This and that.
I call myself a misanthrope. I am not entirely certain that is correct.
To be sure, I hate spending time with people. I find it absurdly exhausting, and it generally takes me days to recover even from contacts so slight as email conversations. And again, to be sure, I find most people disgusting. There are so many little evils in human nature, and it's hard to see much of the good.
We all deserve to die, and the notion that death can merely be a relief, and not a reprieve from one's own evil, is something that I sometimes doubt.
There are saints, but they rarely begin in perfection. And it takes a lot of work to keep that up. Humans are simply too likely to do things for the sake of their own whims, desires, and satisfactions. There is no sacrifice, there is no willing suffering, and without those things, there is no virtue.
And that disgusts me. That we, as humans, are evil. Inescapably so.
But I find people immensely interesting, and not even in a morbid manner. The things we make, do, and are fascinate me. No animal reacts and creates with the nuance and flair that humans do. People are comparatively unpredictable, complex, deep.
Perhaps I simply enjoy analysis, and People pose the most complex puzzle I can find. Is that misanthropy?
What if I said that, knowing that I am one of these flawed beings, I have true sympathy for them? What if I said that I am actually brought to tears by the knowledge that people willingly, knowingly take advantage of others for their own petty gain? What if I said that, in spite of all of our flaws, it is that willful tendency of some men to let their greed and selfishness control them that pains me?
Does that make me a humanist?
To be sure, I hate spending time with people. I find it absurdly exhausting, and it generally takes me days to recover even from contacts so slight as email conversations. And again, to be sure, I find most people disgusting. There are so many little evils in human nature, and it's hard to see much of the good.
We all deserve to die, and the notion that death can merely be a relief, and not a reprieve from one's own evil, is something that I sometimes doubt.
There are saints, but they rarely begin in perfection. And it takes a lot of work to keep that up. Humans are simply too likely to do things for the sake of their own whims, desires, and satisfactions. There is no sacrifice, there is no willing suffering, and without those things, there is no virtue.
And that disgusts me. That we, as humans, are evil. Inescapably so.
But I find people immensely interesting, and not even in a morbid manner. The things we make, do, and are fascinate me. No animal reacts and creates with the nuance and flair that humans do. People are comparatively unpredictable, complex, deep.
Perhaps I simply enjoy analysis, and People pose the most complex puzzle I can find. Is that misanthropy?
What if I said that, knowing that I am one of these flawed beings, I have true sympathy for them? What if I said that I am actually brought to tears by the knowledge that people willingly, knowingly take advantage of others for their own petty gain? What if I said that, in spite of all of our flaws, it is that willful tendency of some men to let their greed and selfishness control them that pains me?
Does that make me a humanist?