Balancing Act
Feb. 6th, 2011 12:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lillibetA couple of days ago, a friend posted a link to an amazing story about a man who responded to a mugger by not only giving up his wallet, but offering his coat. The story of where his radical love led is a powerful one. I do not often have that greatness of spirit toward strangers, though I have received its grace, and I struggle toward it in fits and starts.
Another friend recently posted about the suicide of a former acquaintance, a man of talent, wit and intelligence who had shone at Harvard Med, Stanford and Northwestern, becoming a surgeon before killing himself at the age of 33. As she commented, "The world of medicine can be a grueling one, and though you care for a stream of patients, it is no one's job to care for you."
Last summer I finally got to see Timon of Athens, one of Shakespeare's worst scripts, about a man who glories in generosity and finds no reciprocal support when his own fortunes fail.
And so I'm thinking about balance, about the need to put yourself first, but not only; about the need to care for others without thought of recompense, and the immeasurable rewards that come from pouring out your self into the world; and about the ways that self can be exhausted without attention to its own nourishment.
On and on, the rain will say, how fragile we are, how fragile we are.
Another friend recently posted about the suicide of a former acquaintance, a man of talent, wit and intelligence who had shone at Harvard Med, Stanford and Northwestern, becoming a surgeon before killing himself at the age of 33. As she commented, "The world of medicine can be a grueling one, and though you care for a stream of patients, it is no one's job to care for you."
Last summer I finally got to see Timon of Athens, one of Shakespeare's worst scripts, about a man who glories in generosity and finds no reciprocal support when his own fortunes fail.
And so I'm thinking about balance, about the need to put yourself first, but not only; about the need to care for others without thought of recompense, and the immeasurable rewards that come from pouring out your self into the world; and about the ways that self can be exhausted without attention to its own nourishment.
On and on, the rain will say, how fragile we are, how fragile we are.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-06 08:03 pm (UTC)I've done both in my life: Helped people who really benefited and hurt people by allowing the inevitable crash to be prolonged. Identifying which way it will go is very very difficult, and while I was prone to go for the side of "help in any regard" these days I seem to have swung the other way to "they'll probably survive".
Maybe the way to identify it is the same way as identifying if someone is drowning: If someone's splashing around in the water screaming for help and kicking their legs they aren't drowning. If someone is very quiet, seems ok, is slowly flapping their arms, and not kicking their legs they have less than 30 seconds of life left. Rescue #2, deal with #1 later.
C