Reply #25: Embrace the dark side [View All]

There's a lot of ugliness, greed, selfishness, laziness and outright wickedness in the human creature. Some have little, yet some have little else.

To deny its presence is to set oneself up for abject disappointment and neuter one's ability to be a good influence in life. We're a mixed bag, yet I still think we're marginally on the good side.

On the plus side, there is true honesty, altruism, a desire for things to work out for others, a desire to spread joy, constructive curiosity, acceptance, industriousness, respect for others and a honor-bound feeling of being responsible for oneself. To keep that little flame alive is very important, and I've found it best done by simply acknowledging the nastiness in many (and to some degree in almost all) and not let it spoil all the fun when encountered.

I remember many arguments of this sort in college where it was heresy to state that there was inherent ugliness in the human creature or that there was any clouding of emotional issues of the sort. The argument at the time was that rape was a crime of violence and that there wasn't any sexual element to it at all. (Sex, of course, being a pure and wonderful thing...) To dispute this at all was to bring the sanctimonious dismissal of being personally ugly upon one's head. It seemed silly at the time, and it seems more so now: good and bad often walk hand-in-hand, and those who can live with grey areas and current theories are always my true allies.

One of the true follies of mankind is the endless quest for "simplicity", which leads people to demand things be black and white and causes them to fall prey to all sorts of idiotic religions, political groups, social cliques and other shortcuts to the promised land where one never again need engage in that dreaded of all human activities: thinking.

Life is complex. Enjoy it BECAUSE it is; don't trudge through dutifully with the horror that everything's so qualified and mixed. You'd better enjoy it: that's simply the way it is.

That's just another reason why Libertarians are idiots: a tax form that's on a 3x5 card would NOT be the least bit fair, nor would it be allowed to last long.

Enough digression, though. We're a package deal, and it's best to accept the baseness of our fellow humans so we don't get depressed to immobility when it inevitably blindsides one.