Are We Basically All Good? (Tara Taylor Quinn)

WARNING: Heavy material. Handle with care.

I'm wondering about people. We're all made up of many levels, moods, feelings. We can each be kind and mean, grouchy and patient and sometimes funny. Some of us are more prone to some of these characteristics than others, but we all have the potential for most or all of them. But we're basically, at our core, good, right? Or at least, the majority of us are. (There's always the exception to prove any rule.)

I have a friend who's kind, and successful and funny and generous and because she told the truth in a public arena, she's being blasted in places that hurt her. To the effect that she's questioning her own talents and gifts and abilities. Why do these people do this? What prompts them to be mean - and to think that they have the right to be mean? Do they thrive on negative energy? Do they feel powerful because they can tear someone else down? How on earth does this bless their lives? Make them happy?

Over the past two years I experienced much of this same thing myself. I couldn't go on the internet without reading ugly things people were saying about me. People who have never met me before in my life, people who have never had a personal conversation with me were downgrading my character. And they seemed to thrive on the practice. They'd blog with authority about things they had no personal knowledge of - and, as in the game of telephone so many of us played as kids - by the time the stories got told and re-told, they rarely even resembled the truth. Back when we were kids, when the final story was told, we all laughed at how screwed up it was. I'm not laughing anymore. My friend was hurt yesterday. I've been hurt. So have others.

For what? Not for truth. She'd spoken the truth. (As had I but that's another story.) Not for knowledge - the information was merely opinion about another's character, choices, talent. What good was to be gained?

And yet people flock to these sites. They read them and some flag the fires with comments - giving their own opinions about people they've never met and situations they've only heard about through a game of telephone.

I had another friend tell me yesterday that she liked a softer Tara. She opened my eyes to what I can so easily become when I allow myself to be buffeted by the winds of people who seem to think nothing of spewing negative energy out into the world. I become hard to withstand the gale.

Last night I was driving on the winding mountain road by my house and a girl/young woman came sailing down the middle of the road - dressed all in dark colors - on a skateboard. She had no lights or reflectors. I could so easily have hit her. It was only by her angels watching over her that I didn't. I thought, what an idiot. I started on a mind journey denigrating the girl for her stupidity. And then, outloud, I said, I'm sure she has a good heart. But it took me conscious thought to get there. Yet is was so easy to start mentally beating her up for her stupidity. I hear other people do this kind of 'cutting down' people all the time. Why??? Why do we do this? We're all basically good, right? We band together when our nation is attacked, we give to charity and help at the polls, we write books about love and hope and forgiveness, we rally when someone is sick or needs items for auctions for a cause. We care when someone is hurt. Yet, how many times a day do we, either mentally or, worse, verbally, attack those very same people for something as innocent as speaking the truth? Or riding a board down a hill?

Today I am challenging myself - and anyone else who got this far with me - to be who we basically are - good. Kind. I'm going to look at every girl coming down the road in the dark as someone with a good heart - and then learn from her actions that I don't ever want to ride a skateboard down a dark mountain road in the dark with dark clothes on. I'm going to assume that she doesn't mean to offend anyone with her actions. I'm going to think about how open and free her heart must feel as she sails down that road - and maybe wonder what's going on her life that she chose to do something not quite safe in order to get the feeling of freedom and joy.

I don't want to thrive on, or contribute to, the needless hurting of others. I hope you don't, either.