A friend of mine and reader of this blog remarked to me that this blog seems “devoted to severe criticism of your fellow men”. To this friend, I say as Cervantes’ Don Quixote, “My eyes did not create the world. They merely see it”.
People who know me well know I am extremely critical. This extends primarily to myself in the first instance, as I regularly denigrate my value or contribution. When I left my friend in PA last week, he reported to me that he considered me a great friend and cried when I left. Although I don’t consider myself that good of a friend, I know very few people who are trying to always be on their best behavior as I am.
Choosing to become a Man of La Mancha has been one of the most pivotal and important choices of my life. However, it also seems to be my greatest bane even as I feel it to be a boon. A quest for the impossible dream is doomed to disappointment. I will find no castles, only inns, no golden helms, only shaving basins. Sometimes I wish upon myself the type of insanity necessary to only see the world as Don Quixote, even as I am berated for my insane notions to make the world a better place. Said he, “Sanity may be madness but the maddest of all is to see life as it is and not as it should be.”
I see people as they are and bewail what they ought to be. Now, perhaps that is an unfair position, but it has never been my philosophy to allow people to descend to the lowest common denominator. I know from personal experience that they can be anything they want if they want to. I ask no man to live my mantra and make chivalry his creed; I merely ask them to be the best they can, and more often than not they do not seem to even try.
That being said, I will admit I know nothing of their circumstances by and large. Perhaps the man who cuts me off in traffic has a major wound he needs care for at the hospital. Perhaps the man who wired money to the Baltic really needs it more than I to survive. Perhaps the people I meet were abused by their parents, ignored by their peers, and denigrated by their children. I do not know the weight of their trials. Although I believe God allows nothing to befall people that they cannot bear, I do not know the scope or duration of their trials and cannot therefore say I could do any better in their unique situation.
I swore an oath many years ago: “On my honor, I will do my best”. That I promise, and I will try to be less judgmental of those who, for them, do likewise.
1 comment:
Hmm. It seems odd to resign oneself to bewailing the sad state of the world and the folks in it. There's enough negativity around that none of it is all that remarkable, no matter how eloquently it's expressed.
The capacity to encounter negative input and then choose to provide positive output seems fairly underrated these days. No easy transformation much of the time, but certainly worthwhile. Seems like most truly productive solutions stem from that "atonement-like" approach than meeting negative with negative. What do you think?
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