Roger Harty: Compassion Is Our Compass

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I WROTE an article last week about the beauty of a compass and how it is a great instrument to give us security of direction.

In the middle of writing that article it dawned on me that ‘compass’ is an integral part of the word compassion.

I said to myself ‘Now isn’t that interesting’!

What makes it even more interesting in my view is the question ‘What if we made compassion our compass for living?’

In other words if compassion was our direction for living ‘what kind of world would we have?’

This very question is being posed to us at this very moment all around the world, in Europe and closer to home in Britain and Ireland. It is very current and is going to determine the success or failure of our society going forward.

The word compassion has its origin in Latin – ‘compassionem’ – meaning to suffer with. If there is one thing that we have in common as human beings it is that we have all suffered in one way or another in this life.

If we realise this, that we have this in common with every other human, then it is only natural that we should show understanding and empathy for another person’s suffering as we have experienced it ourselves. We are only human after all.

Many years ago I came across a wonderful film called ‘Freedom Writers’ staring Hilary Swank.

It told about the horrible gang warfare that terrified the community of Los Angeles, and how a teacher (Hilary Swank) and 150 teens used writing to change themselves and the world around them.

There is one special scene where the teacher introduced two lines of students of different ethnic origin and asked them to stand opposite each other. In normal circumstances they couldn’t remain together, but she made them look each other in the eye.

Then she asked each line (ethnic group) to stand forward if they had lost a sibling in the Los Angeles violent rioting. Several of each group stood forward.

By doing this she got them to come to the realisation that the pain of loss that they had both experienced was equal for each other. They each had similar suffering and in a funny but strange way they were united by their suffering.

When they came to the realisation that they had something in common as human beings they began to look at each other in a different light and thus developed compassion for each other’s pain.

This in turn helped to reduce the violence of the L.A. riots and gave the youths a direction for working their way out of conflict.

Compassion was their compass and I can only hope that the world was watching on.

• Next week I am going to write about — Change

2 Comments

  1. Matty O'Leary says:

    You speak are clearly speaking about open boarders and multiculturalism. However, all your references are speak volumes about its failures.

    Logic should be a societies compass!

    The west has entered demographic decline and is desperate to steal the human resources of the developing world to pay for the pensions of the greatest selfish generation (the boomer generation). Instead of telling the truth that the world as a whole is entering demographic decline. However, some nations like Nigeria are having a boom.
    So, European governments should be encouraging their declining people groups to breed by introducing better supports for young couples in the areas of childcare, housing and tax breaks. However, this is to difficult as it would take a 20 year commitment to turn things around.
    Hence, compassion is used as an excuse to take the easy way out and just allow in as many different races, religions and cultures into Europe to make up the difference.
    The long term affect will be to turn European cities like London, Paris and Berlin into ethnically divided troubled places just like Los Angeles, maybe even worse as the American system of the melting pot model is far more successful when not overloaded due to people in power with the above sentiment.

    What is so sick and sad is the loss of compassion for our own young people that should exist naturally in a time of demographic decline that occurs. They have been robbed of cheaper housing, higher wages and better job prospects thus encouraging them to have larger families as was the cast in the past when this occurs. But, no the rich will never pay – the people will – all you have to do is brainwash them into doing it.
    Europe is about to change beyond all recognition in the next 2 decades.

    The greatest every lie every told to the brainwash generation of the western world by the banksters , lobbyists and NGO’s is “Diversity Is Our Strength”.
    LOL.

    The Coming Retirement Crisis Explained and Explored (w/ Raoul Pal):
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OFaZcC0lRU

    Mapping global population and the future of the world | The Economist:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ur77lDetI9Q

    Hungary: Orban says ‘migration’ cannot stop ‘Europe’s population decline’:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkqMdKV894Q

  2. Matty O'Leary says:

    Why population growth is good for government and business but doesn’t benefit everyone | ABC News:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2d5nD5WzAW0

    10 Good Things That The Black Death Gave Us / society after population decline:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aDW5RJXhvw

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