Peace

For the Love of Humanity, and Cats

Our human family is complicated. Did you ever wonder, how do we this?

No one is as good or bad as they think they are. Nobody is as good or bad as you think they are. No one is as good or bad as anyone, including history, makes them out to be. If some of the worst had a dog that liked them, is that a mustard seed’s worth of something redeemable? Some of the people who are doing the most good are struggling with the greatest level of darkness. I know some darkness, better than a Simon and Garfunkel song. I struggled with my own, even projected it on to folks I don’t like. I have some folks I love who tried putting their shadow on me. All of us fail to meet the ideal. So why then do we struggle so much with rendering compassion? Or is the opposite true? Is it that so many of us are actually so compassionate that it is the second and third chances that wear us all down?

I do think most of us, most of the time, are pretty compassionate. The thing to tease out is whether or not we have a boundary. Do we forgive because we know we have failed? Or are we naive because we assume most people most of the time are reasonable and we don’t expect someone to abuse our trust. Assessing social and cultural expectations also confounds this, especially when the rules for that guide those…