"Young Rich and Tasteless...."
After watching Shrek for the first time and then hearing Kanye's music for the first time - shortly after, I knew I was home.
Cry on your shoulder or not, I am what George Verwer calls a "natural bad guy." The problem is that justice isn't only for the nice guys and so I don't want to be the bad guy to the extent that justice is ignored. Makes me sound like a sanctified badass - and of course that makes me sound like I'm better than you and that....well....I guess I could keep trying to slip just far enough away from the grip of indictment but that's the truth. I don't like to admit I'm wrong when you tell me the truth unless I have some control over it.
Some have taken that statement and nailed me to a cross and used my words as the nails (cross imagery for effect) but either way, communicating, as a person who doesn't like to take the blame, with people who don't like to take the blame is a tough and complicated act.
I've been reflecting on anger and intention lately. I'm 31 now and have had enough BS take place in my life at the hands of other people that there is enough material to write a book. My guess is that for the average person - by the time they are in their 30s - they've had their share of being treated poorly by the Douche-bags. I realized that with all of the crap done to me, I can have a pretty robust pity session almost every day. Most of those pity sessions quickly turn into angry thoughts and douche-bags start showing up in my mind from all over the place, friends, enemies, teachers, ex's, pastors, bullies, church people, family, co-workers, mean random people on the street, bosses, politicians, etc... I've got so much material to complain about - it would require no effort at all to spend at least an hour or two each day thinking about what wrong has been done to me.
But lately, my wife and I have been learning about how complicated people's intentions actually are. I am more convinced than ever before that most people who wrong me don't actually do it with direct, intentional, 1st degree malevolence. Most wrongs done (at least 4 out of 5) are done either because of lack of intention or good intention rather than ill intention. Now, there are many different kinds of intentions that we could add but these three seem to make the top of the list.
"The road to hell is paved with good intentions" someone once said. Have you heard yourself or someone else ever say - "But my intention wasn't to...." and yet you still ended up hurting someone or doing something harmful. Sometimes when we are hyper-intentional about one motivation which is good, then we neglect other motivations and actions that would also be necessary which ends in conflict of some sort. Will we ever get away from this problem.
What about lack of intention - so many problems happen because of this issue - lack of intention or as it is otherwise known - indifference. Indifference can be for many reasons but many times, the few wrongs committed intentionally were preceded and followed by indifference from so many others surrounding the wrong committed. What about mentally ill individuals who' commit wrongs that they do when not in their right mind. What do we do with our condemning finger when they produce such destruction with their actions or words and yet they can't be fully culpable for their decision.
I am more and more convinced that with all these complexities and the way human nature works - that we are prone as humans to look for ill intention regardless of whether it is there or not. It brings us a source of comfort to know the "why" of suffering and pain so that we can pull out the infamous index and point it squarely at the perpetrator. Does this need to happen sometimes - YES - does it need to happen the majority of the time - NO.
This makes me think that God must already know this and have a way of dealing with "sin" in such a way that would recognize that ill intention isn't the source of most of the destruction in the world (although it is involved to some degree). We as humans would like to think it is most of the time but I don't think that's the case. What then do we do with all of that anger and desire for justice if we can't nail it down on ill intention. I think it begins by realizing that brokenness is complicated and that our brokenness, or what others might call sin, has an inverted desire to implicate all sin as ill intended - a desire produced by the very brokenness that it condemns. We are all prone to retribution - an innate natural desire for punitive justice.
There's a lot more to say from this point on... but instead, I'd like to finish with a toast to the Douche-bags -
And I always find, yeah, I always find somethin' wrong
You been puttin' up wit' my #*@! just way too long
I'm so gifted at findin' what I don't like the most
So I think it's time for us to have a toast
Let's have a toast for the douchebags,
Let's have a toast for the @#*holes,
Let's have a toast for the scumbags,
Every one of them that I know
Let's have a toast to the jerkoffs
That'll never take work off
Baby, I got a plan
Run away fast as you can
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