In recent times I've found it incredibly hard to align what I can express to myself in language with what I can commit to in action. More specifically, to be able to ensure continuity between my beliefs and my actions. At times I think that there is no hope, and I wrap myself in a despondent silo, falling asleep lonely and waking up absent. Other times find me less fragile and I have hope in values again, that is until I smash myself into an insignificant bug that can't live outside of its animalistic temptations.
In simple words, my dignity and character are in constant peril, as my actions prove to be consistently disappointing.
I lie, I cheat, I curse, I hate, and I know I will do it again. I'd even like to. Who wouldn't? It's a lie to say you wouldn't make life easier by some deceptive and crude mean if the opportunity presented itself to you without the chance that retribution will follow. We are animals, and animals are animals.
However, we gauge an incredible capacity for remorse, regret, and despair every time we genuinely reflect on our actions. Even a saint gazes into the pits of hell each time they admit to the nature of themselves. Within it, we are transported to the evils of history, the undeniable human deaths at human hands. Within it, we are transported to ourselves.
Yet with all our hellish features humans stupidly hope to be angels at heart. We love the idea so much that we categorize the world into angels who get everything done and devils that get in the way, and neatly place ourselves within the desirable box. It is far easier for one to do this than to admit to their true capacity.
However, regardless of whether or not one sees the actuated potential that is their actions, a potential is actuated when we act in a manner that is not infinitely interpretable because most matters (if not all) at hand are not correctly interpretable at an infinite scale.
If you kill someone at point-blank range with no justification and ulterior motive that could carry a shred of benevolence, murder in cold blood has been actuated, and so one's nature of the potential to kill too has been not actuated but reaffirmed. For since Cain and Abel, we've known man will kill man.
In fact, most things lead us only to one conclusion as to what they are. Situations are infinitely interpretable, but because only one situation is needed for infinite interpretations of it, there is a case to be made for the fact that there is only one situation. This is why fact exists, and opinion lies within a different realm of discerning what is real--what you experience, which is no less real than facts.
This is again made more confusing because we experience facts as well as our subjective reality. Ice cream is sweet--no question. This creates the human tendency to take opinion as reality, then to have their opinions disproved and say that "nobody knows the truth anyway," and run away from the stillness of providence before their eyes continually.
What isn't debatable, however, is history. Therefore, what is not debatable is the demonstrated human nature.
That being said, it is impossible to avoid admitting to one's most true capacity because a nearly infinite number of situations have been actuated. Have people tortured others (repeatedly)? Have countries gone to war (repeatedly)? Have humans harmed themselves and the environment (repeatedly)? Yes! Were those people born of malevolent hearts? Perhaps. Were they crushed by the weight of environments around them? Well, who wants to admit they can be made into a devil? Those who say they know they are good are the puppets that haven't yet been made to act out murder. Knowing this will save you from doing so.
If you're looking for a daunting internal journey, take a good day of meditation and try to put yourself in the position where you could be prepared to do some of the worst things history has seen. I guarantee looking at yourself, viewing who you are as a potential perpetrator of historical horrors will have you waking up screaming. Remember, those people you are taught to fear grew up scared of monsters and demons as well.
Remember, it is only by chance you were not born at the time the Nazi's, the Maoists, the Soviet's were, and that you were not one of them. If they could reflect on their lives objectively, do you think they'd choose to be who history remembers them as?
The only thing you'll find to admit to yourself is that you are a reaction to your environment and that the worse it gets, the worse you get as well. You think Nazi's popped up out of nowhere? Try rabid inflation and unimaginable poverty for fifteen years, with all of Europe blaming you for it's loss, and continual cultural destruction, it is out of such conditions that radical revolutions have consistently sprung.
So, we know that we as humans can do the worst. We've seen history bear our evil fruit, and we can't help but eat it and realize that we are simply devils.
Our honest, unending gluttonous meal of loathing does permit us to see a light above, however, as we recognize the paradox of capabilities within living.
I can kill, and if I were put in the situation that people who kill are put in, it seems the odds don't favor my wishes. Yet, I hope not to kill, I hope those I love and those I don't are not killed. What am I to do, if the thing I'm terrified of most, lies within me?
It is in such honest despair that reading Genesis soothed me once more. (I do not mean to say this and inadvertently credit Christianity with my reassurance in life, but I do admit that having metaphysical representations suits my desire for something spiritual, something eternal, something unknown yet touched, not understandable yet before us. Although, the necessity for the metaphysics to accompany the morality is debatable--in my eyes it depends on the personality of the individual. The morality, if it can remain--and it seems it can't--won't die. But remember, people think differently from what is. It may be your opinion that you are moral, if you in truth are not. You may even know you aren't moral, and act immorally anyway. So perhaps metaphysics comes into some use.
The puppets have woken up asleep, and they string themselves to the hands they choose.)
When Jacob wrestles with a man throughout the night, who--unbeknownst to him--is God in an angel, he eventually wears him out when the sun rises. He demands that the man bless him after (God) the man asks he let go. God asks of his name and he says "Jacob." God renames him "Israel"--meaning the one who wrestles with God. Specifically, God rewards him for struggling "with God and with humans," which he has overcome. God then says "Why do you ask my name?"--before blessing him.
What I have taken from this story is that belief in good is not still. We have to contend with the nature of things to overcome their difficulties--(our insufficiencies)--and come away peacefully. For knowing oneself is a wrestle, as is living in the world, as is believing goodness can come about by your own will. For, belief is not enough, onlyaction actuates.
Yet, our actions fail us!
This is where the wrestle comes into play. For if your actions fail you, are you to let life pin you down? If you fail a class, are you to drop out? If you get booed offstage, is that the end of your show? If you give up, you will lose.
If you are to realize that the Nazi's and Soviet's and Maoists had a biological composition 99.9% identical to yours, how are you to feel?
Murder has come by human hands, yet we try not to murder every single day. We lose the battle whenever one of us fails, and we mourn the kids that lose their innocence as along with the adolescent who also loses their life. But we can't give up. If we give up, we lose.
If you don't, though, you might not win. People struggle with being a good person, fail continuously, and the end of their life comes abruptly and with failure. But you might as well live. And there's real promise in living, who doesn't enjoy a good wrestle? There might not be a point of rest, no departure from the match, but when death comes upon us, and we are still asking for answers in life's name, we'll know there will have been a life lived that is in the name of the good.
The good--what we aim at--is where we fail, the bad is where we give up. So keep the aim! One fallen attempt is not enough to tear you away from your goal, I assure you and ask that the nihilists see for themselves.
We may never reconcile the fact that we say things like "I shouldn't lie," and lie anyway.
But we can always wrestle.
