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  • The Ten Commandments maintain an extraordinary hold on our imaginations even though many of them can soundin

  • the context of our own timesreally rather peculiar, with injunctions not to

  • covet a neighbour’s livestock or to make sure one doesn't carve images of god-like figures in the rocks.

  • The Commandments were responses to the specific needs of a small nomadic

  • community, wandering the Sinai peninsula with goats and sheep around

  • 1,200 BC. Our needs have, predictably, changed a bit since then.

  • But a place for rules remains: because we're still

  • horribly prone to violence, cruelty and self-righteousness and need regularly to be reminded of how to

  • live peacefully and well with ourselves and our neighbours.

  • What would it be like to try to update the commandments for our own times?

  • Here is a go...

  • The good person is at all times

  • highly aware of their flaws and committed to becoming a better version of themselves.

  • They are not insulted if people point out their need for evolution, even when they do this rather clumsily.

  • A good person believes in ongoing need for moral and phsycological education..

  • The good person knows that everyone is deeply damaged and a little mad, starting with (of course) themselves.

  • They are unfrightened by their own strangeness and are committed to informing those around

  • them of it in very good time, and apologising retrospectively when they have failed to do so.

  • They understand that part of their duty is to have a ready answer to the legitimate question,

  • And how are you crazy?’

  • The good person is loyal in relationships not because they

  • think their lover is perfect, but because they know that everyone is pretty imperfect

  • and rather hard to live with at close range. They accept that the only people we can ever

  • think of as normal or easy are people we don’t yet know very well.

  • The good person knows that it is impossible to be wholly understood by anyone and accepts that things are going

  • well if one is very lonely in around only half of the key areas of one’s life.

  • The good person tries hard never to assume that other people should know what they are

  • thinking of or want without them having told them very clearly and kindly. They try to resist sulking (behaviour that stems

  • from an incensed belief that others should know why we are upset without us having told them)

  • and are committed to teaching others about the contents of their minds.

  • The good person looks at people who are behaving badly as if they might be small children;

  • that is with patience, charity and an active search for mitigating circumstances. Though

  • our societies stress the insult of being treated as younger than one is, the good person knows

  • it is the greatest privilege for anyone to look beyond the apparently strong yet nasty

  • adult to the worried, anxious and probably really rather nice child within.

  • Confronted with a piece of stupidity or evil which they could never be guilty of, the good person doesn’t fall

  • into self-righteousness. They swiftly remember all the many stupid and evil things they have

  • at other points, over different things, been guilty of. They don’t lose sight of how

  • much they overall stand in need of the charity and forgiveness of others.

  • The good person is committed to searching for the funny side of people who might appear merely desperately

  • irritating. They look at others like characters in a comedy rather than a tragedy. They know

  • that the greatest achievement is to be able to move from seeing someone as anidiot

  • to considering them as that most privileged of beings: a ‘loveable idiot.’

  • The good person is a firm believer in restraint and in not immediately saying certain things

  • that are on their minds. They hold that being fully oneself entails a level

  • of melodrama and rage that one should spare any human one cares about.

  • The good person knows that the best protection against impatience and paranoia is a little gently-worn pessimism.

  • They budget for disappointment far ahead of time. They don’t cry constantly only because

  • they have understood that the whole of existence isin many waysworthy of tears. Their

  • constant awareness of the possibility of death and catastrophe makes them especially appreciative

  • of small things that happen to go well. They relish flowers, balmy skies and so-called

  • boring dayswhen everyone manages to go to bed relatively content and at peace.

The Ten Commandments maintain an extraordinary hold on our imaginations even though many of them can soundin

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B1 中級 英國腔

如何取代十誡 (How to Replace the 10 Commandments)

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    Jane 發佈於 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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