FreeThinker
DP Veteran
- Joined
- Jan 5, 2006
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So here it is:
I am 25. I grew up a conservative. My parents both have (I have just found this out) Jesus Christ syndrome: they run around making choices for other people with the idea that they are somehow not human themselves. They don't get why they always end up offending people. They throw money at charity without going to any charity events.
My Dad's problem is best manifest in his decision to write Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee - Google Book Search . Harper Lee is private as hell, and she asked him and other biographers not to write about her. My dad decided that for some greater public good, people should learn about Harper Lee's personal life as told through his eyes of "pure objectivity". He fails to see that in doing so, he has robbed everyone else the right to define Harper Lee and her message themselves, AND he made money from doing so.
My Mom's problem is taking over the lives of other people and not understanding why they depend on her afterwards. She writes prescriptions for schedule II stuff for people then gets angry at them for being addicted to it. Every single patient she tells me about is either a hero or a villian: the people she writes prescriptions for are the pure heroes. The people that asked for prescriptions and got denied are the pure villians.
So after 25 years of walking around making people angry by giving them stuff they didn't ask for, here I am: suddenly aware of why religious people knocking on doors are so creepy.
But here is the main point: My parent's Jesus Christ syndrome made one a doctor and the other a high school educator for 25 years. They may be unaware of their own self serving nature, but it sure as hell made other people around them happy/cured (sometimes). Their own lack of human awareness seemed to enable the power to actually solve problems.
So my choice is to walk around thinking I'm God and solving everyone's problems (which I can and will do as a computer science/engineering major), or be aware of everyone else's humanity and my own actions and possibly render myself impotent to actually solve anything.
Should I be the Bible thumping Batman figure causing more problems than I solve, or should I be the bleeding heart humanitarian that ends up changing nothing and annoying the hell out of everyone.
This post is more or less rhetorical by the way - I could not have written it if it was for no audience. That lacks conviction somehow...
I am 25. I grew up a conservative. My parents both have (I have just found this out) Jesus Christ syndrome: they run around making choices for other people with the idea that they are somehow not human themselves. They don't get why they always end up offending people. They throw money at charity without going to any charity events.
My Dad's problem is best manifest in his decision to write Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee - Google Book Search . Harper Lee is private as hell, and she asked him and other biographers not to write about her. My dad decided that for some greater public good, people should learn about Harper Lee's personal life as told through his eyes of "pure objectivity". He fails to see that in doing so, he has robbed everyone else the right to define Harper Lee and her message themselves, AND he made money from doing so.
My Mom's problem is taking over the lives of other people and not understanding why they depend on her afterwards. She writes prescriptions for schedule II stuff for people then gets angry at them for being addicted to it. Every single patient she tells me about is either a hero or a villian: the people she writes prescriptions for are the pure heroes. The people that asked for prescriptions and got denied are the pure villians.
So after 25 years of walking around making people angry by giving them stuff they didn't ask for, here I am: suddenly aware of why religious people knocking on doors are so creepy.
But here is the main point: My parent's Jesus Christ syndrome made one a doctor and the other a high school educator for 25 years. They may be unaware of their own self serving nature, but it sure as hell made other people around them happy/cured (sometimes). Their own lack of human awareness seemed to enable the power to actually solve problems.
So my choice is to walk around thinking I'm God and solving everyone's problems (which I can and will do as a computer science/engineering major), or be aware of everyone else's humanity and my own actions and possibly render myself impotent to actually solve anything.
Should I be the Bible thumping Batman figure causing more problems than I solve, or should I be the bleeding heart humanitarian that ends up changing nothing and annoying the hell out of everyone.
This post is more or less rhetorical by the way - I could not have written it if it was for no audience. That lacks conviction somehow...
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