A while ago, I was lucky enough to have the opportunity of attending and taking part in a fascinating course, meeting various interesting people, while also being treated almost like royalty alongside the other participants at the place we stayed for the duration of the whole thing. But enough with my boring descriptions which nobody cares about...randomness is this blog's subject matter as it where, and this particular post was brought to you by a perhaps not so random thought I had during and after one of the exercises we had to undertake during this particular course.
Without going into any further detail regarding the nature of the exercise, I will say that the thought that crossed my mind was how damn easy it is to be an asshole. As unassuming as this 'realisation' may sound, I think it's something a lot of us overlook(or maybe I'm dellusional), precisely because it appears to be so obvious. So the logical thought following this observation is that actually being a decent human being can be quite difficult sometimes. Sure, there's the lucky people to whom being a decent person comes naturally(or alternatively, there's the ones to whom being an asshole comes naturally), but I believe that many of us are born neutral from this point of view...then there's the idea that a person's moral compass depends on their personal life experiences, which I also believe in.
I think this 'phenomenon'(I can't believe I actually called it that) can be observed in many day-to-day activities: think about lying for example; when we were kids and had to tell our parents about a bad mark we had received at school...the first thought in most cases was either lie about not receiving any marks on that day or just simply being apathetic about the whole situation and not saying anything(alright, this doesn't necessarily classify as 'asshole' behavior, because we're talking about kids here, but this example is going to hopefully be relevant to another point I'm trying to make). Of course, lying isn't limited to kids...adults do it all the time(old habits die hard, eh?).
The thing about lying is that it's the simplest choice when it comes to deciding the course of action you want to take in a certain situation...it's the easy path, to borrow a phrase from Star Wars. So I guess the point of this post is not so much about how easy it is to be an asshole, as much as it is about how people have an uncanny tendency to usually choose the easy path(because simply choosing the easy path doesn't automatically make you an asshole...maybe). But it's interesting to note the similarities between the simple rationale we had as kids when it came to bad marks and the ones we notice in certain situations as adults...for example, when an employer decides to hire or not hire someone based on their physical appearance, marital status or other superficial criteria(depending on the position on offer of course).
And now to answer the question that's likely to be on your mind right now('what is the actual point of this post?' not 'how can a guy calling himself wanderingpropeller expect his opinions to be taken seriously?'). The truth is that I've found a new appreciation for people who actually act like decent human beings(and I've been lucky enough to meet quite a few), because I've realised and perhaps remembered that being that way can actually be hard sometimes, especially for those of us who don't have a natural talent for this stuff. It also seems to me that we take decent human behavior for granted a lot of times so, here's to you, decent people I've met and know! There's also another aspect I'd like to touch upon, namely the fact that whether or not you choose the 'easy path' has to do with the amount of responsibility you're willing to take in a particular situation, but that's something I'll leave for another post...
For now, here's a random clip(the end of the clip to be more precise) that I thought of while coming up with today's post: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyYOuuRmQp0
