The things I’ve been wrong about

It’s quite distressing to realize, later in life, how many things I may have been fundamentally wrong about. So many fondly held notions can turn out to be the hallucinations of a younger and more naïve self.

Recent months and years have brutally disabused me of so many concepts and presumptions. The list is long and alarming.

Let me share a few.

I once believed that there was an inherent morality present in every human, a higher nature, a compassionate essence. That only in exceptional circumstances did people do abhorrent things. That acts like killing children, inflicting genocide on your neighbours, or practising daily and entrenched hatred of others were an aberration, not a default setting.

I wonder about that one now.

I once thought that there was something called international law that every nation tried to uphold. That there were aspirations, strictures and sanctions by which countries were bound. That breaching these requirements of coexistence brought about consequences.

Well, that’s gone.

I held the idea that we humans cared about our planet, that we saw it as our mother, that we tried to keep it clean and lush and thriving, and respected its limits. That we would see the trouble our unchecked activities were causing to our air, water and weather, and would make amends in good time.

I’m now too busy dodging floods, heatwaves and wildfires to believe that.

I imagined that the United Nations existed to promote peace and shared endeavour, and had the power to do so. That the United States was present in most corners of the world only as a benevolent policeman protecting liberal democracy. That FIFA cared about the game and the joy of football around the world, not the lucre.

What was I smoking then?

Much of my old Sunday writing expressed those notions. I stand educated, my gullibility and credulousness exposed.

In the spirit of newfound clearheadedness, I should also acknowledge that shock revelations apply not only to the world around us, but to the world inside us. If I was deceived about the world, perhaps I have also been deceiving myself about myself.

We all think we have a stable core, a settled character, strong beliefs. An identity that we can be proud of and uphold. That, too, may be an illusion. Perhaps we are all capable of severe aberration, of abandonment of principle, of damaging behaviour. Perhaps all it takes is the right set of circumstances: fear, disappointment, anger, or an approving crowd. Perhaps we should not think too highly of ourselves, for we too are made of the same faulty clay as all those who dishearten us.

Perhaps character is not something we possess. Perhaps it is something we must keep choosing.

And yet. To exist in a state of cynical clarity is also no way to live. I am not able to view every person and situation with suspicion and caution. I still prefer to believe better of people and situations rather than worse. I still aspire to a higher plane of existence than one characterized by self-gain and self-adoration.

At the end of Desiderata, we are advised: “And whatever your labours and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful.”

That, perhaps, is all we can be right about. Perhaps I was not wrong to believe in morality, law, institutions, or in my own decency. I am only wrong to believe they are natural, durable and self-enforcing.

THE SIGNAL IN THE NOISE

Goodness is not a nature. It is a practice.

 

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