If you are like me, you were spun out into this world having been imparted with very little wisdom regarding how to deal with deeply shitty people.
You're taught to be nice! To look for the good! Keep your head down! FORGIVE AND REALLY FORGET, which basically means not to talk shit about bad people.
And, of course, not talking shit about bad people basically causes generation after generation of people to enter the world and have no clue how to handle deeply shitty people.
Which, is why I'm going to tell you this: Deeply shitty people can do big, kind acts.
If you're inexperienced, as I once was, with deeply shitty people, you end up on the mindfuck train, which drops you off at Deeply Flawed Individual Station.
Deeply Flawed Individual Station is a very strange place.
You see someone kick a dog, then give a generous tip to a porter. "I was once a porter. I know how much it sucks," they say, as the dog cowers behind a bench.
You watch as a VERY ANGRY MAN froths at the mouth in front of a Verizon kiosk regarding his broken phone. He screams and throws his cell phone case.
A minute later, he's buying a child a balloon. "I know how much my children liked balloons," he says. The sales girl behind the kiosk is crying to her manager.
These can't be bad people, you think. They do good things! They're just people of contradictions. Deeply Flawed Individuals. You're stuck at Deeply Flawed Individual Station and don't know how to leave.
The next stop is Bad Peopleville. You just can't go there. That's not where these individuals belong!
But, if you sit in Deeply Flawed Individual Station, you will start to see the kind people who tip porters, buy kids balloons, and donate to democratic candidates.
They just do it without talking about it! They do it without kicking dogs, making sales people cry, or hitting on teenage girls.
Those people are also quiet about their kindnesses. They don't need to tell you, or themselves, about all the nice things they do!
And, that's when you look at the train line map on the wall and realize that Deeply Flawed Individual Station is a stop inside BadPeopleville. You're already there.
I tell you this so you don't even have to bother getting on the mindfuck train.
You can stay at home with a cup of tea and an unkicked dog instead of wonder HOW CAN A PERSON DO SO MANY BAD AND GOOD THINGS for too many years of your life.
They are bad people. They do kind things. It in no way invalidates the prior statement.
Don't waste your brain on puzzling them out. Go do your own kindnesses instead.
