Ardent Pacifist

Ardent Pacifist.  I have a story about that term but to this day, I still need to look it up to remember exactly what it means.  I can never remember exactly what a martyr is either.  I don’t know why I have this mental block or inability to remember the meaning of these terms.

On the subject of martyrdom, would I lie about my beliefs or make a proclamation of false guilt or innocence in order to escape death or pain?  Yes, if put in such a situation, I would.  Of course, this is my way of thinking, being a person living the life that I have lived in the time period that I have lived.  If I had lived centuries ago would I, though, have lied about renouncing my religious faith, for example, to save myself in my earthly physical life?  I don’t know.  

Could one also say that if someone sacrificed their declaration of faith for the purpose of self preservation they would also be a martyr?  A martyr sacrifices something of great importance for the sake of a principal.  Self preservation is a principle also, is it not?  The ways in which we are capable of thinking in the present are different from the ways in which people of past eras were capable of thinking based on their own experiences and realities.  I can conceive of and accept the idea of outwardly making a statement or declaration about something, for purposes of my own safety and self preservation, while inwardly knowing that I still privately maintained my own thoughts and beliefs.  I believe that I could do this without guilt.  I can’t know, though, know how I would feel if I was a person having been raised and having lived in different circumstances in a different time era.

For some reason I always thought the term martyr had some kind of negative meaning even though I could never remember exactly what it meant despite having previously looked it up.  

“Outside of the box” is another term that is hard to grasp the meaning of.  It’s the kind of thing that needs examples to make it clear.  It comes to my mind when I consider the idea of people needing to think differently in order to create change in currently accepted beliefs and ideas.

Language has to evolve along with human insight, comprehension and understanding and that is where new terms like “outside of the box” come from.  “Outside of the box” can also refer to thinking of new solutions to old problems.  It can no doubt have many different meanings.  And of course, “outside of the box”,  is a recent way of describing what people have been doing for millennia.  It was just never described as such before.  Language and ideas go hand in hand to describe human experience and deepen our understanding of things.  It takes time to learn how to express things in words.  A common thing that teachers say, or used to say, to very young children when they are/were experiencing strong emotions is “Use your words”.  This can be hard to do out of a lack of ability or feeling of needing to keep things private.

Update.  There is another later entry somewhere in which I tell the story of my experience with the words, “ardent pacifist”.  It it a story typical of me being an odd person.