How to Cure a Cruel World
We live in a cruel world. There is suffering. There is a lack of human compassion. We prefer the preservation of the self over the welfare of others.
We live in a cruel world. There is suffering. There is a lack of human compassion. We prefer the preservation of the self over the welfare of others.
We are trained, in theory, that we have a duty to care about our jobs — but in the practice of the everyday, few people genuinely work to care about the jobs they produce in the workplace.
Why is there a disconnect between caring and duty?
Some feel too much is asked of them when it comes to doing a job. They are hired to connect "A" to "B" to create "C" and nothing more. To care about those connections is to drain the emotion necessary to deal with the rest of a rotting world. Or so they say.
When you have a special person that actually cares about the job they are doing and its effectiveness in making the world a brighter place, they are not celebrated by their co-workers or management. They are mocked and asked to do even more work to cover for those who fail to care.
It is a difficult task to ask the box deliverer to care about the boxes they carry; it is hard to beg a fireman to care about those saved from the flames; it is impossible to urge the surgeon to care about the flesh being cut — but we must begin to demand caring from every niche of the workspace so we will be more than just our jobs — and so together we shall rise above common duty and into the sublime of human morality.
Joan Didion is one of my favorite writers. Her writing style is barbed and cool. My graduate students and I had a great time last night discussing her On Morality essay in class.
My grandmother on my mother’s side, of blessed memory, passed away ten years ago this month. She continues to have a presence, however, through her influence and the love that radiated from her over her lifetime. No matter how much I may be in shock that we have lost her, nothing will bring her back.
From the time I first met him in the Rutgers Student Center handing out menorahs for Chanukah for when I left Rutgers, Rabbi Baruch Goodman really helped me out quite a lot. I would like to give some thanks.
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