I look and I listen to righteous people, and a slow smile crosses my lips.
Let me rephrase that.
I look and I listen to righteous people, and I FUCKING LAUGH MY ASS OFF.
Now that, in itself, is righteousness. Pure and raw.
As the most righteous motherfucker on the planet, I can tell you a few things about righteousness.
Righteousness comes from a deep-seated insecurity that probably started developing in childhood.
It is the fear of being wrong. It is the need, the dependence, on being right. To feel superior than other people by being right, and they - wrong.
Being right is more addictive in crack cocaine.
In some cases, being right is necessary. As a journalist, you HAVE TO be right. As a judge, you also HAVE TO be right. As a doctor, you MUST be right. When you are driving a car, you HAVE TO do it right.
Otherwise, people die.
In most cases, though, being right is completely unnecessary.
Not daring to make a fool of yourself, not daring to be WRONG, you keep certain things to yourself and NEVER, EVER, find out.
I live on the bleeding edge of being embarrassed. I have crashed and burned so many times that my astral proection would look like a badly-charred skeleton. I am no longer afraid of being wrong. As long as I don't start peeing on minors in a sex tape, I'm okay with that.
Because right and wrong is simply perception. Marrying a 9 year old or having sex with a 12 year old may be illegal now, but at one time, it was perfectly legal and perfectly right.
Would you like to be right at that day and age?
People stutter and stumble over their words, to prove that "Oooh, I'M doing it right. YOU'RE doing it WRONG."
It's a disease, really.
In The Sandman, The Devil, Lucifer Morningstar, left Hell. He quit. Why?
In his monologue, he said, "And what do I get, in the end, being the other side of the coin? Do I stand at the edge of creation and yell, 'see? I was right all along!'. I don't want that."
Or something like that.
Even The Devil knew. It is pointless. Because right and wrong are viewpoints, perceptions, rates, agreements and whatnot.
What is worrying to me is when I see righteousness manifest itself as a competition for who is the biggest victim.
"I am a victim, therefore I am RIGHT. You are not a victim, or are a smaller VICTIM so you are WRONG, or I am MORE RIGHT than you are."
Oh well. What to do?
Now, back to work.
