I'll never understand why most people are okay with being just a number.
The idea of being one of any drives me crazy.
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SW-User
People can be reduced to numbers. Surely we have no way of actually NOT being a number in anyones's eyes if they so choose to see us that way.
I really don't understand saying "some people are OK" with it. Who is really OK with being seen as a number?
I think we have to see others with the eyes of love - OK, I know that sounds dopey, but how else do you say it?
How we see others will build up over our lifetime. And every little bit helps! Long ago I read a history of WW1 by Martin Gilbert. Very near the beginning he spoke of one of the first skirmishes, the first battle. He mentioned that 9,000 died. I read this with barely a pause, but then Martin Gilbert "paused". He asked the reader to stop and think. Reflect. He said that there would be more passages in his book mentioning the numbers killed. He then emphasised that we should remember that EVERY casualty was a unique human being, that each had family - brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers, who would mourn the loss. Martin Gilbert's words have always stayed with me - which is why I mention them now. They come once more into mind.
We have to try to keep a pure and supple heart, try not to have our humanity eroded by a world that often seems to be designed to make us coarse and without deep care for others.
The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. We must not see any person as an abstraction. Instead we must see in every person a universe with its own secrets, with its own treasures, with its own sources of anguish, and with some measure of triumph.
For me, every hour is grace.
(Elie Weisel) - Holocaust survivor)
I really don't understand saying "some people are OK" with it. Who is really OK with being seen as a number?
I think we have to see others with the eyes of love - OK, I know that sounds dopey, but how else do you say it?
How we see others will build up over our lifetime. And every little bit helps! Long ago I read a history of WW1 by Martin Gilbert. Very near the beginning he spoke of one of the first skirmishes, the first battle. He mentioned that 9,000 died. I read this with barely a pause, but then Martin Gilbert "paused". He asked the reader to stop and think. Reflect. He said that there would be more passages in his book mentioning the numbers killed. He then emphasised that we should remember that EVERY casualty was a unique human being, that each had family - brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers, who would mourn the loss. Martin Gilbert's words have always stayed with me - which is why I mention them now. They come once more into mind.
We have to try to keep a pure and supple heart, try not to have our humanity eroded by a world that often seems to be designed to make us coarse and without deep care for others.
The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. We must not see any person as an abstraction. Instead we must see in every person a universe with its own secrets, with its own treasures, with its own sources of anguish, and with some measure of triumph.
For me, every hour is grace.
(Elie Weisel) - Holocaust survivor)