Reminded of Marcus Aurelius' words. "The best revenge is to be unlike he who performed the injury."
Why does Antoine Leiris' powerful tribute to his wife, killed by ISIS in the Paris attacks, bother me so much?
by nicolaou 37 Replies latest social current
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the girl next door
If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.
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Simon
Nic he can't allow himself the luxury of hating because it would utterly destroy him.
I agree. He's lost enough, his focus should be on raising his kid - he needs to do what's best for him.
Justice can be served on his behalf through professionals hunting down her killers.
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millie210
"Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude"
Written by Viktor Frankl, the psychiatrist who endured Auschwitz-Birkenau and lost the love of his life in the death camps.
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Brokeback Watchtower
Thumbs up Simon. Hatred turns into insanity sometimes and if a person can let it go and watch others handle the situation so much the better he has to rebuild his life for his son and himself and he aint' gonna be wasting any time hating.
Hating is negatively charged emotional thought which moves one towards irrational actions when in full swing or at a high level. Very little information gets to the prefrontal lobes of the brain for processing while in this state performance goes down as do ability to manage daily activity. Bad state to be in. Staying in a state of love and caring brain functions thrive and one makes much better decisions.
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paul from cleveland
His words and thoughts are beautiful and the ideal response.
Most likely he doesn't completely feel this way yet but aspires to.
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nicolaou
I think our differences are nuanced. Fundamentally, M Leiris' response unites us and inspires us and I hope it doesn't seem I'm saying otherwise.
All I'd add is the caution to avoid absolutes. Just because I say that anger and hatred are a normal response, that they are a part of what it means to be human doesn't mean in any way that a man must necessarily become consumed by negativity.
Search your past, have you never felt hatred? I have, and for circumstances far less tragic than these. It's a part of me, perhaps not the most attractive part but I'd rather feel the pain of being human than not. This baser side of our nature is forever with us but it doesn't mean we give our lives over to it, that it should utterly destroy us, turn us to insanity or even be called a waste of our time.
I'm not going to harp on this because I already feel like I'm detracting from M Leiris' kindness and love and that was never my intention.
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fukitol
I think you're a dick Nick for criticising this poor suffering mans response. Who the f*ck are you to judge this guy who just lost the love of his life and mother of his infant girl?
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jhine
Fukitol , M Leiris has a son , not a daughter and Nic wasn't criticising him. Perhaps his ( M Leiris ) response makes many of us uncomfortable because we don't know if we could react in the same way , instead of letting hatred and bitterness rule the rest of our lives .
Jan
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cofty
fukitol wins the prize for the least helpful post of November so far.