Welcome to Outpost Oops. We’re a haven where you can explore ways not only to care well for your mind but also to make your world a nicer place. By nicer, we mean kinder and fairer. We hope you’ll become a member of the Outpost Oops Planetary Society (OOPS). To be a member, you merely need to visit Outpost Oops for self-care support. Everyone sometimes finds staying kind and fair hard. Along with regularly adding new materials, we post a weekly oopsity (oops-i-ty)―a brief notion for you to consider alone or with others. Our current oopsity and the one preceding it follow. Previous oopsities can be clicked on below. Thanks for stopping by.
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The Goal Is To Become Less Likely To Lose Control
For guns to injure or kill, triggers must be pulled, thereby making it reasonable to blame people. When survival conditions are unfavorable, our thinking can become exceedingly constricted, desperate and unpredictable. As gun advocates readily note, it’s the human potential to snap that’s the problem. There is, however, a question pro-gun folks can’t adequately address: How does it make sense to give members of a potentially volatile species a convenient means of injuring or killing others and themselves?
How might those who have long contended guns are a necessary means of protection be changed? As suggested, key is convincing such individuals that the mind of all humans is fragile. Bringing about such a perspective will require a radical addition to current curriculums. Specifically, such a change calls for preschool through college to include coursework that entails the ongoing study and practice of kindness and fairness—an undertaking that will counter the inclination to underestimate the human potential to do harm. Outpost Oops offers such coursework.
Try this: Challenge yourself by answering the following question: What would it take for me to lose control and, as a result, do something regrettable?
When Being Nice Is More Than a Pleasantry
For Outpost Oops, being nice is far more than a superficial pleasantry. Concisely put, we consider people to be nice when they’re kind and fair. As a show of kindness or fairness, niceness reflects a sincere commitment to giving others and ourselves authenticity, respect and empathy.
Whenever you see Outpost Oops mention the usefulness of being nice, keep in mind we’re referring to the mental self-care kindness and fairness provide. For us, kindness and fairness are essential skills that require much deliberation and practice. Again, when the Outpost expresses concern for a lack of niceness, we’re not merely making a fuss about the prevalence of impoliteness. On the contrary, we’re making a big to-do about what keeps people from acquiring good mental health.
Try this: Define a nice person. Do you see such a person as kind and fair?
Why Might ETs Do More Than Fly By Earth?
Why would extraterrestrials, who will likely see humans as primitive, contact us? An optimistic answer is they possess a higher-consciousness—an advanced morality—that compels them to find and help those in peril. Contrary to how they’re portrayed by much fiction, travelers from far beyond our solar system likely seek to promote greater kindness and fairness.
Though the ability to travel great distances doesn’t guarantee ETs possess a compassionate mindset, assuming such voyagers have the desire to spur an age of niceness on Earth isn’t preposterous. To those of us already convinced the pursuit of kindness and fairness is key to the survival of our species, such a spurring is plausible. Let’s hope the colossal state of awe we’ll display when ETs arrive will open our minds and, as a result, free us to see ourselves as stalled learners in need of enlightenment.
Try this: Imagine the arrival of magnanimous ETs—beings seeking to help humans deescalate the strife on Earth.
Handy Activities:
The menu options at the top of the homepage as well as the items below provide a variety of ready-to-use ways to learn about and carry out mental self-care.
