As I reflect on numerous relationships and interactions with people, I come to find a brighter and more solid definition of my own values which informs my discernment of “good.”

Long have I contemplated the paradoxical nature of true goodness and evil veiled with good intent. I recognize that real evil masquerades under the pretense of goodness, wielding god and religion to further selfish agendas.

The true culprit is rampant ego unchecked by humility. This is what I have witnessed in many human beings whom I detest: they are arrogant, full of themselves, always seeking a way to justify their actions. They never take responsibility for themselves and their failures, they constantly externalize blame to others and other factors.

I myself am guilty of this behavior is why I can recognize it. I will not stop short of holding myself accountable for my own shortcomings. I can see it clearly in other people only because I have seen how evil corrupts me internally.

We are engaged in a war for our souls. People do not realize it, they think this world is all there is and define material metrics of “success” that are garbage and worthless. Being “smart” or “wealthy” is meaningless. It doesn’t mean jack. Hard work for the wrong reason – self-glorification and self-aggrandizement, for inflating one’s ego or puffing one’s wallet – is equally worthless. In fact, such efforts are so self-centered as to be cancerous and unproductive. There are too many treacherous behaviors encouraged by purely profit-seeking philosophies.

I have seen too many manipulative, selfish, bigoted, and detestable people who use words and matchstick logic to uphold their sense of false-superiority. Our current president and government is exemplary of this type of human filth. There’s a word for men and women like this: scumbags.

That is not to say such people cannot be redeemed. That is not to say people cannot repent.

But most humans are not good. They want to be, but they do not have good examples of goodness and they do not strive for it themselves, because the path to true goodness is tortuous and filled with many traps of false justice.

Because true goodness is so difficult to find, most people uphold and defend a convenient mediocrity that enables them to stagnate while they reap material rewards: money, sex, and status.

Most people compromise on these values in some way. I have decided not to. I tire of weak-minded and weak-willed corruptible imbeciles lacking any true philosophical grounding and instead relying on their misplaced sense of egotistical rightness.