The four most important things I’ve learned from three years with Syrian refugee friends
1 min readJun 23, 2019
- Risk decisions are always complex not binary, and the ‘do nothing’ option is often the most risky in the longer-term. Choosing between the risks of X vs. not-X as if not-X was risk-free is a privileged abstraction which some people indulge in imagining when they’re safe enough to do so, but it does not occur for people facing life or death level risk decisions. We have to choose among X, Y, Z, etc., when all of the available options are more or less uncertain and risky, but doing nothing is usually the most risky option
- Some people who have faced death and survived have recognized how to develop courage in themselves and then continue developing their courage to consciously enjoy their freedom and life to the max.
- Healing your psychological trauma, or learning how to adapt and live well with your psychological scars, is a kindness to all your family, friends and everyone too.
- Epistemological habits are inseparably interrelated with living ethically. If you don’t care much about how you know, or think you know, things, that means you don’t care much about the effects on other people of your beliefs and actions.
