People Full of Shit? What's New? People Calling It Out? What Else Is New?
New Year's is a great time of the year. People make empty promises to themselves and the world around them, bitter people point that out as though that were an accomplishment in and of itself. The same routine all the time. It is a great little system.
I recently bought and devoured The Counselor by one of my all time favourite authors: Cormac McCarthy. This is an amazing little screenplay. I haven't seen the movie yet but it does look great.
One of the passages from the screenplay I think is very valuable around New Year's, here it is with some lines taken out:
"But time is not going to stop, Counselor. It's forever. And everything that exists will one day vanish. Forever ... Every timeless creation ... everything that perishes is but a likeness. That's really Plato on wheels ... seizing the day won't quite do it ... the only thing ultimately worth your concern is the anguish of your fellow passengers on this hellbound train."
This is WESTRAY speaking. He's like a businessman/middleman connecting the Counselor to another character and into the drug trade.
What is important here is the idea of time, our timeless art and creations, the Plato reference is always something handy to drop and walk away with that no-big-deal tone, it makes you look smart, especially if you get it right. What is really important here, for me, is the last part. The anguish of your fellow passengers. There is not enough of this outlook in the world. I'm not saying there isn't any. Just that there isn't enough.
Sure we have food bank drives, and endless commercials where Christians ask you to send money so they can feed and educate starving African children, we have local charities or even cashiers asking us to donate some money today. There is a good reward system in place for doing good. But you have to ask yourself exactly how much good are you doing? You should at least be suspicious of how quickly you felt good about doing that thing.
Everyone's resolution should be to not hurt anyone. That's the least and the most of what we can do for and to our fellow passengers. I know it is asking a lot and I know I will likely fail as well. But that does not give us permission to stop trying.
One of the goals you hear people proudly state when dealing with the human services field is this: people need to leave no worse than when they came in, that is how you know you've done some good. Usually the self-obsessed, ego-maniacs who says this are doing so while patting themselves on the back with huge shit-eater grins and grand self-congratulations, which is p.c. for masturbating all over the place. Saying it just isn't good enough.
The problem is that a lot of people leave our programs no worse off in spite of us. Not all people in the field are bad, there are a lot of great people with great intentions. But not everyone is a good person. This is obvious. This is everywhere. A lot of people have probably been that person before becoming another type of person.
On a personal level, if people stop trying to hurt others then they are doing some good. On a group level people can stop hurting each other and the scale of good is larger. On a social and cultural level the world starts looking like a better place. But hey, I'm a silly dreamer, let's go buy gym memberships now and donate to the Christians, they've always done good in the world, right?
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