Once upon a time, there lived a little frog who was extremely proud of his little world. As far as he was concerned, there was nothing bigger than his little kingdom. He refused to acknowledge there was a whole wide world outside of his little well. (Or the World Wide Web, for that matter.)
That's actually very sweet.
Well, unfortunately, there IS a big world out there.
In fact, we are all frogs in a little well called Earth, you see. Shall we ask the bigger frogs on, say, the planet Gliese 581 c?
*** I close my eyes, only for a moment, and the moment's gone All my dreams, pass before my eyes, a curiosity Dust in the wind, all they are is dust in the wind. Same old song, just a drop of water in an endless sea All we do, crumbles to the ground, though we refuse to see
Dust in the wind, all we are is dust in the wind
Don't hang on, nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky It slips away, and all your money won't another minute buy.
Dust in the wind, all we are is dust in the wind Dust in the wind, everything is dust in the wind.
Many visceral reasons you cry - the face of an abandoned puppy, a baby calling out for his mommy, little hungry faces in foreign lands and right here in America.
Something bad does randomly happen to good people, and you may find yourself feeling tender pity. Would you rather call it compassion? Schadenfreude has no place here. There are 4 perimeters (四端) of ethical feelings that Mencius claimed resulted from our basic instincts. 仁 (benevolence), 義 (virtue), 禮 (rite), 知 (wisdom). Some people call these predispositions "sprouts". 端 is an interesting character which can mean the beginning or the end, the clue or the reason, the sign or the solution, the onset or the limit. (Not quite the alpha and the omega). I am calling it the "perimeter" for now until I think of a better word. 1) 惻隱之心 sympathy for others' hardships 惻 (pity) 隱 (conceal) 之 ('s) 心 (heart) 2) 羞惡之心embarrassed by one's own lack of rectitude and resentful of others' vice 羞 (embarrassment) 惡 (evil) 之 ('s) 心 (heart) 3) 辭讓之心 humility, willingness to yield 辭 (express) 讓 (concede) 之 ('s) 心 (heart) 4) 是非之心 knowing what's right and wrong 是 (right) 非 (wrong) 之 ('s) 心 (heart) *** GM will be filing for bankruptcy, Chrysler is idling its plants for at least a month. What we feel is 惻隱之心, and perhaps all of the feelings above.
... Consider corporate Darwinism, natural selection, to allow the weakest to fail... " -CIO.com
Did Andrew Carnegie say this?
"Whether the law of competition be benign or not, we must say of it: It is here; we cannot evade it; no substitutes for it have been found; and while the law may be sometimes hard for the individual, it is best for the race, because it ensures the survival of the fittest in every department.”
弱肉强食... + mix in a bit of humanity, and perhaps we'll be fine.
井 (well) 底 (under) 之 ('s) 蛙 (frog)
That's actually very sweet.
