I recently have received a few comments here on my Shrewviews substack as well as on Off Guardian regarding my ill treatment of sheep. Several people claim that my posts seem to ooze hate and vitriol, which really is not what we need these days as we strive for unification. What do all of you think of this?
Yes, my posts are not altogether kind to sheep (even calling this group of complying individuals “sheep” is considered by many to be bigoted and hateful). After all, I have been told to get on with it and die by two different sheep I considered at one time to be very close and dear friends. The local Toronto Star newspaper ran a story at the height of all of this jab-mania nonsense. The author was basically saying he only wished bad things for unvaccinated individuals, including being barred from hospitals, having no access to ventilators (fine with me) as well as ultimately dying from Covid since we are so irresponsible not to be jabbed—and clearly deserve the worst. I have lost literally dozens of friends, some serious friends, who all would fit under the label of sheep. Nearly no one in these groups were kind to me, and nearly all of them expressed some pretty hateful things before their departure from my life, some, as noted, even wishing for my ultimate demise. I never said a nasty word to any of them, before or after their departure.
Now, I know hate should not beget hate, but really, am I that mean? Maybe I am. I respect this person that wrote to me, and I respect that she bothered to express herself, and I do question my callousness toward our fluffy friends. However, in my defense, I have always claimed to love the sheep who are close to me (at least the ones who still speak to me, albeit rarely). I wish them no ill fate. In fact, most of my effort for two and half years has been in trying to bring them to their senses so they survive this global cockup.
I feel my attitude has always been similar to a coach coaching a soccer team whose members are lazy, inattentive, distracted, and irresponsible. “Get it together you bums!!” (insert more appropriate expletive). Sheep are indeed my fellow humans, and I am more frustrated and disappointed in them than angry. Yes, I am also impatient, edgy, confused, and maybe a bit hateful. But most of this is presented in my articles with a tongue in cheek presentation. I try to be funny, and to look at all of this in a sort of frustratingly humorous way. I mean I even invented the label of shrew to depict us freedom fighters…shrews are funny, aren’t they? And sheep? Sheep are very funny.
Certainly being all lovey-dovey with these folks is not going to bring us all together in a Kumbaya moment, but I also am quick to admit that being mean to them won’t either.
Oh well, you can’t please ‘em all. I truly do want to do what is right, by everybody. And again, I so appreciate people expressing their views and having the gumption to tell me how they feel about this.
So what do all of you think? How are you feeling about my sheep vs. shrew commentary? Am I too hateful? What say you?
I wouldn't call you hateful or say you're guilty of bigotry. What keeps coming to mind as I hear what you go through is how adamantly Jung, in his work, would repeat the profound importance of suffering in a person's life for growth.
Unfortunately I feel like we live in a time where people are willing to identify with anything that helps them feel coddled, protected, or "safe". And it's literally like watching someone take a soother from a toddler when that identity is challenged. Theres genuine suffering on the sheeps end, to whatever extent and for whatever reasons they have, when their ideas are challenged or compromised, that's not your fault. A narrow spectrum of "science" gate kept by "experts" that implodes may shave the wool and leave them cold for a while, but atleast they'll know what to expect the next time they get shaved.
No you’re are not mean or whatever hurt feelings they want to attribute to you. That’s the problem with most 🐑 they’re are so worried about their feelings in today’s new narrative that we can’t have a discussion anymore on any topic cuz someone may get offended! 🤮. Bottom Line We All Know what happens to Sheeple 🐑… they Get slaughtered! So they can vax, jab & boost themselves and get Depopulated😊 the True Agenda behind all this! & that fine with me! It’s called Survival of the Fittest! Cuz their DNA has been compromised by these mRNA bio weapons! .
If my anti COVID vaccine attitude saves 1 person from death or side effect I do want to live outside the sheep herd. Keep writing biting pieces so people will think
You are not hateful ……you are analytical . The commentary is helpful. When I look at the sheep in my life ( sheep as characterized by you - judgemental , hateful , angry etc ) I realize that those individuals have always been inclined in that direction…..the Covid period / excuse has just allowed them to show their colours more vibrantly. This period has opened my eyes I now understand why I was never totally comfortable with those “ friends “. Mary R
Ignore them. I don't find you hateful at all. We have all been through so much, we are just standing up for ourselves. They may be offended by your words, we are offended by their actions. Keep up the good work.
I think the sheep analogy is perfectly fine. For explanation I turn to the German philosopher Immanuel Kant, citing from his famous essay "What is Enlightenment" ("Was ist Aufklärung"):
"Aufklärung ist der Ausgang des Menschen aus seiner selbstverschuldeten Unmündigkeit. Unmündigkeit ist das Unvermögen, sich seines Verstandes ohne Leitung eines anderen zu bedienen."
The internet turns up this English translation:
"Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed nonage. Nonage is the inability to use one's own understanding without another's guidance."
However, the key German word here is "Unmündigkeit". Now, if you enter "unmündig" into Google translate you are in for a treat: Google says the English expression for this is "sheep-like".
So, sheep is the perfectly appropriate word given that we attribute the above quoted definition to our former and current sheep friends. They do certainly not agree, but isn't that part of the definition?
BTW, for all that don't know the essay quoted: take a look, it is well worth the (actually quite short) read and perfectly describes humanities problems.
Unfortunately, some people confuse anger with hate. Anger is totally appropriate and orients us toward injustice. Turning off an appropriate reaction is what the sheep do--many of them have lost their inner compass.
But we must love our enemies. Love doesn’t always mean nice or excuse making. It means wiling their good, and sometimes this requires them to see the anger their evil deserves.
Ignore them. Your writing is always a joy to read. Only Snowflakes would see strong opinions as hate and vitriol. I guess they never had the benefit of hearing the childhood rhyme in public school: Sticks and stones can break my bones but names will never hurt me.
Dr. Hayen, I don’t see your substacks as hateful. You are expressing your opinions and feelings on your personal substack column. It is an opinion piece. Now, IF you had the influence of the Prime Minister of our country it would be a hateful thing to publicly separate the 2 groups and to disparage one calling them racist, misogynist, hateful, and not deserving of our rights. Oh ya… right, ours did. He very publicly and very clearly stated his feelings and questioned even tolerating us. Now that is downright HATE -- disturbing and disgusting! It is interesting how real hate isn’t called hate, but sharing our written personal feelings and opinions are!
I, for one, have always taken your writing as a form of “letting it out” -- an airing of grievances to like-minded people; putting into words how we are all feeling. It is refreshing to know that somebody of greater intelligence than myself relates. You express my feelings better I can. There are many of us out here who are hurting and angry about the circumstances in our personal lives, angry that the “vaccinated” (is that a better term??) won’t wake up and see the truth of what is happening, and especially angry that the ones in control of this craziness, keep it going. You put those feelings into words…. Perhaps sometimes angry words… but not hateful words. I guess this is the age we are living in…. only one side can express true feelings; the other side’s anger and frustration is hate.
I don’t believe that any of us shrews wish bad things (or hate) on the vaccinated. I know that, for me, seeing all the vaccine induced injuries and deaths makes me so very disturbed and angry. Yes , I am angry about that…and I even HATE that it is happening. However, I am not angry at or do not hate those poor people who were somehow manipulated into taking the shots! This damage to human life could be stopped and should be stopped! It is the ones that are like sheep and keep following are the reason it continues. More need to wake up (before they are hurt) and stand up and oppose it…. Not continually follow blindly… as sheep do.
The transfected people shed the toxic protein fragments being expressed on the exterior of their cell walls for an indefinite length of time ( possibly forever, it’s yet to be shown). I will include all the studies as evidence in an affidavit that can be presented to schools, employers and government institutions, requiring they accept liability for such future health effects or take action to protect those who didn’t sacrifice themselves to pharmaceutical experiment. The so called vaxxed are going away to the FEMA camps for a long time, this is undeniable to anyone competent in logical derivation.
I am such an old pedant! Before the subject matter even begins to surface, I'm editing: "Hmmm, receive ... i before e except after c ... don't depend on spellcheck. It's illiterate."
Regardless, something about your post really upset me. Not the fact that you see clearly, and speak clearly. Cassandra has always been demeaned and disbelieved, and eventually thrown herself from the cliff in despair, Ezekiel's watchman on the tower notwithstanding. But the fact that your spouse is a sheep.
I am reminded of a good friend of mine whose mother grew up in Bonn, Germany. Her father, a Jew, was a music professor in the university there. He had to run early, as intellectual Jews were among the first to be exterminated by the Nazis. But his wife stayed with her daughter in Bonn, not believing him - she was a blonde, blue-eyed Aryan (who, we discovered LAST YEAR!! had converted to Judaism) who could 'pass' for white. A year or so later, when things were getting much worse, and even she realized she had to get her daughter out before she was murdered, the father came back secretly to help them escape. But, this time, a neighbour, a former friend and colleague, informed on him, and he was caught and slain. Meanwhile the mother and daughter managed to get away to France for a time.
You may say, what's your point here? To think that sheep are at the least innocuous, only at the very worst hostile, is to indulge in deliberately naive and pink thinking, to put one's shrew-self at risk because of a delusion. To indulge in exactly the same kind of denial and willful blindness that plagues sheep. The delusion of shrews, though, is an individualist mirage in a collective nightmare: they're not so bad, or this one or that one would not ever hurt a shrew, or at the very least not hurt me because they're my ..... (insert appropriate label of relation such as child, spouse, parent, friend, etc.).
Matts Desmets, many of us agree, is right. But you cannot accept his analysis of mass formation unless you also accept the odious truth at the heart of it, which is that this mass is comprised of our relatives, our friends, our work colleagues, the local butcher, baker and candlestick maker. To deny the truth of this is to deny the truth of what we already see happening - that they, almost every mother's son of them, although right now most are masking their own complicity behind a mask of innocence and ignorance and simple inaction, would bleat us out to the authorities if it came to it in order to perform sufficient compelled speech and action so as to stay safe. That's the real meaning behind the noxious popular utterance of farewell - "Stay safe!"
To accept, at this point, that their ignorance is harmless is to pretend to ourselves that they really are ignorant, and to dismiss the fact and the power behind the truth that their seeming ignorance is actually the result of an extremely powerful neurotic denial, that will, if left unchecked, develop into much more murderous hate-powered behaviour ... as we have clearly seen before in modern history.
At the same time, we cannot alter another's lens, especially if it is being strengthened neurotically by discursive manipulation, BUT we must stay alert and awake to the possible harms coming from them, whatever the motive, so as not to be taken unprepared. Let's not act as my friend's grandfather did, and set ourselves up for persecution for our disproportionate capacity to tolerate the foolishness and blindness of the mob.
Oct 17, 2022·edited Oct 17, 2022Liked by Todd Hayen, PhD, RP
Todd. I have interpreted your expressions as pretty srong, but not hateful. I have understood your expressions, because it seems to me that you have been the recipient of quite a bit of hate yourself. So, it can be real tough to return that sort of treatment with kindness.
BTW, fortunately, in Puerto Rico where I live, sheep do not seem to be as hateful as in Canada. Still a lot of division and attitude of "virtue"... but not as bad.
This is how people who've chosen the wrong religion deal with the anxiety it causes them. They're aggressive because they secretly fear we're right. It's easier to project that fear onto us than to find a capacity for independence that they don't believe they have. I have a very hard time being sympathetic, but I try. It helps me to avoid expressing my exasperation inappropriately by doing two things: reading insightful and humorous commentary like yours, and reminding myself that this Earth is a school. You do me a great service! Keep it coming!
I think you are and have been coming from a place of utter frustration and I can relate to that 100% so I have never saw your words as hateful! Not even close. But then again, I relate and empathize with all you say every time...
I don't think it's a question of being hateful or derogatory; it's more an issue of calling a spade a spade and the spade objecting to the label. If, as a human being gifted with high intelligence and having free access to heaps of information (denied to actual sheep) enabling you to make an informed decision, you nevertheless behave in a manner that is highly reminiscent of the way herd-like sheep behave, then you shouldn't moan when people make the obvious comparison. OK, maybe sheeple would be more accurate.
yeah, that was a pretty disgusting article by the Star. I was told early on by my (former) best friend that I was confusing people by posting survival rates (literally the opposite of the death rates) in Ontario, and that Public Health was "doing the best they can". She said she could no longer talk to me and that was that after 20 years of friendship. I have another "friend" who puts me off every time I suggest getting together since the last time we spoke in person. That was when told her I was going to the World Wide Freedom Rally in Toronto, May 2021. She said, "And of course you're going to wear a mask." I replied no and explained (again) that they don't stop viruses. Those are just a couple of stories... I have quite a few more. I've been told that those people weren't really my friends to begin with. That doesn't really help, just makes me feel more stupid and pathetic. I have met some wonderful people though and that helps. I know they'd hide me in their attic if it came to that and I would do the same for them.
We find each other in the strangest of places now: in a queue at city hall, on a telephone call with someone who acknowledges my proton email as code for awake. I think there are a lot more shrews/lions out there than we realize. They're hard to spot but they're there. So I will not be bitter. I'll spend my energy looking.
Before your writing, I would have been a bit off put at being called a shrew, as it has been used as a negative connotation, especially against women; the most notable example being “The Taming of the Shrew”. But compared to being a sheep, I’m happy to be an assertive, disobedient, non-complying Shrew!
I think you’re doing the best you can Todd. I’ve tried to be patient and empathetic myself, however I just reached a point a few months ago when I basically said “screw it”. It’s not that I want to be mean. I simply will no longer try to accommodate people who - by their attitudes - are doing so much harm to everyone. The blind adherence by sheep continues to propagate the harms.
Son of man, speak to the children of thy people, and say unto them, When I bring the sword upon a land, if the people of the land take a man of their coasts, and set him for their watchman:
If when he seeth the sword come upon the land, he blow the trumpet, and warn the people;
Then whosoever heareth the sound of the trumpet, and taketh not warning; if the sword come, and take him away, his blood shall be upon his own head. He heard the sound of the trumpet, and took not warning; his blood shall be upon him. But he that taketh warning shall deliver his soul.
But if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned; if the sword come, and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at the watchman’s hand." Ezekiel 33
I wouldn't call you hateful or say you're guilty of bigotry. What keeps coming to mind as I hear what you go through is how adamantly Jung, in his work, would repeat the profound importance of suffering in a person's life for growth.
Unfortunately I feel like we live in a time where people are willing to identify with anything that helps them feel coddled, protected, or "safe". And it's literally like watching someone take a soother from a toddler when that identity is challenged. Theres genuine suffering on the sheeps end, to whatever extent and for whatever reasons they have, when their ideas are challenged or compromised, that's not your fault. A narrow spectrum of "science" gate kept by "experts" that implodes may shave the wool and leave them cold for a while, but atleast they'll know what to expect the next time they get shaved.
No you’re are not mean or whatever hurt feelings they want to attribute to you. That’s the problem with most 🐑 they’re are so worried about their feelings in today’s new narrative that we can’t have a discussion anymore on any topic cuz someone may get offended! 🤮. Bottom Line We All Know what happens to Sheeple 🐑… they Get slaughtered! So they can vax, jab & boost themselves and get Depopulated😊 the True Agenda behind all this! & that fine with me! It’s called Survival of the Fittest! Cuz their DNA has been compromised by these mRNA bio weapons! .
If my anti COVID vaccine attitude saves 1 person from death or side effect I do want to live outside the sheep herd. Keep writing biting pieces so people will think
You are not hateful ……you are analytical . The commentary is helpful. When I look at the sheep in my life ( sheep as characterized by you - judgemental , hateful , angry etc ) I realize that those individuals have always been inclined in that direction…..the Covid period / excuse has just allowed them to show their colours more vibrantly. This period has opened my eyes I now understand why I was never totally comfortable with those “ friends “. Mary R
Ignore them. I don't find you hateful at all. We have all been through so much, we are just standing up for ourselves. They may be offended by your words, we are offended by their actions. Keep up the good work.
I think the sheep analogy is perfectly fine. For explanation I turn to the German philosopher Immanuel Kant, citing from his famous essay "What is Enlightenment" ("Was ist Aufklärung"):
"Aufklärung ist der Ausgang des Menschen aus seiner selbstverschuldeten Unmündigkeit. Unmündigkeit ist das Unvermögen, sich seines Verstandes ohne Leitung eines anderen zu bedienen."
The internet turns up this English translation:
"Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed nonage. Nonage is the inability to use one's own understanding without another's guidance."
However, the key German word here is "Unmündigkeit". Now, if you enter "unmündig" into Google translate you are in for a treat: Google says the English expression for this is "sheep-like".
So, sheep is the perfectly appropriate word given that we attribute the above quoted definition to our former and current sheep friends. They do certainly not agree, but isn't that part of the definition?
BTW, for all that don't know the essay quoted: take a look, it is well worth the (actually quite short) read and perfectly describes humanities problems.
Unfortunately, some people confuse anger with hate. Anger is totally appropriate and orients us toward injustice. Turning off an appropriate reaction is what the sheep do--many of them have lost their inner compass.
Todd is a compassionate angel regarding sheep compared to Coleman. I share Coleman’s righteous anger and think it is justified. There isn’t enough anger, in my opinion: https://vernoncoleman.org/articles/whats-going-happen-next
Here’s why: it’s willful disobedience to God and truth, which is worthy of anger and judgment: we must hate what God hates: https://open.substack.com/pub/thaddeuskozinski/p/a-pandemic-of-disobedience-revised?utm_source=direct&r=24l7o&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
But we must love our enemies. Love doesn’t always mean nice or excuse making. It means wiling their good, and sometimes this requires them to see the anger their evil deserves.
I thought we were striving for Unicornication.
The Star will soon fall. Are you based in Toronto?
Ignore them. Your writing is always a joy to read. Only Snowflakes would see strong opinions as hate and vitriol. I guess they never had the benefit of hearing the childhood rhyme in public school: Sticks and stones can break my bones but names will never hurt me.
Dr. Hayen, I don’t see your substacks as hateful. You are expressing your opinions and feelings on your personal substack column. It is an opinion piece. Now, IF you had the influence of the Prime Minister of our country it would be a hateful thing to publicly separate the 2 groups and to disparage one calling them racist, misogynist, hateful, and not deserving of our rights. Oh ya… right, ours did. He very publicly and very clearly stated his feelings and questioned even tolerating us. Now that is downright HATE -- disturbing and disgusting! It is interesting how real hate isn’t called hate, but sharing our written personal feelings and opinions are!
I, for one, have always taken your writing as a form of “letting it out” -- an airing of grievances to like-minded people; putting into words how we are all feeling. It is refreshing to know that somebody of greater intelligence than myself relates. You express my feelings better I can. There are many of us out here who are hurting and angry about the circumstances in our personal lives, angry that the “vaccinated” (is that a better term??) won’t wake up and see the truth of what is happening, and especially angry that the ones in control of this craziness, keep it going. You put those feelings into words…. Perhaps sometimes angry words… but not hateful words. I guess this is the age we are living in…. only one side can express true feelings; the other side’s anger and frustration is hate.
I don’t believe that any of us shrews wish bad things (or hate) on the vaccinated. I know that, for me, seeing all the vaccine induced injuries and deaths makes me so very disturbed and angry. Yes , I am angry about that…and I even HATE that it is happening. However, I am not angry at or do not hate those poor people who were somehow manipulated into taking the shots! This damage to human life could be stopped and should be stopped! It is the ones that are like sheep and keep following are the reason it continues. More need to wake up (before they are hurt) and stand up and oppose it…. Not continually follow blindly… as sheep do.
The transfected people shed the toxic protein fragments being expressed on the exterior of their cell walls for an indefinite length of time ( possibly forever, it’s yet to be shown). I will include all the studies as evidence in an affidavit that can be presented to schools, employers and government institutions, requiring they accept liability for such future health effects or take action to protect those who didn’t sacrifice themselves to pharmaceutical experiment. The so called vaxxed are going away to the FEMA camps for a long time, this is undeniable to anyone competent in logical derivation.
I am such an old pedant! Before the subject matter even begins to surface, I'm editing: "Hmmm, receive ... i before e except after c ... don't depend on spellcheck. It's illiterate."
Regardless, something about your post really upset me. Not the fact that you see clearly, and speak clearly. Cassandra has always been demeaned and disbelieved, and eventually thrown herself from the cliff in despair, Ezekiel's watchman on the tower notwithstanding. But the fact that your spouse is a sheep.
I am reminded of a good friend of mine whose mother grew up in Bonn, Germany. Her father, a Jew, was a music professor in the university there. He had to run early, as intellectual Jews were among the first to be exterminated by the Nazis. But his wife stayed with her daughter in Bonn, not believing him - she was a blonde, blue-eyed Aryan (who, we discovered LAST YEAR!! had converted to Judaism) who could 'pass' for white. A year or so later, when things were getting much worse, and even she realized she had to get her daughter out before she was murdered, the father came back secretly to help them escape. But, this time, a neighbour, a former friend and colleague, informed on him, and he was caught and slain. Meanwhile the mother and daughter managed to get away to France for a time.
You may say, what's your point here? To think that sheep are at the least innocuous, only at the very worst hostile, is to indulge in deliberately naive and pink thinking, to put one's shrew-self at risk because of a delusion. To indulge in exactly the same kind of denial and willful blindness that plagues sheep. The delusion of shrews, though, is an individualist mirage in a collective nightmare: they're not so bad, or this one or that one would not ever hurt a shrew, or at the very least not hurt me because they're my ..... (insert appropriate label of relation such as child, spouse, parent, friend, etc.).
Matts Desmets, many of us agree, is right. But you cannot accept his analysis of mass formation unless you also accept the odious truth at the heart of it, which is that this mass is comprised of our relatives, our friends, our work colleagues, the local butcher, baker and candlestick maker. To deny the truth of this is to deny the truth of what we already see happening - that they, almost every mother's son of them, although right now most are masking their own complicity behind a mask of innocence and ignorance and simple inaction, would bleat us out to the authorities if it came to it in order to perform sufficient compelled speech and action so as to stay safe. That's the real meaning behind the noxious popular utterance of farewell - "Stay safe!"
To accept, at this point, that their ignorance is harmless is to pretend to ourselves that they really are ignorant, and to dismiss the fact and the power behind the truth that their seeming ignorance is actually the result of an extremely powerful neurotic denial, that will, if left unchecked, develop into much more murderous hate-powered behaviour ... as we have clearly seen before in modern history.
At the same time, we cannot alter another's lens, especially if it is being strengthened neurotically by discursive manipulation, BUT we must stay alert and awake to the possible harms coming from them, whatever the motive, so as not to be taken unprepared. Let's not act as my friend's grandfather did, and set ourselves up for persecution for our disproportionate capacity to tolerate the foolishness and blindness of the mob.
Todd. I have interpreted your expressions as pretty srong, but not hateful. I have understood your expressions, because it seems to me that you have been the recipient of quite a bit of hate yourself. So, it can be real tough to return that sort of treatment with kindness.
BTW, fortunately, in Puerto Rico where I live, sheep do not seem to be as hateful as in Canada. Still a lot of division and attitude of "virtue"... but not as bad.
This is how people who've chosen the wrong religion deal with the anxiety it causes them. They're aggressive because they secretly fear we're right. It's easier to project that fear onto us than to find a capacity for independence that they don't believe they have. I have a very hard time being sympathetic, but I try. It helps me to avoid expressing my exasperation inappropriately by doing two things: reading insightful and humorous commentary like yours, and reminding myself that this Earth is a school. You do me a great service! Keep it coming!
I think you are and have been coming from a place of utter frustration and I can relate to that 100% so I have never saw your words as hateful! Not even close. But then again, I relate and empathize with all you say every time...
I don't think it's a question of being hateful or derogatory; it's more an issue of calling a spade a spade and the spade objecting to the label. If, as a human being gifted with high intelligence and having free access to heaps of information (denied to actual sheep) enabling you to make an informed decision, you nevertheless behave in a manner that is highly reminiscent of the way herd-like sheep behave, then you shouldn't moan when people make the obvious comparison. OK, maybe sheeple would be more accurate.
yeah, that was a pretty disgusting article by the Star. I was told early on by my (former) best friend that I was confusing people by posting survival rates (literally the opposite of the death rates) in Ontario, and that Public Health was "doing the best they can". She said she could no longer talk to me and that was that after 20 years of friendship. I have another "friend" who puts me off every time I suggest getting together since the last time we spoke in person. That was when told her I was going to the World Wide Freedom Rally in Toronto, May 2021. She said, "And of course you're going to wear a mask." I replied no and explained (again) that they don't stop viruses. Those are just a couple of stories... I have quite a few more. I've been told that those people weren't really my friends to begin with. That doesn't really help, just makes me feel more stupid and pathetic. I have met some wonderful people though and that helps. I know they'd hide me in their attic if it came to that and I would do the same for them.
We find each other in the strangest of places now: in a queue at city hall, on a telephone call with someone who acknowledges my proton email as code for awake. I think there are a lot more shrews/lions out there than we realize. They're hard to spot but they're there. So I will not be bitter. I'll spend my energy looking.
Thanks for your post.
Before your writing, I would have been a bit off put at being called a shrew, as it has been used as a negative connotation, especially against women; the most notable example being “The Taming of the Shrew”. But compared to being a sheep, I’m happy to be an assertive, disobedient, non-complying Shrew!
I think you’re doing the best you can Todd. I’ve tried to be patient and empathetic myself, however I just reached a point a few months ago when I basically said “screw it”. It’s not that I want to be mean. I simply will no longer try to accommodate people who - by their attitudes - are doing so much harm to everyone. The blind adherence by sheep continues to propagate the harms.
They are simply confirming you have chosen the most perfect word/animal to describe their mindset and actions.🤣
I think you've struck the right balance of hate personally. Telling people to wake up will never wake them up.
"Again the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
Son of man, speak to the children of thy people, and say unto them, When I bring the sword upon a land, if the people of the land take a man of their coasts, and set him for their watchman:
If when he seeth the sword come upon the land, he blow the trumpet, and warn the people;
Then whosoever heareth the sound of the trumpet, and taketh not warning; if the sword come, and take him away, his blood shall be upon his own head. He heard the sound of the trumpet, and took not warning; his blood shall be upon him. But he that taketh warning shall deliver his soul.
But if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned; if the sword come, and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at the watchman’s hand." Ezekiel 33
My tact has been to withdraw attention and affection from them. I make an exception for my children. I treat them like addicts.