003Good?
A/N: originally written on the 6th of August, approx 2pm.
extensively edited at time of posting.
todays thesis is: I don't need my friends to be good people.
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For what it's worth, I don't think I even need them to be people in the first place. I'm sure as hell not, right now. The strain of dragging myself back into reality just enough to write this post is probably going to ensure it's the only thing I consciously do today.
I see others putting on the facade of being people. Going to work, having conversations, performing tasks, mimicking expressions.
But every now and then I catch someone spacing out a little too long at night, or a little too dissociated into their phone, or staring at the ceiling with the ghosts of tears in their eyes.
And I think, "oh. you're not really here right now, are you?"
Anyway, this isn't the point of this post. lets move on.
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'Good' is such an arbitrary measure. What does it actually mean to be 'a good person'?
I think I genuinely don't know. Out of curiosity I went and googled this exact question, and I think it's hilariously ironic to take our baseline from the handy AI Overview it so eagerly provided:
Being a good person generally means possessing and demonstrating positive character traits and behaviours, such as kindness, honesty, empathy, and integrity.
Alright, question answered I guess. that's what it means. sure.
...I think those things are nice. You put together a group of people who have those traits, I imagine they'll get along pretty fine. That will be a nice friendship.
Here's my dumb bullshit take, though.
You never truly know if you can be kind to someone until you've stumbled across them in the middle of the night, at their worst and most destructive, lashing out and afraid of everything.
and for someone to be in that state, they have presumably stopped practising kindness, empathy, honesty, and integrity - or whatever other arbitrary words you wanna insert.
Have they stopped being a good person, in that moment? Are you more of a good person, because you can do it when they can't? How much do you have to repent after that, to become a good person again?
I don't think I need to answer these questions to make my point. I don't think I can.
After all, I'm not a good person. Especially not when I'm barely a person in the first place.
But I don't need my friends to be good people.
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It's interesting to me that being 'a good person' never seems to involve, by definition, how you act towards yourself.
The fun ai explanation goes on to say a few more things about "contributing to the wellbeing of society" and "the positive experiences of people around you".
All very ""selfless"" concepts.
and disgustingly over-sweetened propaganda, honestly.
The expectation that you strive to make things 'pleasant' or 'positive' for the people around you is a bullshit one.
Does it feel good for you to do that? yes? awesome! then strive to make the world a better place, even for just one or two people, and everyone wins.
sometimes it's nice to be able to do that. sometimes people want that of you - and if you can provide it, sure! make their lives better. easier.
but shift perspectives. now you are the one curled up inside your own mind, surrounded by the thought that you must be dying, spending what little conscious control you still have left on not lashing out, not making this worse for everyone.
you dont feel like a good person. you're barely a person at all.
you're tired. you're grieving something and you dont know what it is.
you dont have the strength left to drag yourself out of it this time.
you cannot possibly be the one to reach out from within that, even if there is another person in the exact same state next to you. even if you care so fucking deeply about them. even if you suspect they are dying too.
are you a bad person for that?
are they?
are you a good/bad person for acknowledging it?
...it doesn't matter. you don't need to be. some things are more important than morality in times like these.
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we're gonna go on a short tangent here.
sometimes I wish I could go back to one particular conversation at the start of April, and do everything differently from there. take myself back, knowing what I know now, and in my hubris somehow fix everything.
i don't think it would be the foreknowledge of events, or of other people's reactions, or knowing in advance that so many of my assumptions were wrong.
I think what would let me maybe do better is knowing that I don't need to be a good person.
I think what would let me do better is knowing that other people don't need to be either. I don't need them to be. We actually can survive eachother's petty little flaws. Embrace them, even.
I should have let go of my ideals a long time ago. it is too little and too late now, perhaps.
still. im writing the post.
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i want my friends to be able to stop hurting.
i think idle thoughts a lot. wandering fantasies of how things could have been, might still be, could never be (but it'd be nice).
i think if someone offered me the chance for all my friends to escape their horrors, but the cost was... some contrived situation, some monkey's paw deal where it goes badly for me no matter what.
I think I would take that offer in a heartbeat. even knowing that i probably wouldn't end up where i wanted. even knowing that I definitely wouldn't end up where I wanted.
I shouldn't take it. if some dubiously trustworthy entity showed up and offered that deal, the correct thing to do would be to ask everyone else how they felt about it first, probably.
but i'm not a good person. I just want my friends to have a chance at being happy again.
anyway, this section is once again a rather fantastical deviation from the point. lets see if we can get to it, shall we?
(...on an unrelated note, I'm getting my motorcycle fixed soon. Sometimes I think at length about just picking a direction and... going, y'know?)
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i don't need my friends to be good people.
i think, i don't even need them to try.
I know this directly contradicts things I've said before, things I've asked for, things I've cried about and despaired over.
as I said, i should have let go of my ideals a long time ago. I just want my friends to have a chance at happiness.
I think it's nice when they try and be good people. I think if thats what they want to be, I would support them as far as possible. I'd be proud of them.
but that's the bit here. i'm proud of them anyway.
...what's that line?
Integrity didn't get us this far.
stop trying to be good people. keep trying to take care of each other, but make sure it includes yourself first. find the shit that makes you happy and cling to it. run from everything that doesn't.
everything else will sort itself out. maybe.