Can Compassion be Aggressive? #1000Speak

As a teenager, I used to give a lot of cards.
Birthday cards, friendship cards, 'simply for no reason' cards... you name it. I actually had a whole bag of them with me, ready to whip out and use at a moment's notice. For friends, I was the go-to guy to get a card at the last moment. For me, giving cards was a genuine expression of respect, friendship and love. I liked the set of people around me and I was not scared to let them know how I felt, ably aided by Hallmark.
A single act by someone who used my cards against me destroyed this quirk in me. But we will talk about that at the end of this post.

Before that, I want to go out of the light and into the darkness with you for a moment.
The theme for this month's #1000Speak is 'Inherent Compassion'.
Is compassion something that exists within all of us? Passed on perhaps from generation to generation? The generous and pious father implying that the daughter too is definitely going to grow up to be kind?
Yes or no? Choose one of the two in your mind before you continue.
Done? Now let us flip that question around a bit.


Are violent tendencies inherent?
Rapes, murders - are these qualities that exist within each of us too? Do they lie inside, dormant and waiting? We see the rich & poor do it, the privileged family and the down trodden too. Caste, religion and colour don't seem to give a clear demarcation either. Does that mean that the capability to rape is inherent within us too?

Suddenly you are unsure of your answer. You want to believe you are capable of the best yet say no to the possibility of the alternative. It is nothing more than a 'if God exists, so must the Devil' analogy and yet you hesitate to accept the possibility that you or the one you love the most may be capable of the most inhuman of acts.

Inherent? I believe we are all bits and pieces of every possibility... we are a hundred hues of ever-changing grays more than just white or black. An inherently good person is capable of a monstrous act when circumstances push them to it. An inherently horrible fiend is capable of a moment of compassion when something lights a candle within his dark soul.

And that is why I think we need more than a village to raise a child in today's world.
It is not enough anymore to passively partake of an act of kindness when you come across the opportunity on the street. It is time to go out and actively build a wall of compassion, drowning out the haters and bigots.

The worst acts - rape, murder with forethought - are about power. The worst acts involve the aggressive dehumanization of a fellow being using leverage without remorse.
It is time for the best too to be aggressive in re-humanizing our fellow beings using compassion and being remorseless about it.

A single manipulation ended my decade-long habit of giving personalized cards to others. In the ten years since, I have bought just two cards from a gift shop. Looking back, I realize that it was a case of fear. I was afraid to let people know they mean something to me. Someone chose to take advantage of my nature and I responded by shutting down that part of me. A gesture that made more than three dozen friends smile during their teens was stopped because one person made me feel ashamed about letting people I cared about know it.

But How Can Compassion Be Aggressive?

The compassionate are often seen as gentle flowers, with petals of empathy and sympathy being both their point of beauty as well as their Achilles heel. And they are the easiest to crush, their 'heart over head' mentality making them vulnerable to disillusionment.
Dear 'heart over heads', it is time to evolve. It is time to add resilience to your stem now and once more rise and turn towards the sunlight.

Know your compassionate deed will not be liked by all.
Know that it will be twisted and mocked.
Know your past deeds will be held up to showcase your inconsistent nature.
Know that the allegations will be unfair and out of context.
And then flip the finger to the weeds around you and choose compassion anyway.

I don't give cards anymore. That part of me - along with a lot of other parts of what once made me me - is probably broken forever. But I do give friends my time when I know they are down and need a shoulder to lean on. I do let them know they matter. I do let them know I care.

I know it leaves me open to being manipulated again. But I also know that I don't care for the whispers and taunts anymore. I can handle betrayals and heartbreaks better than I could before. And I also know one more thing - that I would rather someone feel better because of my presence in their lives than allow them to keep thinking that they are hated, discriminated or unloved by the world.

Allow your compassion to be flawed.
Allow your compassion to be biased to the underdogs, the victims of disillusionment, heartbreak, loss and bias.
Allow your compassion to be inconsistent.
Allow it to be uncharacteristically aggressive and shockingly remorseless.
But allow your compassion to be.



Author's note:

On February 20th 2015, 1000 Voices Speak for Compassion held its first link up. The intention for that day was to get a thousand bloggers from across the world together and spread compassion and love. That plan would carry forward from a single day into a monthly event where bloggers united to dispel the negativity with their words.

In the past, I have written for #1000Speak on:

1. Compassion (The World is Not a Bad Place - my favourite)

2. Bullying (Do not Lose Sight of who you are Meant to be)

3. Nurturing (The Canine's Guide to Nurturing Humanity - my dog's favourite.)

4. Acceptance (I can see all that you tell her)
5. Love (The 'Letters of Love' Initiative)
6. Compassion once more (Is Being Good a Bad Thing in today's World?)
7. Listening ( Trust Others to Listen to You)

8. On Letting Go of Your Past (There is no Rhinoceros running behind you)

You can also find #1000Speak on Facebook,Twitter, the blog or just by typing down the hashtag #1000Speak on social media.