I am considering changing one of my main core beliefs. Up until now I've held that people suck. In high school and especially middle school, I was an outcast and people treated me accordingly but most of my post-high school observations on the nature of man have been positive.
Up until recently, the biggest compliment I could give someone was, "You know what? You're alright." But now, I find myself saying and thinking that to the point of redundancy. I'm almost starting to expect it.
The rate of dickishness between middle school and now has gone from about 70 percent to 15 percent. Every now and again I write something about how people suck but now I think I'm starting to mellow on that. And then, I think about the 15 percent, the frackin' 15 percent and go back to thinking that yeah people really can be assholes.
The question I find myself asking is do I really still believe that humans are bastards or am I just afraid of changing my original position which also fuels quite a bit of my writing. Eh, I write better when I'm pissed. If I don't write for a couple weeks it's probably because there hasn't been anything in my life I've been pissed about, but you know what gets me right back to the blogosphere? A good asshole.
The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem.
I hope you don't mind my commenting here anonymously, (and late!) but I was just googling about human nature and stuff and your blog came up. AND you're a troper!
ReplyDeleteAnyhow, I'm glad your experience got better with time.
I think the answer is it comes down to free will and maturity. Kids frequently repeat the crappy stuff that bigger kids do to them, partly to see if they can get away with it, and partly because they haven't learned enough empathy yet. Not that it makes you feel any better to be on the receiving end of cruel treatment.
However, as you get older, you realize that you can accomplish a lot more things working cooperatively and then it pays off to be nicer.