Having faith in people....

More often than not I find myself losing faith in people. It’s a bad thing to say, I know, but it happens. It’s not that I’ve totally lost faith in people, but I find myself being disappointed more and more often by the people around me. I guess I must have lost touch somehow.

It’s probably me. I mean, the hundreds of people around me can’t be all wrong, now can they? So it’s me. Because of some simple mathematical assumption that it is virtually impossible for almost everyone around me to be wrong, I have to take the blame myself. It's often easier to assign blame to an individual rather to blame the multitude. Just look at post-war Germany. Oh well. Perhaps I deserve it.

If you've read this far, I can only assume that you must be curious on what the hell I’m talking about, since I don’t seem to be making much sense. Well I’ll tell you. In a nutshell, my belief in things that I have been brought up to know as good…or bad…has been seriously compromised by the things that I have seen most people do. And I’m not talking about abstracts, about people I’ve read in the papers, about people that I don’t know. I’m talking about people who are my friends. People I’ve shared experiences with. People who I have come to know…to love…and to respect.

Recently a friend approached me, asking for legal advice since he’s being accused of a crime, and is in jeopardy of being a defendant, or at least a party defendant in threatened lawsuit. Of course as a friend, I gave him sound legal advice (before you people start asking, no, am not a lawyer, but I do have a law degree) and I was confident that the advice I gave is good enough not only to give him piece of mind, but also extricate himself out of that legal predicament that he got himself into. But that’s not the point. Knowing him as well as I think I do, it is not beyond him to resort to something toeing the line of legality as long as there is a profit to be made. I don’t think my conscience would allow me to do anything of that sort, but somehow I don’t think that it is proper for me to impose my own standards of morality, of right and wrong, on anyone else. So as a friend, I have only one option…and that is to help. A friend would not turn his back on a friend in need, now would he now? Even if that friend has different standards of right and wrong, I have to help. But the confusion doesn’t stop there.

I’ve had unmarried friends, two of them in fact, who got pregnant at different times in the past few years. Then inexplicably, and mysteriously, the pregnancy disappeared. Without as much as a warning. Without any attempt at an explanation. Or perhaps an explanation so bizarre that the truth would probably make much more sense. But it happens. Though I cannot, for the life of me, even consider terminating the life of an unborn child, it just happens. And it happens more often that we think. Yet we turn a blind eye, and blame it on the times. These callous, uncaring, insensitive times. Like, who am I to speak against it? Am not a woman, much less a mother. How can I even comprehend how it is to be pregnant under the most dire social circumstances? Yeah, it's probably easier just to turn a blind eye and blame it one the times.

Let me tell you about another friend of mine. He’s happily married, or at least I thought he was. Then he started asking me for excuses to give his wife, because there was this other girl that he really liked. As a friend, again, what could I do? I gave him some excuses that he could use. Some pretty original and plausible if I do say so myself. Again, a friend of mine is set out to do something that I probably could never do…that is, to cheat on his wife. And yet I helped him. You know what? To my dismay, this wasn't the first time I helped a friend cheat on a mate.

As with any of the other situations, it wouldn’t be right to impose my own standards of morality on other people. Or would it now? It seems to be the norm nowadays. Marital infidelity is getting to be as common as traffic is on our major thoroughfares. In my own place of work, I have seen dozens of married colleagues have extramarital affairs with other married colleagues. Another friend of mine even left his wife less than a year after they got married. Situations like these get to be more and more common that these people make no attempt to hide or even disguise their illicit relationships, and even display their affectations openly for everyone to see. And these are the same people I see go to mass every first Friday, who bow their heads, pray fervently for God's blessing, and take communion.

Take greed as another example. Money and material possessions seem to have taken over most of our lives. We live in a society that flaunts and extols wealth and materiality. Just look at all the TV, newspaper and radio ads. There is always some new thing that we have to have. Even if we can't afford it. That's where excessive love of money comes in. To make available the material possessions we desire and to increase our own sense of self-worth...of power. From my own vantage point, I have been exposed to a certain degree of avarice and corruption...some even within my own personal sphere. Hardly a day passes by without a new a corruption charge being blared over the radio or bannered on newspapers. Again we tolerate it. It has become so commonplace that we have already started to accept it as a mere norm...just as the sun rises in the east or sets in the west, or just like the birds and the bees. Sad as it may be, greed has become a way of life.

I guess it’s a matter of personal philosophy. A lot of people have seemingly discarded morals altogether, choosing to live their lives by what gives them the most pleasure. In today’s world of MTV, fast food, fast cars, fast living, people are getting used to instant gratification. Sometimes I envy them, since they are not shackled by some artificial standard governing their behavior. But sometimes I don’t, as I feel that I could never bear to put my personal pleasure ahead of another person’s well being. Even if I don’t know that person. Some have totally rejected the concept of a judgmental supreme being, and that this is the only life we have. There is nothing more after death, so why waste life? If it feels good, do it! Then there are the hypocrites. Preachy and holier than thou, they condemn every little thing we do as sin, and yet at the end of the day they can be found in some sleazy bar with a girl on his lap.

I hope I don't come across as holier than thou. If at all, just think of this post as the rantings of a disturbed individual. Above anything else, I would just like to truly understand. Too often we look without seeing, we hear without listening, we touch without feeling. I’m probably just a stickler for morals, for doing the right thing. Probably just cold comfort. Not that I’m a saint or anything like that. Far from it actually. Its just that I never really knew anything else. Maybe that’s a good thing. Too many ideas confuse the mind, and that I know I am. It used to be easy. A thing was either "good" or "bad". Now, there are a lot things that I just simply cannot categorize to be plain "good" or plain "bad" anymore, not only because of changing tolerances, but really, because of changing morals and values. Not necessarily changing for the better, or changing for the worse. Just changing. Issues like homosexuality or lesbianism. Same sex marriages. Abortion. Divorce. Euthanasia. Genetic research. Cloning. Capital punishment. Who the hell knows anymore? The world isn't in black and white. Perhaps in ancient times it was. But now it's all gray. All shades of gray. And the shades are increasing. It seems ironic, that the ideals that we use to uphold, and in fact still believe in, like friendship, loyalty, morality, respect, fidelity...often have mutually exclusive goals. In times like these, I myself wonder. I don't even know what to teach my kid anymore.

Even though I believe in them, morals are really nothing more than lines we draw in the sand to mark our own personal comfort levels. Sometimes we toe the line. Sometimes we cross it. And sometimes we even erase it altogether. We act as we choose. And we are free to change our minds. If we believe we’re doing the right thing, we don’t care what other people think. Even if we do the wrong thing, we rationalize it to ourselves, and still do it. There are some us who just don’t care and do whatever we want. But deviancy has its price at times. You can look at all the people in prison and think of that price.

So maybe that’s it. Its our lack of caring. But there’s a fine line between caring and meddling in other people’s affairs. So we choose not to. That’s the easiest thing to do. None of us are high and mighty enough to tell other people what is right and what is wrong. Some have tried, and it sent them falling. Look at all the televangelists and religious figures caught up in scandals of all sorts. Even Jesus Christ, whom I sincerely believe gave his life in order to save us, literally died because he cared for us. But then again not all of us have the power to rise from the dead after three days. It is all this uncaring, all this tolerance which is making this world a much harder place to live in. But we get by. We're to used to it.

Warning: Foul Language ahead.

I never really intended to extol anything in this post. And in fact, am just as confused now as I was when I first typed the first word. The best advice I can give to anyone interested, I guess, is just to follow their own hearts, their own callings. Do whatever makes you happy, as long as you don’t step on anyone else or in the process. Easier said than done though. Let’s just be aware and responsible for our own actions and their consequences. In the long run, that may be the only advice applicable to everyone, regardless of religious beliefs, or personal philosophies. In uncouth terms, it is everyone’s right to be an asshole if he or she chooses. But no one has the right to be an asshole to anyone he or she wants. Unless, that other person was an asshole first. Want it stated in a more foul-mouthed manner? You can be a fucking asshole if you want, as long as you don’t fuck anyone. Unless some fucking asshole fucks you first. I never thought the golden rule can be restated in such an ill-manner, but I take it you know what I mean. Pardon my language, was just trying to make a point. :-) (and I've always wondered if I can post expletives and profanities on this blog.) This has turned out to be a very long-winded post. For that, I apologize. And if you read this far, thank you. :-)

Quidquid agis, prudenter agas et respice finem!

- Whatever you do, do cautiously, and look to the end.