It depresses me to no end of the state of the human condition.
That I can find myself amidst debate (if I even dare call it that) between a guy too selfish to care and a guy too jaded to try, that such a argument even occurs over the most trivial of subject matters. That I can hear people admit the flaw of the human state and not even attempt to do anything about it. When was humankind so defeatist?
I see a friend defending an acquaintance of his against the majority and I see him turned into a martyr for it. I see him being burned at the stakes unnecessarily for trying "to be a saint" and I see that his attempt to defend his acquaintance soon deteriorates from a valiant attempt into a slur and barrage of ad hominems. It's tragic because I see my friend sinking to the level of those he was intending to strike, and I see them pointing out the hypocrisy, the irony, and making fun of him for it.
It just screams "We won; we dragged you down to our level. There is no moral high ground now - there never was, and there never will be."
I talk to a friend of mine while sitting by the roadside - he tells me that he's tired of it all. He can't keep up the goodwill anymore, he can't salvage the tear in the relationships anymore. I feel like telling him to just carry on the good fight, but I hear the parties he tries to save admit their own lack of care for other people's motivations for their actions. I wonder why he ever bothered trying to save such relationships. I wonder whether it was doomed to fail from the beginning. I wonder whether it was worth it at all.
Maybe it isn't.
I recall a drink over a small table in a jazz bar; my drinking partner commented to me that she felt no one was born evil or innately evil. That everyone was innately good and just expressed themselves wrongly, resulting in ill will instead of goodwill. I now question that thought more than three years on. Maybe people just aren't programmed to be good. Because to be nice, understanding, and reacting in the best possible way one sees fit after considering everyone's point of view is impossible for certain people - it runs counter to their very character and the idea of goodwill cannot even enter their mind without sickening their very core. They cannot be good; they can merely pretend to be good until the farce sickens them and they can no longer resist the joy of being a fucker.
It's sad that I can find people whom I am absolutely cool with in real life and get to talk cock with argue like barbarians over the internet. I find it sad that I can see a friend say "I want to stop this stupidity" and degrade himself into joining the masses in half an hour. And the worst part about this is that I can see two groups of people I enjoy the company of burn each other over the most trivial non-reasons. I cannot understand how one side can ever think of such an argument in a "I won / You lost" scenario when all along it was a "You lose, I lose" scenario to me. Honestly? You think you can win such a mudslinging argument? You can say that with a clear conscious?
It's even more depressing that I can hear people comment that such arguments are a good form of entertainment, popcorn-worthy shows. I hear the sensible people say that they would've deleted the arguments; eliminated any scent of bad will off the face of the earth. I hear the popcorn audience plea for the war to be over before the evidence is erased. I cannot even bear to point out the logical flaw and contradiction in erasing the evidence when the war was already over - wasn't the point of deleting the arguments to prevent it from breaking out in the first place?
I hate it all because it's just so tragic to witness. People are jerks. People are bastards. People are fuckers. I've come to that conclusion long ago, and I know I'm not the only one.
It's just that I invest faith in humans - faith in them that they aren't the absolute human scum that I occasionally think they are at times. It's not an investment with good rates of return, but it's a worthwhile investment and the ROI is but a secondary matter. But that faith that I invest - it bankrupts on me as if my faith was a monetary commodity worth stealing. That there are moral bankers out there robbing me of all my faith while they snicker to themselves along Wall Street, wondering what to do with all the faith in their hands. Faith I had in humanity, now in the hands of scum who sully its value with their incredulity.
Perhaps faith was worthless all along. Not just monetarily, but morally, even ethically, worthless in every aspect. Perhaps having faith in people wouldn't give you any more faith to have in others - it just gave you disillusionment in the face of vanity, pride and stubbornness. You couldn't fight the three. Stubbornness never gave up, vanity never knew when she lost and pride never acknowledged that it was your victory. Faith had nowhere to belong in the amoral.
And it appears, neither do I. Not in the grand scheme of failure that is the human condition.
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