What is up, buttercups? It's been a couple years. Buuuut, in my defense, there's been fascists and nahtzee yt supremacists, insurrectionists, and a straight up panini-press* so I've been kind of busy.
I've been doing some thinking lately. Wait, back up...I did something completely UNthinkingly that forced me to think. After, of course, I got over the sheer rage that was caused by what I had done by my own free will to myself.
....pardon me while I digress a bit, my brain is wonky from staring at too many Jira tickets....
Isn't it amazing how that works? That I can do something by choice and under no obligation or duress that makes me fly into a rage inside my own head? Like there is no one here to blame but myself for this. I worry about me sometimes...
Anyway...where was I? Oh yes...I did something to myself that made me think about how people are. So if you know me or have read my blog you know my story so I'm not going to re-hash all that. It's over out and done with and even though there are still some splinters that pop up now and then because that's the nature of the beast we call a brain.
Even if you decide to inflict said splinter on yourself.
Moving forward.
I am a villain. The Bad Guy wearing the Black Hat and twirling my mustache, come to rain misery and despair over the blameless denizens of the land who are just trying to live their lives. I bathe in the blood of innocent kittens. I eat puppies. I am just this side of evil incarnate. I am consciously manipulative. I am a liar and a ringleader of flying liars bent on spreading lies.
I am a hypocrite.
I AM A MONSTER
HA! I wish I could pull all that off. But yeah, I'm the bad guy.
And, after some initial anger (read as RAGE, and cruel thoughts, and disbelief, and a whole heckuvalotta "HOW DARE YOU"s) you know what? I accepted it. I'm the Bad Guy in that story. I made decisions that affected the story of that person's life in ways they didn't like. It doesn't matter WHY I did it, what those decisions were in response to. In that person's story, I am the Bad Guy complete with Black Hat ™. Possibly even an eye patch. I quite like the eye patch.
We are all The Bad Guy in someone's story, though. We craft for ourselves a reality centered on ourselves based on of the way we see the things we live through from day-to-day, moment-to-moment. Their memories are not mine. Their feelings are not mine. Their perspective is not mine. My perspective is not theirs. And they are no more "wrong" in their perception than I am in mine because frankly I cannot change how I am seen from someone else's point of view. In someone else's memory of an event.
And that is.
It.
Just.
Is.
This story is going to be different from whichever perspective you choose to look at it. Only by seeing all sides of a story can the truth ever be understood. This is the truth I lived with. I don't coat it with honey for anyone, least of all myself. Having more of it inflicted on me is nothing I am willing to bear any longer.
My journey is not about vengeance nor is it about seeking retribution. My journey is about me working out my salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12). So look to your own salvation and I'll see to mine.
In one of my favorite books, Vigilant by James Alan Gardner, there is an organization that is dedicated to seeking out corruption in the government. Their motto is LIVE IN THE REAL AND NAME THE LIES. I aspire, however waveringly, however faultily, to live by it. I need to embroider it on a pillow.
Live in the Real - I am the Good Guy in my story. I may be the Bad Guy in the stories of those I touch.
Name the Lies - I am ALWAYS the Good Guy (or at least neutral) in the stories of those I touch.
Name the Lies - I need to change myself so that I show up as the Good Guy at all times in everyone's story.
Live in the Real - My actions are not always Divine, Generous, and Heroic. My actions are not always Demonic, Self-serving and Evil. And neither are anyone else's.
Remember : This story is going to be different from whichever perspective you choose to look at it.
We have all sinned. We have all played a the bad guy's role in someone's story. We have all hurt and been hurt. We have all treated each other, and ourselves, as things. And that, according to Granny Weatherwax, is where sin begins, when you treat people as things.
"In this life, many things happen in which we play a shameful part. Those of us who are strong forgive ourselves and go om. The weak wallow in they shame and allow it to devour them. There is no one of us who is without sin, child. There ought to be some comfort in that." ~ The Duchess, Through a Glass Darkly
Weirdly, it is kind of freeing to realize I am not always the Good Guy. It is equally freeing to realize I am not always the Bad Guy.
Both truths exist. They are BOTH true.
They are both/and.
Both. And.
Lord have mercy on me, a sinner.
Relevant Reading
Vigilant
*Panini Press and any other multisylabbic word beginning with the letter "P" has been used to refer to the SARS-COV2/COVID-19 pandemic that has afflicted the world and caused several million yt folks to lose their cot-danged minds but that is a soap box for elsewhere
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