So is compassion best conceived as relief of suffering or the promotion of superabundant vitality. Or the utter destruction of all enemy forces?
I've been toying with the idea lately that compassion is largely an expression what I call the the Will to Paradise.
What I mean by this is that virtually everyone is keenly aware that we are not living in paradise, i.e., that the world contains suffering. Most people (sane people) disapprove of this condition. Perhaps the little child in them feels cheated. Perhaps the idea of Heaven makes for a startling contrast. In any case, they feel that there is something
wrong with the world, at least in certain times and places.
Some people have the sense that paradise is something that can be created, even if just for a moment and just between two people, in this world. They feel efficacious. This allows their Will to Paradise to express itself in acts instead of being repressed in helpless anger at the world and at life. Some of such acts are compassionate acts.
When people are compassionate, they are willing paradise for the sake of paradise, although they might not conceptualize it that way. I'm talking about a deep motivation that may be just on the edge of awareness. The source of motivation for that will has something to do with the unease they feel about not living in paradise, and the feeling that it may be just barely in one's grasp.
The Will to Paradise can be frustrated, which may explain some of the odd self-protecting behaviors so many people engage in. I suspect that a lack of self-esteem (especially personal efficacy) may be involved. If people do not feel secure in themselves and their ability to create good values in the world, they may feel like they are living in a bunker fighting a losing battle, and that other people have to fend for themselves. More self-esteem generates a greater sense that compassionate acts are efficacious and worthwhile.
At the extreme worst end, I suspect that a few people are so tired at their efforts to have anything good in life that they become self-hating (or world-hating). They have given up, and cease to strive for what they feel to be good, opting for destruction instead.
eudaimonia,
Mark
