it seems like all my life i've done everything all wrong, or at least tried to.
it would be disingenuous and merely placating for me to blame it on or imply the blame could be a result of my personal and familial disadvantages growing up or the million socioeconomic factors in constant flux throughout my childhood.
you see, if i bitch about that, on the flip side of that coin, there's another person, just like me, who grew up in similar circumstances, and is now either successful or not but not complaining about a single card they were dealt.
a losing hand is still a hand. and mine has certainly won more than it's lost.
so it's not that.
and, really, what "it" is doesn't even matter, because i'm beginning to realize that every single choice i've ever made has brought me to where i'm at right now. like it or not, i can't live someone else's life...i have to live my own. after all, no one can but me.
so then the only question is where is "here" and when is "right now" exactly?
let's examine.
i'm sort of an asshole.
you see, even at my very worst, which god knows has been terribly low in regard to acceptable behavior and overall moral trajectory, i've still done some pretty damn terrific things. so, if you'll humor me, at my worst i'm still a hell of a lot better in judgment and general social direction than mostly any other pool sample you'll collect in a random test. (i say that because if you're comparing me to a group of seminary students on charity leave to build plumbing and crude electric infrastructure in a third world...fuck off.)
and i know that sounds horribly self-indulgent, so you'll just have to trust when i say that for years i have beaten myself up over feeling guilty and wishing for the chance to press the "reset" on so many things, and it took someone really close to me a considerable amount of effort to show me just how mistaken i was. "so far beyond decent," they said. so let's, for the sake of playing devil's advocate, dumb that down to just "decent" and call it a wash.
so how can even a "decent" person at the same time be an asshole?
first you need to understand why my previously mentioned friend would even call me "decent" in the first place.
"you have an enormous heart, bigger than probably any i've ever seen."
if that's true in the positive sense, so it must be in the negative.
my friend was right and i do, in many ways, have a big, open heart, and i suppose that's probably more of a good thing than bad, but that doesn't mean it's always clear skies and open arms. sometimes it's dark and pretty fucking gloomy.
so, back to that point, how can a "decent" person with an open heart still be an asshole?
because the door swings both ways.
for every person i've ever helped and genuinely cared about that the rest of the world ignored, there are two more popular people i've pissed off or, i mean, really, pissed on. and believe me when i say there's nothing noble in helping those less fortunate if you're not still, at the same time, willing to help those as fortunate or more than you at any given time. contrary to what bill maher implied in his awesomely satirical and witty documentary, jesus didn't only love poor people. he didn't hate rich people. he loved people. well, people that loved, anyway.
and that's the lesson, folks.
i'm a decent guy that's done some really cool things in my life, had a bit of success and maybe helped a lot of people way less fortunate, but i'm also an asshole because i've never really cared about being solid for most of the people who were solid for me.
and it's nothing nearly as dramatic as i'm describing, i'm sure.
these words will fade in obscurity and, if at all, be remembered as mere late-night rambling. you see, it's not lifelong or any sort of character deficiency.
it's a couple years of, for lack of a better term, pretty shitty behavior. great highs where you love me and deep lows where you wonder why i just don't care.
it's inconsistency.
and that is how a decent person can be an asshole.
while i've sort of been dipping my feet in the pool of fixing that behavioral trend over the past few weeks, i need to get back to being my old "all-in or all-out" self. for all the effort i've put in, and i have, i've still failed to really accept just how personally affecting it can be for someone else in my life when i refuse to open that closed-off heart back up.
it ends tonight.
and that statement sounds so much more dramatic than it needs to, but it's simple. point blank.
from now on, that's all you'll get. nothing more. and, more importantly, nothing less.
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