DMB Digest: Here a poke, there a poke...
"...lest your blind finger pointing blind the whole world." --DMB
For a season, I labored reluctantly, and quite unofficially, as a contract lawyer. But you know how it is with writers (otherwise known as professional liars), if anything has to do with words, you are likely to hear some loquacious version of, “Hold my beer.”
The thing with contracts is to keep in mind you are creating the document for the very worst person you can possibly imagine. Worse than Darth Vadar. Worse than Inspector Javert. Worse than Hitler. Worse than Cruella de Vil. Worse than Seinfeld for goodness sake! I mean, we’re talking pure evil. Revelation style evil.
Any possible crevice for evil-doing, this person will leverage it. This person has entered into this legally binding contract for the soul purpose of ruining your life and destroying the rest of the universe along with you. If you are able to keep that in mind throughout the entire contract, bingo! The result will be a solid contract. This is why most lawyers have had all their essence sucked out through their nostrils like so much mummification.
I say all of this to preface a post I came across this week, and to establish in advance that I understand where the author of the post is coming from, even while I assert she is dramatically and tragically wrong.
The article starts off with this line:
The problem with humanity is that guy—the one who ruins it for everyone.
From here, the author goes on to contrast bad people who do bad things from good people who do good things. Bad people vandalize stuff. Good people clean things up. Bad people hurt others. Good people help others. Blah, blah, blah.
In my not so humble opinion, this kind of naive thinking is the problem with humanity these days. How easy (and black and white) it is to sit upon ivory thrones and pontificate about how bad all those bad people are. Like the person who would bring a gun to a super bowl parade. Or the person who would drop bombs on civilians in Burma. Or the person who would kidnap an elderly jewish person from a Kibbutz. Or the politician who would call an entire oppressed people group inhuman animals. The person who beats his wife. The person who opens fire in a school building. On and on and on.
Those ignorant rural people. Those corrupted city folk. Those freakin’ liberals. Those stinking conservatives. (If you think I’m being dramatic, just look up the recent “searing expose” going by the title, “White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy.” Blind-eyed, angry finger pointing has been mastered to such a crazy new height I’m not sure a leap down from it wouldn’t kill us all.)
Those people are so evil. If only we could get rid of all those bad people, then all that would be left are us good people. The only problem with this kind of thinking is that it’s stupid.
Stupide. Pardon my french.
This mindset simply isn’t true. It’s self-centered, lazy schlock. Good and evil don’t divide one half (or small fraction) of humanity from the other. The truth is much better stated by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in his work, The Gulag Archipelago when he says:
The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either -- but right through every human heart -- and through all human hearts.
Until I acknowledge that during my worst moment, I could have been the person who brought a gun to the super bowl parade…until I acknowledge that I am both the person who vandalizes and cleans…I am the good guy at times, and the bad guy at others (I’m capable of drinking the last of the coffee. I sometimes say mean things. I can be cruel, vindictive, petty, manipulative, deceptive, and worse)…then I will continue to live under the delusion that all the world’s problems are due to that guy, that other guy, who is ruining everything for the rest of us. Well, a wise man once said, “You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.”
If You Wish to Start Reading The Green Ones…
[Click here to start at the beginning.]
Thanks so much for taking the time to read these scenes of Boundaries, Season 2 of The Green Ones. I’ll be publishing FREE daily scenes from The Green Ones until…I die…or something terrible happens. Seriously, I’ve got over 100 scenes written so far, and I’ll be writing more until the story reaches its natural ending. You are totally welcome to read the entire story for FREE! If at any point you decide you would rather finish the story in ebook or print format, just click the buttons below and you can do that as well. If you enjoy reading the serial releases, BUT you would also like to support me as a writer (my kids need wine!) please subscribe to my premium content for bonus scenes, exclusives, and insider access to my process. And of course, I’d be grateful if you would share this post with any of your reader friends who you think would enjoy The Green Ones. Happy reading!