(Look for this week’s #ThursdayThoughtfulness questions after the jump.)
This Week’s Questions: Do you agree that love and compassion can be an act of resistance, especially in our world today? If so, why or why not? What acts of kindness or compassion have you performed or witnessed that countered someone else’s fearful or disrespectful actions?
Follow #ThursdayThoughtfulness at the blog and on Twitter at 11:00 AM Eastern. Feel free to spread the thoughtfulness by reblogging this post, writing your own post on this topic, or sharing the quote image on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.
Sara Letourneau 
I think a show of love and compassion can be a form of resistance, especially in the sense of being kind to people trying to enforce certain rules or standards, or those who think the world is just some dark, violent hell. Your challenging their thoughts on the world. Sometimes they don’t realise there is another way until they’re shown otherwise.
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Exactly. 🙂
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Oh wow. I’ve never thought of love that way, but that’s so true. It makes my mind go instantly to a lot of fictional stories like the Hunger Games and Attack on Titan–possibly because I just watched those but we’ll ignore that haha. Great quote find!
storitorigrace.blogspot.com
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Neither had I, until Gabriela wrote those exact words in a DIY MFA article. (Which I highly recommend, as it’s one of my favorite things she’s ever posted: https://diymfa.com/writing/the-radicalism-of-our-time) And it’s very true. It’s easy to resort to anger, hatred, and other toxic emotions; and those emotions are so prevalent in society that they seem like the norm now. And that’s scary. But when we act with the opposite motivations (compassion, kindness, understanding, etc.), those motivations come in direct conflict with the less positive forces. They’re sorely needed, and we need as many examples of them as possible.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Tori. 🙂
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Sometimes it feels like compassion is absent in this world. Not always, but I often find myself observing people and thinking where’s the compassion? Where’s the sense of love and respect for others?
The idea of love as resistance resonates with me. So many political problems seem based on a government’s inability to be compassionate towards the people they serve, to try to understand how it works on the ground level. There’s too much focus on the big picture and not enough on the little lives that could really make the difference.
Might have gone off on a tangent there. ;P
Thanks for challenging me to think. I love how ‘thoughtful’ these posts really do inspire me to be 🙂
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I know exactly how you feel there, because I often feel the same way, especially given our current political situation in the States… But let’s not discuss politics here.
But yeah, like you said, sometimes it seems like there’s a dearth of compassion in our world. What happened if we didn’t resort to “quick and easy” responses such as anger so often, and to more thoughtful, kind, or respectful reactions instead? That’s one of the pluses of being a writer, I think. We can use stories as tools to remind people of the importance of compassion in the world, and what characters can accomplish as a result of being compassionate.
“Thanks for challenging me to think. I love how ‘thoughtful’ these posts really do inspire me to be.”
Thanks, Faith. 🙂 And that’s the point of these posts, to begin with. So I’m really glad to hear that.
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“That one’s of the pluses of being a writer.” Completely agree Sara! I think that’s why characters I craft like Keira have that compassionate side. I love antiheroes but I feel compelled to write characters who are able to balance the drive for self gain and respect for others, who are trying to change the system. ❤
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