Coming Back to a Belief in Goodness

Photo by micheile henderson on Unsplash

What do you call a cynic who believes people are fundamentally good? That was me for much of my youth. I believed that humans were, at our core, good. That the system we find ourselves in, of industry and advancement, brings out the worst in us. But that by nature we are built for caring and joy.

I saw flaws in our constructed world and was critical and bitter about them. I entered into a relationship with despair. And still, I maintained that people were essentially good.

Perhaps it was that insistence of our goodness that allowed me to become so dedicated to a man with such a dark side. I saw the good in him; I felt it. So I forgave the worst.

I still believe he isn’t a bad person, perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. There are days I go back and forth. But he is no longer in my life for a reason: when I was with him, I stopped believing that people are good.

When confronted with someone’s worst parts over and over, it becomes difficult to hold onto their goodness. And when that person repeats, over and over, that humankind is vile… well, one begins to question if that person is projecting.

Eventually I came to believe that I had simply been naive. This older, more experienced man must’ve discovered the truth. After all, he’d danced with the devils of men at war. He’d seen war. He knew war was the most natural human behavior.

Once goodness became a rarity in my mind, it was easy to view this man as exceptional: he had goodness amongst all that anger. He found me exceptional too. Special.

Only all these years later I am able to recognize how convinced I’d become. So convinced, in fact, that I knew myself to be rotten just like the rest of mankind. And even once I untethered myself from him, I set about finding slivers of good, that was all I thought I could count on.

I want to write something profound about the way I came back to believing in goodness slowly, bit by bit. But the truth is, it came in a rush. I found an outpouring of goodness once I started looking. I reconnected with old friends, I fell in love, and I became comfortable in my own skin again.

I sat in the sun and read at the park and I discovered again and again that I am not rotten. I discovered, too, that other people are not rotten…

This comes to me these days in the strangest microcosms. For example, I have been watching livestreams of people selling old science-fiction books. I watch strangers crack jokes in the comments and become friends a thousand miles apart. I recognize the names of regular viewers and get a feel for their interests. Maybe it’s parasocial, but I find goodness there.

Of course there are still days I can’t help but see all the hurt and hate humanity has wrought and feel that we are vile creatures. I’m reminded by the news. I’m reminded by the homeless man I pass on the way home from work, cast aside by society. We are cruel, we leave each other out to dry.

It’s just that now, I’m able to refocus on all the ways we come together to push back against the heaviness in the world. I open my eyes to protestors, phone callers, and letter writers.

I realize how badly we want, and how hard we are fighting, to right the flaws in our constructed reality. At a red light, the driver of the car behind me holds out a water bottle, dripping in cold condensation, to the homeless man standing in the heat.

Email campaigns are flooding the inboxes of our state representatives, and phone banks to inform voters of their options. Perhaps this is a time of desperation, but I think it always has been. It’s just that now, I’m aware of the work being done.

I send money to nonprofits that help the homeless, the rainforests, and grassroots organizers. I feel guilty that this is all I can offer, and I remember then that we each have a place.

Sometimes I wonder what that man I used to know thinks of all this. Does he say it is what it is and crush another beer? Does he relish the suffering inflicted as proof of his central thesis on human nature?

I can’t help but wonder, too, if I would even try to make the world a better place if I was still with this man. Doomsdayers stand with their REPENT signs at street corners. The first thing I can think to repent for is succumbing to his way of thinking, for giving up on humanity, however briefly.