as I said is unknown, but most people will certainly recognise the pseudonym given to him by the papers of the time.
I am talking about the infamous Jack the Ripper, the terror of London town.
The murders that are always considered part of his toll happened between August and November in 1888.
Not that long a span that.

The other man is known and pictured; his name is Simo Häyhä, nicknamed "The white death" by the Russian red army.
He has a kill count of 505 CONFIRMED kills, happening between 1939-1940, a time period in this case of 100 days, so that is more than 5 kills a day at a time when you are lucky to have just a handful of truly bright hours per day.

In any situation Jack the Ripper is considered a monster, and whoever he may have been, nobody has tried to justify his actions or give a mitigating motive to him.
Simo Häyhä on the other hand is considered a hero, despite making countless children fatherless, and countless women into widows.

It was war you see, and in war we operate by a different standard, and beyond that, Simo is said to have been in no way someone who enjoyed killing.

This may just be drunken ramblings on my part, but I consider it food for thought nonetheless.

Obviously it is hard to compare an unknown monster to a known hero and expect to come up with any sort of coherent argument, but one could possibly argue that if Jack had been killing enemy officers during a war, he would have been considered a hero (to certain values) of guerrilla warfare, even if the sadism and dismemberment of his victims would have made him a “terror hero” AT BEST.

On the other hand, it is hard to imagine Simo Häyhä being considered anything but the most abysmal beast if he somehow managed to get that sort of kill count in peacetime, especially in such a short span of time.
I’m not actually sure where I am going with this anymore, so I’ll stop now, while I still feel “ahead” of the game.

People are people.

"No matter where you travel, the sky is still the sky and people are still people."
The quote most likely indicate that people have the same dreams, virtues, flaws and follies no matter where in the world you may be.
To me however it reminds me of something else important.
It does not matter what work we do, doing work where a mistake will cost you nothing but a little time is not really different from doing a job where any failure on your part may cost you your life as well as the lives of many people.

At least, this is the theory I've been taught from childhood.
A shoe salesman should be as careful and focused as an airplane pilot; a rocket scientist should not be more competent in his field of work than a seamstress.

Everyone is as susceptible to a bad day as the person on the other side of the ocean.
If your spouse of 20 years suddenly leaves you for someone younger, you WILL find your focus slipping.
If you are a barber you may accidently slip with the scissors and find yourself with an irate customer, if you are a navigator of a cruise ship, perhaps you will write down the wrong coordinates and run the ship aground.

The point is that we can't expect people to treat every work with the same respect, but the people DOING them needs the same consideration (if not respect) no matter what work they may be doing at any one time.

Just because a mistake is "unacceptable" in any one line of work does not mean that there will never be such mistakes.
Moreover, no matter whom you may be or where you may be, you will need the same support from your fellow human beings if you are to live.

If you can forgive a friend for making a mistake, can you not forgive someone you do not know? Their pain is the same as the pain your friend feels.
A modicum of respect goes a long way towards making the world just a little more of a tolerable place to live.

Something that bothers me.

Actually, to be more precise, the headline might as well be "Something that bothers me more than some other things on a long list of things that bothers me".

We as human beings are quite competitive, nothing wrong with that as long as it is held on a friendly level.
But it doesn't always stay there does it? In fact, it quite often spill into more serious competitions, or downright nastiness.
You've all heard it "poor winners" and of course "poor losers".
In fact, it is a safe bet that anyone reading this either knows one of those kinds of people, or indeed may belong to either category themselves.
I don't know if I am one myself, and so I accept that many people may not know if and which category they themselves belong to.

But all that aside, one type of competition that bothers me is the one between "do-gooders".
I've seen far too many examples of people like that becoming blind to all other problems there is aside from the one they are trying to fix.

I was listening to the radio today; they were talking about how the Romani people are suffering throughout Europe (quite nasty to be honest).
But what made me sit up and take notice was the way it was framed; they made it sound like this is the only problem that exists in Europe today.
If they had claimed that it was the BIGGEST problem I wouldn't have reacted, because really, one problem HAS to be the biggest, might as well be this right?

But that was not the case, it was simple, all other problems were uninteresting, because if this one was addressed then all would be well somehow.
It just does not work for me, the problem IS real, and it SHOULD be rectified, but other people have causes as well.
Some quite worthy and you can't just expect them to drop it all because YOU feel YOUR problem is more important.
All we can do in life is to try our best, and accept that other people really DO feel that they too are doing their best.

Thoughts of a possibly healthy mind.

They say that compartmentalizing is a good thing, the ability to be of more than one mind at the same time.
The ability to dislike what a person does and still remain friends with him or her.
The ability to see both sides of an argument.
It is not uncommon in novels to give a person the ability to compartmentalize if you want the character to be able to move within high AND low circles of society.
I am pretty good at compartmentalizing myself, but it does not always work in my favour.

If I can see both sides to an argument it also means that I may have trouble choosing one side, and instead of making a stand I dither in place.
It also means that I am able to take a good thing and see the possible downsides to it instead of focusing only on the good.

Some psychologists have put forth the idea that compartmentalizing is in a sense something like a multiple personality disorder "light".
The evidence they say is that multiple personality disorder (which is no longer called this anyway) is an extreme coping mechanism in the human mind.
You experience something so traumatic that you cannot deal with it, so you CREATE a personality that CAN.

As such they say that compartmentalizing is the same, only you are able to avoid splintering your personality.
On one hand that could be seen as a strenght of mind, the ability to keep your mind together, on the other hand it could be seen as skirting dangerously close to mental instability.

I am not really trying to make a point here, I am simply putting down a few thoughts in the hope that they might inspire other people who read them to think and challenge their own minds.

Arma virumque cano

It's of a gentleman soldier as a sentry he did stand
He saluted a fair maiden by a waving of his hand
And then he boldly kissed her and he passed it off as a joke
He drilled her up in a sentry box wrapped up in a soldier's cloak

And the drums are going a rap a tap tap
And the fifes they loudly play
Fare thee well, Polly me dear
I must be going away

All night they tossed and tumbled till the morning did appear
The soldier rose, put on his clothes, and said, "Fare well my dear
For the drums are loudly beating and the fifes they sweetly play
If it weren't for that, Polly me dear, with you I'd gladly stay"

If anyone comes a courting you, you can treat them to a glass
If anyone comes a courting you, you can say you're a country lass
You don't have to tell them that you ever played this joke
That you got drilled in a sentry box wrapped up in a soldier's cloak

"Now come you gentleman soldier, won't you marry me?"
"Oh no my dearest Polly, such things can never be
For I've a wife already and children I have three
Two wives are allowed in the army, but one's too many for me"

"Oh it's come me gentleman soldier, why didn't you tell me so?
Me parents will be angry when this they come to know"
And when nine months had been and gone the poor girl she felt shamed
She had a little militia boy and she didn't know his name

Patriotism?

I was told by a friend that I should write a new blog entry, and it just so happens I was inspired to do so by something being told to me by another friend.
She told me how people of her country were not very patriotic; often complaining about what is poor or bad in her country, forgetting the good things.
She herself had her patriotism awakened when she moved abroad for a few years and saw firsthand how it is to live somewhere else, so when she returned home her eyes opened to the beauty and principles of her home.

I believe that most people have a quiet patriotism in them, something that is there, is a very real part of their personalities, but is passive and will not awaken until it is somehow brought to the fore.
They often say that patriotism and nationalism are two sides of the same coin, nationalism being active and patriotism being passive; they also say that nationalism is something bad while patriotism is something good.

Consider...most countries, maybe in fact ALL countries have something to be proud of, but we who live here do not always think about it because we take it for granted. We forget that these things are not "rights" but privileges that might be denied to us somewhere else and is not shared by people in faraway lands...or sometimes even just across the borders.

In Sweden we have very clean water in our taps, the last time I checked it was at 96% purity, and we can have this because we have an effective and well constructed water treating system, in fact, many bigger and richer countries do not have it as well as we do, in part it is because it would cost too much and take too much time to build these things in a bigger country, and some just cannot afford it.
Imagine trying to do it in ALL of China...decades...several decades.
So it is a privileges...not a right, and we in Sweden are proud of it, even if we do not always think about it...and you who read this probably have something similar back home don't you?

How to deal with things.

Most of us have at some point "entertained" misanthropic thoughts; some go through their whole life in that state of mind. Personally I think it is an easily justifiable thing to do, but also completely pointless since it only hurts oneself.
I suffer from bouts of misanthropy not infrequently and I usually find that the best way to deal with it for me is to simply give in and let it happen, that way it quickly burns itself out and I can return to my normal state of mind (for what that's worth haha).

For some people that would not work, so other people might try to combat these feelings by using anchors in reality, friends, family, hobbies and such, and if it works for them then kudos to them.

Life is all about living isn't it? Simple enough but harder to do. One problem is that we often want different things in life, and sometimes that creates problems.
A person who spend a lot of time contemplating in stillness will not be the best match for an energetic person who prefers to do rather than to think (Though they would serve well as a foil)

Likewise if ambition is central to a person then a humble person who is happy with what they have is not likely to create a strong bond.
Opposites do attract true, but it is always good if there is something that binds together yes?

Ah, enough for now, even just writing this seems to ease my misanthropy for now, so instead I'm going to do something fun.

Random throughs anyone?

Ah, the human mind, so devious and hard to understand. You know, most people don't even know themselves, in fact, it is not unusual for friends and family to know YOU better than you do yourself.
Now why is that? Why is the biggest blindspot a person has often their very own self, the one person they spend 24 hours a day with, the one person who knows exactly what is on their mind?
There is probably a good explanation for this, the world does seem to operate within a certain set of rules, like up is up, you fall you get hurt and so on...but we humans often seem determined to break the rules just because we can.
As we learn more of the world we tend to spend time wanting to change it, we learned how flight works, and we discovered why humans cannot learn to fly, but we refused to accept it as a limitation and invented the aeroplane (and it works after a fashion).
And because of it the world has shrunk.
At first, traveling to America from Europe would be done with sailboats, it would sometimes take months, then we improved, made bigger boats with more sails and we could cut it down to weeks. Then came steamboats, we were down to maybe one week, and now we fly, down to maybe a day or two depending on the connections.
And for all that we still do now know ourselves.
We still rely on other people to tell us things about ourselves, family, friends and sometimes paid "experts". And then we just end up not accepting what we hear anyway haha. We are truly a work of marvels.

Staying positive?

It's not always exactly easy is it? Staying positive...
Friends and family are alwyas quick to try and cheer you up, and why shouldn't they? A real friend or family member is hardly likely to want to see you in pain correct? Still, somteims they only make things worse. There are only so many comforting words that can be offered before they start to sound like empty platitudes yes?
Saying something like "I'm sorry it ended with your boyfriend/girlfriend...but this only means you are free to find someone better" might sound like a good idea, but most people are not ready to hear that...
Sometimes it is better to let a person deal with the pain alone and in their own way, but how do you tell when that is the right thing to do? Because it's not ALWAYS the best thing to do.
I'm sure there are a lot of people who have written down rules and regulations for these kinds of things, but like most things when it comes to the human mind, we are traveling in uncharted teritory here people, what's right for you might not be right for me and so on.
In the end, I'd rather be in a good mood than bad of course, so I try to stay positive, but sometimes you might need a little help with that, and sometimes the best help people can offer is silence.

Hmmm, anger...it can make a person act in very irrational ways, I do not think I am wrong in assuming most people who will read this blogg has at some point in life been subject to such anger.
Yesterday was such a day, but for the life of me I cannot seem to remember what exactly it was that made me rage so, and I am not a person that easily forgets things of that nature. Of course there is always the chance that what made my angry would seem trivial to others...and maybe even to myself once my temper cooled...mayhap I did not think it important to remember?
But since it made me sit down and think it at least served some purpose, afterall, we should make sure to give our brains a good going over once in a while.
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