7x7x7 Writing Prompt, part 2. Part 3 is the next chapter.
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We forget our values. In those moments when we are faced with our greatest fears, we forget our values.
We forget that our fellow humans are... well, that they are human. They, like us, have only the most basic of desires: to be loved and to be understood. Of course, the two go hand in hand for who can feel one without the other?
We forget that to do harm is wrong. In our unconscious, overpowering quest to preserve the Youngian ego, we forget that hurting others because we have been hurt is counterproductive; and eye for an eye until the whole world is blind.
We forget that to do nothing in the face of great evil is, by definition, evil in and of itself. Permission is as damning as action.
What does it take to keep us from forgetting our values in these moments? Some say that it is simply, yet not so simply, practice. Practice at holding those values to us. Practice at girding ourselves with those values. Practice at being... human.
For that is what we are. Human. For better or worse, we are creatures that run from painful things, that run from fear. Why? Because, we forget our values. In those moments when we are faced with our greatest fears, we forget our values.