The World Around Me

I was digging through some of my old online "diary" material and tracked down a couple of items that still seem relevant to me. I wrote the below post back in 2005.

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Most days I settle for being unhappy with myself.

Other times, I look around me and realize that certain occurrences scare me silly.

I joke to make things seem less threatening, and yet at times there is a darkness, a deep well of mournful sadness that no amount of laughter can dispell.

Human beings have a capacity for injuring each other that is matched by no other creature on Earth. Such torture, sadism, and pure glee at the sight of another's pain should be unnatural. And yet it is as integral to us as breathing. Even nice people can have the whisper of a thought. Passing faster than the blink of an eye. "I feel justified" or "Well, they got what they deserved." And in that moment we feed the demons that we all possess. Some of us embrace those thoughts, let them swell like perverted desires. Others find ways to compensate. Maybe we do something nice, either for the person we had the nasty thought about, or another "neutral" being. Maybe we even do something completely "selfless." Volunteer to help out people in bad situations. Sometimes we just listen.

In that quiet moment we can be more than the sum of our negative thoughts. We can become as brilliant and benevolent beings. Just as the darkness touches something in our souls, a "Not me" quality that most seek to hide from, the light can reveal a positive compassion. Just as we can reach depths that no other creature is capable of, I think we can stretch above ourselves in the same fashion.

So many things could be settled, so many problems and miscommunications could be avoided if we just listened to one another. Not the pretence of listening. Not that stupid garbage of parry and riposte, where you merely gauge another's speech looking for an opening. Then you thrust in a return, without weighing the true meaning of the thoughts behind the words. As sentient beings, who want others to love us, to care about us, to respect us.... how can we demand or feel entitled to that which we will not show others?

Although I'm not trying to preach religion, or some light fantastic, it was some religious material that set me off.

I'm not a good Catholic.

I never claimed to be.

But the new Pope is a Nazi, and I have some serious issues with that.

Okay... he was "required" to join the Nazi Youth Corps. But he was directly a member of the Nazi party for at least four years of his life. A participation that ended because of the close of WWII, and not because he managed to separate himself from the group. Maybe on some level I just cannot let go of my own need to judge others. But it seems to me that the Catholic "mouthpiece of God" should have been able to fight a little bit harder, push a little bit more..... to get out of something so wrong. And in the wake of a Pope who had to apologize for the Church's involvement (or silent acceptance) in the atrocities that occurred, does this really seem like such a bright decision?

Then again this is the same religion that ridicules same sex alliances. Claims to broadcast the "truth" when it's all really more a matter of perception anyway. Lists as one major part of the etiology of homosexuality as "loneliness," effectively ignoring the fact that millions of lonely people out there are as straight as a freshly planed 2x4. That most people facing rejection and solitude don't question their sexual orientation, they tend to question their personality restrictions on a partner.

So... today is one of those days where I step out of my discontent with myself, and face a broader unhappiness with the world around me. There is hope out there for the human race.... and yet sometimes I wonder if we wouldn't rather shoot ourselves in the collective foot than reach for that hope that hovers just before us.

And the silence of this contemplation reveals no answers.