Human Nature
March is a shitty month.
Always has been. Yes, this is personal.
At its best, March is the pebble hiding in my shoe, waiting to fuck up the entire cadence of my year-long strut. At its worst, March is the gatekeeper of international peril.
Anyone remember 2020? Anyone remember the Ever Given going sideways in the Suez? Anyone been watching the news lately?
March sucks.
What is it in us that makes us treat each other abysmally, throughout history?
I’ve been thinking a lot about this the last couple of years, with every shitty thing we’ve been doing to each other as the Pandemic has pushed us to the precipice of irrevocable disaster.
Ego and pride.
Greed.
Self-loathing.
Those are just guesses, informed by my own offenses as a person who gets caught up in his emotions, from time to time. Who doesn’t?
Bodhisattvas.
The Dalai Lama.
This is next level shit that requires a total commitment to detachment. You must kill your ego.
Easier said than done, even if have the desire to do it. The reality is that the best humans can do is manage their egos ways that don’t completely fuck up someone else’s vibe. This struggle is real, but most people manage.
Then there are people like Vladimir Putin. I’m using him as an example of someone driven by their ego, and his seems to lust for greed and power, but he’s sure as Hell not alone here. We have a long history of doing fucked up shit to each other on account of our dumbass belief that in some way we’re better than other people because [insert your own reason here]. I know it’s not the most eloquent way to phrase it, but it’s precise.
We put others down to raise ourselves up, and I mean “we” as in all of us because I actually believe that even someone, like the Dalai Lama, has at least one time in their esteemed life thought they were better than someone else. We’re human. It’s in our nature.
Maybe we’ll figure it all out one day. Maybe we’ll realize that the wars and the oppression and the material shit and the arguing about who gives a fuck-that none of it was worth the cost. We would have to value all human life to reach that conclusion, and 200,000 years of existence as a species is working against us.
So, back to the top. Fuck you, March. Walk your sorry ass out the door, and let’s welcome in April.
Originally published at https://nickmacwilli.com on March 10, 2022.
