Tuesday 8/10/21
Cuomo resigns, people talk about Trump. Healthy. Normal. Not insane at all. So much manic obsession in many of the empty lives that make up much of our world.
I believe, apart from that, most people are sociopaths who are incapable of empathy or ever thinking about the good of anyone else. When they do think about the good of someone else--someone in their family, for example--I believe it's mostly for them, and the preservation of what they know and want, often because they have nothing else, know they can have nothing else, and this is it for them. Just like I don't think hardly anyone actually gives a toss in the slightest about any cause. I think it's all for clout, attention, ego. Because the cause was there if it is real at all two years ago, five years ago, ten years ago, and there was absolutely no interest on that person's part for the cause. But now it brings cachet. It feeds ego. It exploits for the sake of personal gain. It can get you money, awards, a job, a blue check mark, thousands of empty, lying compliments from people who are similarly wired and who make up your community, your "friends." None of it is real. But that is the key that life is now played in--all is unreal.
I think almost everyone who does anything that might look at first kind or done out of concern does so for themselves. To tell themselves that they're a good person. I don't think altruism really exists save in the rarest of cases, and I know people are too stupid, too lazy, too selfish, to try and actually empathize with anyone else. Empathy takes effort and energy--a lot of it. You have to try hard on someone else's behalf to go into what their life must be like, or a part of their life. You need imagination. You have to concentrate. Empathy is like thinking up a story--that just happens to also exist in the "real" world--and then going into it, as a kind of shadow character. It takes creativity along with heart. It's not easy, and it also takes practice. It is both a skill and a virtue.
When I am running the stairs, people will see what I'm doing, and they'll ask me for directions or to take a photo, if I am closest to them. Bear in mind, these are the Government Center stairs, and there's no shortage of other people, doing nothing, strolling about as leisurely as you please. Why do they ask me? Because I'm nearest to them. People want want want want want--for themselves. In the easiest, laziest way possible. Almost without exception. They never think about anyone else. Even in this example--which is telling--it's all about them. They don't think, "that guy is working out, he's busy, I'm not going to ask him to stop, let me grab this person ten feet over here with their thumb up their ass."
You think this is a silly example? It's not. It tells you, in a way, everything you need to know about how people are now. Me me me me me me me me. We have lost the ability to be good. Money isn't goodness. Money can be a sacrifice, it can be something in good faith, it can show faith, but goodness is something active. Goodness has a presence that must be upheld. Maintained. Even if we are naturally inclined to goodness, it's work. One has to think it through. One has to not let up in the upkeep of the goodness. It's exceedingly proactive and it's done for someone else.
