Why Support Sensitivity in a Crisis-filled world?

I studied different sorts of people for over a decade, coming to believe that describing the myriad of human beings was difficult. We automatically tend to think that basically most people are like us. I realized, however, that the differences between sensitive people, thinkers, partiers, puritans, mechanic-craftsmen, violent men, money-chasers and activists is at a deeply elemental level—it is as if we are virtually different species with different subcultures, goals in life, experiences, romantic partners and different worlds that we wish to live in. Political views are largely the product of a person’s aspects, ethnicity and gender. We think differently, we feel differently, and if disharmonious aspects like puritan-partier or violent man-sensitive person exist within the same person, our lives are often stories of conflicting inner selves fighting for control.

Violent men, money-chasers and puritans often have characteristics that conflict with sensitive people, thinkers and activists, among others. The trio of traditional aspects have virtues and the less traditional others have flaws and vis versa. All have their own ways of living, their own life paths and their own stories of suffering and transcendence. Why should I take sides by speaking from the point of view of a sensitive person when I share some qualities with the traditional aspects?

Ultimately, I decided to write to support sensitive people because I realized that sensitive people are an important and often-maligned group who do not fit well into the human world created by violence, money-chasing and sensual control. After years of attempting to write about the human panorama of experience, I felt seeking to support sensitive people was a vital way to make the human world better.

This commitment was supported recently during a trip to visit friends in the Bay Area of California. Our friends include an artistic dancer who a couple of decades ago had invented with a computer programmer a synthesizer that could be played by a person dancing. They attached devices to wrists and other parts of the body and the dancer’s movements would send messages to the synthesizer to make music.

With another friend and her two year old daughter watching, we enjoyed a brief show where the dancer produced music through his dance. The two year old was delighted and began to dance with him, much to everyone’s enjoyment. It was a nice moment, made more meaningful because as sensitive people we all share a love of art, music and children.

When I asked the dancer about his invention, he explained that he has envisioned the machine to be a toy for children and young people, encouraging them to dance and make music. It obviously was fun for the two year old and something that sensitive people could enjoy throughout life.

The rights to the device were sold an electronics company to refine and market it. However, the money-chasers at the company made plans to radically change the invention. They changed the device to aim it at violent-minded young boys—instead of music, the boys’ movements would make the sounds of violence and war, akin to comic book heroes and villains. Deciding that this would not make enough profit, the company then shelved the invention.

A little later in the day, I came into the TV room where the two year old girl had been left watching the beginning of a movie adaptation of Beatrix Potter’s Peter Rabbit story. The Mom assumed the movie would follow the delight and innocence of the original Peter Rabbit tales. Again, however, the creation of a sensitive person for children was perverted. Within the first few minutes of the movie, the plot twisted into the killing of Peter’s father by a farmer, followed by the death of the farmer.

To help the innocent child, who seemed frightened and transfixed by the story, I explained that this was a made up story that was scary to get people’s attention. As I said this a couple of times, the child relaxed and then seemed bored by the movie and began to pay attention to other things. I explained the situation to the Mom and the older women with us and they changed the TV, perplexed by how a movie about a rabbit had turned so violent, especially when aimed for young people who, like the girl, had not been introduced to the terrifying concepts of death and murder.

Both the dancer and Beatrix Potter created their art to support and enrich the lives of sensitive people and to encourage children to develop their own sensitivity, their love of beauty, art and innocence. Taken by mainly male money-chasers, their creativity was turned into products that sought to make money through imaginary violence and death, serving children who are prone to violence and supporting the violent man culture that has held sway in the so-called civilized world since the beginning of large-scale warfare a few millennia ago. In doing so, the money-chasers twisted sensitive people’s art and accomplishments into something that perpetuates the violent man money-chaser culture, including its suppression of sensitivity and sensitive people.

After wrestling for years with the complexity of trying to write something from all the perspectives of people, I choose to write for sensitive people because we often fall into the trap of believing we shouldn’t be sensitive. Rather, we throw ourselves onto the rocks of the violent man-money-chaser-puritan ways of life, much to our own detriment. By recognizing our virtues and protecting our sensitivity, we empower ourselves. We can enrich the troubled and crisis-filled violent man-money-chaser-puritan world by encouraging others to be sensitive, have compassion and live in ways of peace and beauty. In this way, living a full, rewarding like is a way sensitive people can help the human world be a happier, better place.