two face

For a coupla days, a thought that has stuck with me is how human we are. I may be slow, but i'm just getting that people do not come in just black and white. The lines between good people and bad people are not as clearly drawn as i thought... the lines between those who have made grave mistakes, labelled 'bad' and typecasted as those from the dark side, and the good christians who fit the mould, steer clear from the dividing lines and count themselves select, different from the dark ones.

i have led a sheltered life.. and that is probably why i thought this way, that everything's as clear as the way they put it in fairy tales. The princesses are always purely good with no hint of evil and they always marry princes who are perfectly good as well; the evil stepmother witches are completely ugly. No in betweens... cinderella never even began to have thoughts of spite against her horrible stepmom and sisters.

so the fact that people are human with both good and evil within them struck me. That the child of Adam and Eve, only the second generation on earth, knew to kill his own brother. Thats evil. And the moment Eve and Adam ate the fruit of the tree of good and evil, evil has been our nature. Its what makes us human. So i thought, there's no way we can typecast anyone else for evil they've done, no way we can pretend like we would never have thought of doing that. Because everyone has in them the weakness and tendency to falter in similar ways. There's no good people and bad people: we all have good and evil within us: we make choices.
Just look at Hellboy - 'what makes a man?", it is asked of us. and it is suggested that its the choices one makes. Even hellboy, the boy from hell, is a good human being because he chooses to remain good when its not easy.

i think i was upset with people who made as if mistakes that ppl did was a Real Big Deal. The whole shock and scandal thing...the whole attitude of it being a clear breach of conduct! a clear step into the dark side. How could they have done this... i would never. i'm worlds apart from that, you need help and oh i will be here because i'm on the side that's true and you could use some help from over here. the clear division between us and them.
-- i say these, of course, because i've been that way, and maybe its just me. and being upset, a large part of that upset was probably for myself.

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In a conversation with hocmun the other day about this, i was made to consider that this may not be the most beneficial thought to hold on to. It becomes too easy to justify making mistakes, too easy to remain in them and accept them as part of our nature. And its probably never good to establish our perspectives based on humans. It feels potentially something like humanism.



Indeed, tonight, i realized that i have somewhat stopped believing that there is integrity and uprightness left in this world.



And i realize how dangerous it is to see people as weak humans first; inadvertently, i was beginning to believe that 'thats just the way ppl are' ... self-centred, willing to give up almost anything for money and a name. Lines so blurry that ppl look out for themselves and its hard to tell if a person's actions are right or wrong anymore. corruption small and big, clear lines and less clear lines, straightforward and greyer areas.

And if i no longer believed that integrity exists, i would not strive for it either. if i held instead that its normal because its human, that would be how i'd learn to live with it.

So now i think:
we don't become hypocrites , because it seems to me that there's where the problem comes in.
we don't make as if he/she/they are bad apples, and there's a gulf between us and them.
i am human, prone to the same ugly weaknesses.

but

we dont start by focussing on humans in the first place. Its true that humans are weak, its true that we know good and evil. which is probably why its not a good idea to make that anywhere near our point of reference.

we begin from the perspective of a God who is hope that we must rise above the evil part of being human. and an awareness that though we are now faltered beings, we are intended to be people who are upright and full of integrity, 'a peculiar people' and a nation set apart.