I am so annoyed by stupid, superficial, arrogant and godless people on the Internet who pose as “compassionate” and “kind”, but who are in fact everything but. Honestly, I don’t think they would be able to recognise actual kindness and compassion if they saw it; in fact, I think they would condemn it as some kind of evil.

It’s actually very hard for me to define kindness. I can recognise it when I see it, but definitions are tricky, as they have to be accurate, specific and exclusive – basically, they need to say what something is, but not by being so broad they are useless. They need to exclude all the similar things something is not. In this case, a definition of compassion needs to exclude all the things that look like compassion, but are in fact not.

So, let me think about it. Compassion is samyama on a person. If I had to explain it to a non-yogi, I’d say samyama is to “grok” something or someone, to understand the inner nature of a thing or a person by means of being. Kindness is now easy to define; from a state of compassion, kindness is to give someone that which he needs to become more of self; to exceed limitations and attain realisation of one’s true nature (or, should I say, attain realisation of God’s true nature). Kindness, in essence, is what a bodisattva or a dakini does and you are awakened from an illusion and prodded forward on a path toward buddhahood.

Making “poor you, I’m so sorry for your predicament” statements is neither compassion nor kindness. It’s a manifestation of narcissism, nothing more. You just wish to be seen by others as a good and compassionate person, in a value-system where those are desirable qualities that elevate one’s social standing. People making such statements don’t really care if they actually helped someone; they just want to be seen as well-meaning and helpful, and in reality they never touch the actual person they are talking to, nor would they wish to. It’s like one of those formal greetings, where you say “how do you do” and you don’t really care, nor do you expect an answer.

I think it’s the problem with the Internet; it empowers poseurs and sociopaths to an extreme. It rewards people for making statements and gestures, that don’t necessarily have to be backed by anything real. Sure, things of this kind existed since forever, but an inherently superficial environment really encourages them.

What’s the difference between a compassionate person and a poseur? Well, a compassionate person sees someone with a problem, feels personally touched by it and drawn to act, and does something very real to help the person. For instance, see someone you used to know who fell on hard times, so you do very concrete things to help them – give them a place to stay, buy them clothes, find them work to do so they can earn money, basically help them end the downward spiral and reverse the negative trend of their life. You can’t really solve anyone’s problem, but you can buy them an opportunity to do it themselves. That’s what compassion and kindness are. What’s the fake thing that postures like the real thing in order to get social points? Mother Theresa. She didn’t solve anyone’s problem, nor did she even try to. She basically faked compassion in order to be thought of as a saint by other people, but she didn’t actually help the people she supposedly helped. Everything she did was for self-aggrandisement only, and it worked; she is generally recognised by people as an icon of compassion or whatever.

Internet is full of people like that; judgmental, self-centred ego-trippers, who always know the right thing to say to make them look good. How can you tell a fake from a real one? See how they deal with the “nazis”, the “tax collectors”, the people their ideology demonises. An excellent example is a black musician who heard about the KKK racists, and didn’t like the idea of being judged and rejected by someone for things that had absolutely nothing to do with him as a person, so he basically went there and talked to the KKK leaders, and eventually befriended them to the point where they renounced their former ideology, which they could no longer espouse in clear conscience. A poseur will call everybody a “nazi” because that’s what you do if you want to pose as someone who’s “a good one”, on the opposite side of a nazi, and would immediately reject a person for a mere suspicion of embracing an ideology that’s not the left of Chairman Mao, thus indicating that he’s so extremely “left”, that anything less than absolute extremism on the leftist spectrum is a “nazi” to him.

What is my recommendation here? Well, stop rewarding worthless people with positive social score just because they make extremist statements of virtue-signalling. Stop assuming someone means well and is a good person because he said all the “compassionate” words, such as congratulating people on apparently good things and telling them how sorry he is when something apparently bad happens. How about putting all such people in a spam filter and completely ignoring them, because that’s what they actually deserve. They are like those people Jesus talked about, who make everyone know when they do something pious or charitable, because what they are actually after is social approval and elevated rating. They don’t give to the poor because they care about the poor, they just want to be perceived as compassionate and generous. They don’t fast and uphold religious rules because they care about God; they do it so that people would perceive them as properly religious, and as such better than all those who aren’t. Interestingly, if you actually helped another person, you would know how wrong it would feel to even mention it, let alone brag about it to third parties. You did it because it felt like the right thing to do. You might have even gotten punished for it in some way. It’s a real thing that exists in the world of real things, and the reward for it is to feel reality, and participate in it. You do good things because to elevate others is to feel close to God, who is the great attractor on the coordinate axis of all greatness. Social posturing would make a real person feel diminished and soiled. On the other hand, it’s everything a fake person lives for, thinking that if they convince people, God will have no other option but to sign off on it as well, because if all the people think someone is a saint, how could God ever reject such a person, yes? The entire thing makes me want to puke, but the phenomenon is quite real, I assure you. Well, let me tell you this: God is not God because he has your vote of approval. In fact, you can all call him Satan or a Nazi for all He cares, and it would affect only you. God is God because he’s the fullness of sat-cit-ananda. God is God because He’s where all the greatness and beauty originates from, and to which all saints aspire. God doesn’t become God by giving His imprimatur to fake people who managed to deceive gullible people who lack discriminative faculties. That’s my opinion.