See what you want to see because it’s all made up anyway. The truth is hidden to everyone, if there is even truth at all. I don’t mean that there isn’t any laws of nature that govern us, or that we don’t have a moral conscience. I simply mean that the way we see the world is made up, so we might as well make it up the way we want it to be.
Our perception of what is going on in our life is very imperfect. We see things we want to see. We are influenced by the genetic forces we were fused into at birth. We are also influenced by many other factors, like how we grew up, where we grew up, what religion we choose or not choose to practice, what culture we belong to, and by the type of people we surround ourselves with. And lets talk about those people. They are often overlooked but say so much about who we are.
If you want to know who you are, you have to somehow discover how the people in your life see you. Your family, your friends, but also your adversaries and enemies. They all hold a little piece of us in their being and together they form a mosaic of truth.
If the way things are and the way we see things is made up, it is best to decide just to see good in everything and everyone. If truth is a distorted reality, we might as well learn to hang out with our dreams instead. Instead of seeking certainty, we should embrace change and seek uncertainty.
We should see the good in people. See the good that is going on all around us. I know it’s crazy. We might simply become like Don Quixote and fight terrible, metaphysical windmills, but the brutality and pessimism of the cynic is a worse fate. It is a terrible death sentence. I know, because I used to dabble in the art of cynicism. I loved to fight for justice, and to look for the enemy everywhere in order to make the world a better place. I loved to engage people in battle. I did this in my thoughts, not physically of course, but it brought me little joy and left me very exhausted.
Today, I choose to see the good. Yes. I choose. I choose to see the good. I won my own shit and let others own theirs. I’ll be me and let them be them.
I’m certainly not blind to what is going on, as much as I can understand it, but who I spend time with, what I read, and what I give my time to is always on me.
I own my life. I decide who I want to be. I decide because at the end of my life I am the only one that will have to account for what I have done, who I was, what I saw, and who I chose to embrace and help along the way.
So now I choose and strive to see good. I see beauty in people that sometimes don’t see it in themselves. I say good things about about people when they perhaps don’t deserve it, and when my well meaning friends have justifiably nothing but negative things to say about them. I choose to see good. Real or made up. No matter. I choose to see good, even if that makes me look foolish.
It’s funny. It doesn’t matter what the story is that we tell ourselves. People are going to be people and no matter what you do or what the truth really is, they are going to think and do whatever it is they are going to do and think. It’s funny, isn’t it? Because it’s truly foolish to try to figure out what they want or what they want us to be. I don’t think they really know. It’s just silly to try to live our lives and adhere to other peoples expectations.
We need to blow up and destroy some of the ways we see ourselves and each other.
Let’s start with the good. Let’s see good in things and people that at first glance may be impossible to grasp. What do we have to lose? Fighting windmills doesn’t seem like such a terrible thing to do anyway.
Cover photo generously provided by photographer Jongsun Lee via unsplash.com
