Vivat Libertas

Why do I try to be a good person, even if I frequently fail? It's a question I frequently ask myself - but why should I be asking myself at all? Shouldn't I be secure in the knowledge that I am  trying? Is my questioning a sign that I'm a bad person? I don't know - but what I do know is that I question myself to find reasons for things, to help me understand myself a bit better and to clear up the murky waters of my mind. And I suppose I'm questioning myself, too, to prove something to myself - to prove that my motives are pure. Maybe I will succeed in that, maybe I won't. I don't know; this is mainly a thought exercise. I know what aren't  my motives, though... 1. I don't try to be a good person because I get off on the warm, fuzzy feelings.  Well, to be honest, I do  get off on the warm, fuzzy feelings I get when helping someone else out - but that's not my motive to be a good person. It's a nice...a nice side-effect, if you will, but...

So I'm not a particularly polite person; I'm socially inept, awkward, and decidedly vulgar (when stressed or upset my every sentence is peppered with swears). Neither do I consider myself a particularly good person, for various reasons that I don't really want to go into here. I will credit myself with this, though: I don't get the two mixed up. I don't call myself a bad person because I'm impolite, nor an impolite person because I also happen to be a bad one. That's more than most people seem to be able to do. You see, there's this notion that politeness and goodness are the same thing, or at least intertwined. This justifies things like the use of the tone argument  and people generally being stupid to each other about how  we say things, rather than what  we say. It's why I can get in more trouble for calling homophobes "silly" and "fucking idiots" than the homophobes themselves can for oppressing people. If I say it that s...

I am a humanist and a sceptic. I also take great pleasure in snarking and watching others snark - and being a good sport some of the time, I don't mind if others snark at me. I'm a little jaded, quick to imagine motives, and I always question statistics with reckless abandon (and probably very little knowledge of the subject). I'm also a wild idealist. What did you think when you read that last sentence? Did you think I was stupid? Naive? A little cuckoo, perhaps? That's what happens when I try to discuss things with people (and no, my age doesn't help ). I'm told that I'm too radical, too unworldly, too...well...I guess my ideas upset them a little, because I'm constantly reassured that the world doesn't work that way and that everything is okay - or that it's better than anarchy. (I disagree with them on just about every point there.) One of the most idealistic parts of me is my faith in humanity - my presumption of goodness, if you will....