For me, a key turning point in humanist practice was learning to go a step further from something I think we all know better than to do:
Don't police others' grief.
Simple, right?
But at some point, a lightbulb went off, and I started seeing "grief" at the core of a lot more everyday action. Arguments we start online. Stances we take in response to the news and its actors.
It's easier to find more effective sites for change when we aren't wasting so much time stabbing at each others' wounds.
@MLClark I agree. Those that do not grieve do not feel or grow or find gratitude. They live in denial of being vulnerable and human, and express their innate grief in anger, blame, victim-hood. Love the scene in Tombstone when Wyatt asks doc what the bad guy is so angry about. Doc says “some people are just angry they were born.” The fact that Biden, a man truly entitled to grief, just expressed such deep & difficult gratitude exemplifies the courage it takes to truly live a real life.
That's a beautiful through-line, Bob. Thank you for the eloquence with which you tied grief to gratitude, and the necessity of walking that path if one hopes to live as a more fully realized human being.
These words did my heart good tonight.
Thank *you* for your presence in the world, and the example you set within it.
@MLClark thank you as well. You heart is so important.