On People and Faith

I have a friend (don't be too surprised, eh?). He's a good guy. Sometimes he seems very hit-and-miss. One moment he's a technical wizard, and the next, he isn't. But his mastery of what is and is not a programming language notwithstanding, he's a strong ally and a good man. He can be the kind of southern gentleman that is hard to find among the rabble and refuse of my generation in these later days.

One of the reasons I cherish him so much as a friend is his willingness and ability to call it like he sees it, even when that means he steps out on a limb and challenges people who may not want to be challenged. He isn't always right, and even when he is sometimes it costs him dearly, but it has been an incredible blessing to me throughout our friendship.

He said something to me a couple of months ago. Something beautiful and sincere and true. He was calling me on my loss of faith.

"To lose your faith in humanity is normal. But to lose your faith in people is terrible."

I have no faith in either. As I told him at the time: I firmly believe that humanity will go on as it always has. Overall, they'll keep doing the same shit they've always done, creating and destroying nations, breeding, make happiness and art, subjugating each other, and admiring the quality of a sunset. I'm not worried about humanity.

At the time, we were discussing my ability to manipulate people, and my belief that I was coming to a place in my life where I made use of that ability , and was slowly ruining my own life doing so.

It was a time of frustration for me, because I really have no interest in manipulating people. I feel bad doing it, a sortof sickening feeling like putting your hand in a pile of mud. But I cannot help but admit that I was also drawn to it. It was an undeniable power trip, and an easy way to get what I once thought I wanted.

However, the more I made use of the ability, the less I believed that people were really worth having faith in, since so many times they were so predictable or controllable.

I have since abandoned (as much as possible) the attempts at manipulation. The third strike makes clear what two sometimes do not, and on that final failure, I came to realize that trying to a relationship, any relationship, that didn't happen spontaneously was, for me, asking for trouble and despair.

But even though I've abandoned manipulation as a tool (the loss of any sense of enjoyment from it helped). . .

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I'll finish this later. I've been called away.