Good is the Default

I used to spend a lot of time explaining myself to awful people who didn't realize they're awful and therefore couldn't understand why I treated them as such. Explaining was the least I could do, because they often seemed genuinely confused and hurt. After all, everyone sees themselves as a virtuous good person.

But awful people, I decided, are inherently confused. In fact, that’s why they’re awful. 

People don't behave awfully unless their perspective is warped. The unvarnished truth is that we're in Utopia, basking in unimaginable comfort on a singular speck of color and beneficence in an otherwise cold, dark, tight, vacant universe, blessed with ample oxygen, life-giving sunlight, and quenching water. Our greatest problems include a troubling excess of food and personal possessions. Socially, things may feel a bit malevolent, but in reality, everyone's just fumbling through their day, and almost nothing they say or do truly reflects on you. In their minds, you're mostly a placeholder.

We depart from this baseline perspective on mere whim, choosing to indulge in drama — in Rich People Problems — which we eventually steep in so deeply that we forget that we paid and waited on line to ride this rollercoaster. And maladjustment begets confusion and awfulness.

So there is no Evil serving as an equal oppositional force to Good. Good is the default, though confused people may do evil things.

It's notable that the clear-headed are seldom awful (exception: psychopaths, who maintain a narrowed crystal clarity despite tectonic skew). I don't know anyone gifted with expansive wisdom and equanimity who makes a habit of being awful — though they may seem so to those expecting them to indulge posing and delusion.

I no longer explain myself to awful people. They're too lost to accept a road map. Anything said to them is received through a distorted lens, and you can't push truth so artfully that it maintains itself through a warped perspective.

But I take heart in knowing that any confused, awful person entangled in complication can, with an effortless gesture of surrender, re-moore to the simplicity of baseline goodness.


See "Flipping Your Street Smarts" for a much more down-to-earth version of this same flip of perspective.