Question of the Day

[ayoub]

Why is it easier to hurt someone than it is to heal them?

Comments

[wingswithwar.livejournal.com]

**guessing**

Maybe because in all honesty you can't HEAL another individual. . . even if they break a leg, all you can do is set it and let nature take it's course.

The act of hurting, I think, has nothing to do with another's pain, but our own. Or ouf own anger.. . or jealousy ..or fear. .. or what ever other motive there might be. I think most of it is fear.

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

Fear, or jealousy, or even just plain unreasoning bigotry are powerful drivers.

Nurturing takes a prolonged effort, and patience...

**hugs you**

[wingswithwar.livejournal.com]

Nurturing does a lot to make the ride to healing a whooooole lot more managable.

[yndy.livejournal.com]

the short and dirty answer?
Healing someone usually takes intent and effort - hurting is often unintentional and seemingly effortless.

One requires energy given - the other takes it from someone else.

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

Seems like we hurt because it's something to do...

[delphaicdragon.livejournal.com]

Because healing is internal. You can be the splint around a broken limb, but it will take their own effort and energy to heal the underlying problem.

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

Nurturing can help, rather than hitting out again...

[cmerun12.livejournal.com]

Hurting someone doesn't require thought or consideration. (Unless you really want them to bleed.)

Healing someone requires a part of you to help the process along.

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

Hurting is the lazy option?

[cmerun12.livejournal.com]

Pretty much. It's also the quickest option.

[moonlights-lair.livejournal.com]

…because you can cause pain without having to be involved in the experience physically or mentally, but to heal, you must become an active participant in the curative process in order to affect a positive and/or therapeutic change.

M.Night.

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

Well said :D

[fire-fox01.livejournal.com]

I think it's because healing takes a lot more thought and commitment while hurting is usually thoughtless and happens in an instant. Also, sometimes it is not possible to heal another person. They have to want and need it from you.

[fox-bard.livejournal.com]

A. We believe it takes more energy to heal than to destroy. This is not true. It actually takes more energy to destroy (as anyone who has ever collapsed from exhaustion after a tantrum can attest to), but you don't have to concentrate as much because the destructive emotions just take you along for the ride.

A wrecking ball requires more energy to swing than a physician giving someone a shot. The wrecking ball gives gratuitous instant pleasure. The shot hurts and takes time once the medicine has been introduced to the system.

B. Healing is internal - as mentioned. And is best done as an aid to the person so that they can heal themselves. The danger in healing is that there are some psychic vampires out there who play permanent victim in order to feed on those they turn into their crutches. Healing is a double edged sword. Know whom you heal before you set out to help them.

On the other side, beware the healers who do so for the emotional pay off. They are in it for themselves and for what they can get out of the one in need of healing - not because they are altruistic.

C. Too many existing adults live their lives as giant children who are too concerned with the egocentricities of their personal universes to give a damn who they hurt - as long as they get what they want. Most of the time they don't even realize they are hurting anyone, because their personal goals are too all-consuming to see the larger picture of the world.

D. Need more caffeine before I can think up anything else to put here.

[the-ravyn.livejournal.com]

You said it better than I could.  I totally agree with you.

[fox-bard.livejournal.com]

I was thinking about this in more depth when I sat on the can today. (It's a good place for philosophy, ya know?) Hope you don't mind if I use your comment to expand my hypothesis. ^__^

I think we mistake gravity and momentum for ease. Yeah, once the wrecking ball swings, it's doing its own thing - but by then it is out of control and can swing back and smack you upside the head, too. And the initial thrust of energy to get that ball moving for its first impact is extreme, requiring heavy machinery to lift and propel it.

Or how about a boulder that looms on a hill over the house of your enemy. It takes a lot of pushing and leverage to finally get that sucker moving... and once you do, you can just stand back and watch, right? Sure, because that's all you can do. But that doesn't make the moving of that boulder any easier to start with, or the watching, for that matter. And if that little rock you didn't know was in the boulder's path changes its course and sends it hurtling towards your own house instead? OOPS! Well, thems the breaks, AKA - the Law of Action/Reaction/Consequence, which has been mislabeled as "Karma" in Western culture. Battle plans are only as good as the paper they are on. Once the field is in play, anything can happen.

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

I think it's also a precision thing... You can use a wrecking ball with precision if you want to, to minimise suffering (euthanasia), But to hurt, it's simply a matter of losing control, and letting things go wild...

Thank you for the discussion bro :D

[fox-bard.livejournal.com]

I think most people hurt when they go wild because they stop thinking of others and only themselves in that instant. It's a little hard not to when your emotions are winding you up so tight inside that you turn into a bouncy spring when that last bit of pressure is applied. This is when we feel the most justified in our rage, but we can easily become blind to what is good so that we can embrace the catharsis of anger. It's a human process by which we dump the emotions that are eating us from the inside out. Unfortunately, when we take a dump, shit comes out... and if we're not careful, it can splatter everywhere.

Then there are your precision hurters (the wrecking balls)... the ones that look for the vulnerabilities of those around them and make strategic and surgical strikes against them out of some sadistic pleasure or need to gain attention.

In essence though, we all hurt those we love, either by accident or design. It's impossible not to, because we are all wound up in our own heads and are usually blind to what is in the heads of others. As a race of solitary egocentric beings who crave companionship, it's amazing that we haven't just erradicated ourselves by now.

But Creation and Destruction are two sides on the same coin. Thinking even more deeply on this, I came to the conclusion that it takes equal effort and energy to heal as it does to harm. I still think that we are mistaken in that it takes more effort to destroy than it does to heal, because healing feels like a salmon swimming upstream and destroying is like the boulder going down the hill. Mayhaps this is a perception our culture clings to in order to understand why so much destruction happens around us while we blind ourselves to the miracle of creation that happens around us all the time.

There are few human beings who don't believe in their own essential goodness. We come prepackaged with that trait, too. Even the eternal victims, who whine about how awful they are, believe deep down that they are good and wonder why no one else can see it, which starts the cycle of maybe they are not... etc - welcome to the downward spiral. But it boils down to that basic principle of the human mind that tells us that we are good, even when we're bad. Al Capone considered himself the giver of delights in a market for those who craved them. Hitler also believed in his personal good for all that he was doing for the German people. Mao Tse-tung of China... the same.

In the end, the means must be justified by the final results - and that is how history will record them.

[donnickcottage.livejournal.com]

People are much more fragile than they appear, and far less able to change than they should be.

[burnedfeather.livejournal.com]

It is a state of mind.

To heal another, you need to take from yourself "medicine" that you may want to use for yourself. To hurt another you project harm that you could inflict on yourself.

To be a healer is a painful and exhausting ambition. Couple that with the fact that you don't want to feel the failure if and when your efforts go in vain. When harming goes in vain, it's far easier to overlook.

It's a life choice to put others ahead of yourself. A good balance is the ideal.

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

Yes, a good balance is the key... :)

[elysiankitten.livejournal.com]

Because most people don't want to be healed. Its easier to stay angry.

[dazia.livejournal.com]

Because it takes trust to heal, and once the betrayal (which happens in an instant) occours, the trust is blown away with that single large act. It takes many smaller acts to build that trust again.

[crescent-fresh.livejournal.com]

probably the same reason that it's easier to dwell on something than to accept it and move forward.

because you touch yourself at night. *stern look*

[mysticpickle.livejournal.com]

To hurt someone is selfish.
To heal them is selfless.

It is always harder to give of yourself.

[mjtheanarchist.livejournal.com]

The answer, whatever it is, is one of the reasons I'm so opposed to interventionism.

[empatia.livejournal.com]

Because hurt is black, and heal is white. It takes a lot more white to cover black then it takes black to cover white.

[laurel714.livejournal.com]

Cry-babies. People are a big bunch of sissy cry-babies.

J/K.

But I'm not sure that statement is entirely true. Some people don't say "no" because they can't stand to reject others in any way. Sometimes it's a lot easier to be nurturing than it is to be brutal.

[eternalxwhisper.livejournal.com]

Depending on the person, I guess it's always easier to be selfish.

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

:D

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