8:57pm July 14, 2014

Also if you have ever thought this of me…

…because I’ve been talking to someone who does.

If you ever look at me and see a good person. And look at yourself and see a bad or evil person.

I can pretty much guarantee you that:

You are not as bad or evil as you think you are.
I am not as good as you think I am.

If you care about whether you’re good or bad, that means something. People say intent doesn’t matter, but intent matters. Intent isn’t everything. But intent is something. And often the first step towards being as good as any of us can be, is the desire to be good, the desire to do the right thing, the desire to be compassionate, the desire to care about people, any of those things. Those things are what start any of us off.

Anyone who looks hard enough and accurately enough and honestly enough at themselves will find a whole lot of bad things that need changing. But they’ll also find a lot of good qualities too. And the bad qualities don’t make us irredeemably evil, they just make us human.

Everyone has done things we’re not proud of. Most of us have done things that we fear to ever speak to another person about. I have done things I will likely never admit to in public – and Dave Hingsburger has my unending admiration for his ability to publicly admit horrific things he’s done, much worse than the things I’ll never admit in public… and I’ll still probably never be able to admit them.

And good and evil, when applied to human beings, are oversimplifications at best. We’re too complicated for such simplistic descriptions. And most people who think they’re evil and agonize over it, aren’t anywhere near as evil as they think they are. If you were, you wouldn’t give a shit. Giving a shit is a good sign, even when it hurts sometimes.

I don’t believe in good guys and bad guys. I just believe in people, most of us trying our best, and not always getting there. If you idealize me as a good person, you’ll be in for a lot of disappointment. Being good is a big part of my goals in life, but people rarely fully meet that kind of goal, and I do a lot of things that are not good at all, even knowing they aren’t good. Because I’m a human being and we do things like that.

And always be wary of comparing your insides to other people’s outsides in general. It doesn’t work well.