Having grown up in a quaint and basic town, I fully admit that there are many things about the world that I do not understand. But no matter. I figured that sharing one’s thoughts is never a bad thing, and I like to think I have grown in my perspective of the world and society.
One of the very first things I was told, not by my parents but by the news and church and other outlets was that humans are inherently bad. My optimistic soul harbored the belief that humans were inherently good beings of kind nature, but now I disagree with myself and what I have learned from yet again. I have come to the most anticlimactic conclusion that humans are inherently neutral. This fact disappoints me every day, but I think that those who believe humans are bad simply use it as an excuse for the behavior of society, and those who say they are good are wishful thinkers. In many other areas, I myself am a wishful thinker, but my faith in humanity is dwindling. There are many good people in the world, and less bad people. Very few people, in my experience, have evil intent. The majority of our fellow members of society have no intent, and instead just go through life to check boxes, and then leave the Earth without having made a negative or positive impact, or if either, a very small amount.
Those with good intent that take action, are mostly cancelled out by the bad people and the neutral people combined. As a combined force, the bad people set us on a negative track, and the neutral people tend to not fix anything. This leaves the good people to try to fix our world as a whole, which is simply too much to do in one lifetime. And good people are hardly ever in positions of power, or at least not in my lifetime (which admittedly, has been quite short).
We are too hard on one another. This fact haunts me more than anything else, because I believe it is the root of most of our problems. Everyone has opinions. Mine differ from that of my parents, and theirs differ from their parents, and so on. But at the end of the day, what I have discovered, is that everyone is simply doing their best. I live in America, where the political division is deep and ragged, and streaked with hurt feelings on all sides. I will not pretend that there is not corruption and hypocrisy, for I am a critic of my country. And I will also not pretend that I am not partisan, for I am also a supporter of the liberal leaning politicians. But that has never led me to lose respect for those on the other side who are educated and try to do their best for the country. The problem lies when those on both sides forget who they are working for. Not the rich, not the white, not the straight, but the whole of the America. We are the melting pot of the world, but if we don’t start acting like it, we may lose some of the diversity that makes our country whole and wonderful.
My next point is more of a question for anyone that may know the answer. Why is everyone so wrapped up in what everyone else does? I am bisexual, and so far I have been lucky enough to not experience extreme homophobia, but I have friends who are not as lucky. There are also people who express anger towards religion in general. And of course there are those that send hate towards others’ political opinions, this excluding human rights. Human rights are not up for political debate. I have witnessed a very close friend of mine whom I respect endlessly verbally attack a boy much younger than him because he expressed that he was conservative on his social media story. This is not okay. There is a difference between having a conversation with someone with the intent to learn about their opinions, and attacking people on virtual platforms, especially children. We need to start acting like adults in order to gain the respect of others. Being open-minded is a beautiful thing. Recognizing the intelligence and the thought process of others as valid is absolutely pivotal to the progress of our society.
We need to learn how to be critical of ourselves and the world we live in without blaming the “neutral” people. Those with evil intentions need to be stopped, so that the flow of the human race can be back the way it should be; good. Everyone is just trying their best, we cannot forget that.
