We’ve all, at some point in the blizzard of our multi-sensory experience and emotional washing machine we call life, been betrayed. Hurt. Treated wrongly, with no justification. Sort of left there.. On your lonesome as you rake your shaking hands through your sweat-dampened hair wondering where exactly you messed up, what you did wrong, what you could’ve done better.
Then you sort of have to push the restart button, you know — whip out that neuralyzer on yourself and forget it all. And it’s great because you might read this now, replaying that series of events over again in your head, immersing yourself into that painful memory as you punch that person’s face in your mind repeatedly, leaving nothing for the cops to find but an unidentifiable bloody pulp on concrete (I’m just joking, by the way. If this is actually you, please seek help)
But are we ourselves so innocent?
The Midnight Drive
I mean, yeah, sure, it doesn’t justify the pain you’ve been through, but… are we really at a place to point fingers? You might or might not even know that just as you thought of punching that person’s face (again — I’m joking; talk to somebody, please, do not kill your exes), your own face popped up in someone else’s mind as they reached back, closed a fist decorated with silver knuckledusters and plunged it deep into your unsuspecting, yet strangely sexy, lips.
We all kinda suck (as the title says, duh), and that’s the philosophy I’ve taken when coming against situations that sort of.. you know, involve other people. Which is almost every situation, I know, but hear me out, okay?
He, like many I’m sure, thinks I’m talking shit at this point.
7 Songs That Brought Me to Tears
I see it as a spectrum. At one end is ‘BAD’ and at the other is ‘GOOD’. In the middle we have ‘OKAY’. And that’s where most people are. Most. It looks kinda like this –
So most people are ‘GOOD’(-ish). And that person is definitely ‘BAD’, right? But what if I said you’re reading the diagram wrong? What if everyone’s floating in the ‘OKAY’ area minding their own business and there are only a couple of people rocking on the spot in comparative loneliness, stuck in between ‘OKAY’ and ‘BAD’ or ‘OKAY’ and ‘GOOD’.
What if I said nobody is really ‘GOOD’ or ‘BAD’ — we’re all sort of ‘OKAY’; we just do good or bad things sometimes. Doesn’t exactly make us good or bad; simply that we did something that fits into that category. Sure, there are some people who float more around a certain area. Like Mother Teresa could probably be found enjoying herself closer to the ‘GOOD’ end of the spectrum, with Hitler twiddling and plaiting his moustache at the other end closer to ‘BAD’. We could likely name a few on that side…but what’s the point?
Smoke & Mirrors
Sometimes you have to rethink, though, right? Like “where do I belong on this made up scale by this random individual on the internet?” And “is this person really true to themselves regardless of where they sit?” And “why are my lips so sexy?”
I’m afraid I can answer none of those questions. But you have the tools to think about it now. Before hating and condemning someone to your own mental depiction of emotional and maybe psychological hell (seek help, please), think of the possibility that maybe they’re not bad people. Just that they’ve only done something bad.
Oh, and before I forget , get help, you sicko. — Riley
