Response to Freeman's Lament

"All the same, however, I quickly became accustomed to scorning glances from dreadlocked fellow patrons ..."

Dear Freeman,

That totally sucks, and I'm glad it didn't make you bitter and disillusioned. But it doesn't just suck for you - it just happened to suck for you at that place at that time. Fifty years ago the dreadlocked patrons would have gotten sneered at in the coffee shop while you would have been treated to service with a smile.

The Dalai Lama writes that we should not just forgive but thank those who antagonize us. What the fuck?!? I thought, when I first read that. I should thank the man who broke my heart and left me bleeding on the floor?

Yes, I realized on further reflection, I should thank him. Because that experience made me know, viscerally, what it was like to have my heart broken. It made me a lot more sensitive and understanding.

The DL says that enemies are as much of a gift as friends - more, even, because a friend would not help you by hurting you.

You can choose accept those sneers as a learning and growing experience - now you can empathize, rather than just sympathize, with people who get sneered at (your gay friends, for example, or the hippies when they go into the Red Lands, or the brown people who get stared at in the posh suburb, etc.).

(Just for the record, Freeman seems like an okay dude, and I don't think he deserves the vitriol he's gotten over at IBTP. Still, he might be a good example of the well-meaning fish that doesn't notice the water in which he swims.)