For as long I can remember I have been an "either or" type of person. I despise the things I dislike, and I utterly adore the things I do like. I naturally have a need to glorify or disapprove of things. This has been tricky for me as I also have a very curious mind. I have a deep need to know things, and to understand. Not in a scientific way, but in a psychological way. I like to know what drove people over the edge to do horrendous things (for example). I think most people will dismiss someone as entirely evil if they commit a murder for instance. And despite my "habit" of seeing things in either black or white I have a hard time blacklisting someone, even if they have done something terrible. Obviously I can hate someone for what they have done, or hate the crime they have committed, but hating something as complex as a human being entirely is a hard thing to do. You're bound to find something of value in there, no matter how deep. I once read "Nobody is a villain in their own story. We're all the heroes of our own stories" (George R. R. Martin), I don't know when or where, but that sentence has impacted the way I think of people much more than I ever thought it would. Most, if not all, people strive to do good or be good a majority of the time. I think humans believe we are "good" on an individual basis, but most of us view the human race as something entirely different, I do a least. Most of us feel as we are good but society is not, but how can we be good if we don't actively try to do good where "society" as a whole fails? This is entirely possible! But here we are, eating meat, driving cars, an not recycling thinking we are "good" people while we ignore the devastation we are causing our planet. You won't really pinpoint someone as a bad person just because they do something "bad" (not talking about rape or murder her people, talking about buying a burger knowing a cow died for it, so kinda murder... actually... ) even if they do it continually. Maybe it has something to do with how society views all of this? If it affects us in a very direct way where we are forced to acknowledge it, we will address it, if not we'll sweep it under the rug as it's convenient and comfortable, but most important factor: it's easy. I actually started thinking about this topic because I am fascinated by Adolf Hitler, yes, Hitler. Now this goes without saying: Not a fan of the whole "mass genocide" thing. I was on Tumblr one day (like most days...) and suddenly a gif set appeared on my screen of Adolf Hitler: This is a video (turned into gif set) of Hitler shot by Eva Braun, while he is talking to her. I think it's important to say what aspect has fascinated me regarding Hitler, it's not really "him", his personality or what he has done, but the pure fact that he was a human. I understand him being human goes without saying, but removing him from my "black"/evil/villain/monster box felt weird. He suddenly became three dimensional, he wasn't like Voldemort (conceived under a love spell and therefore unable to feel love), he was a human like everyone else. I always envisioned him as this huge dreadful being, and suddenly he was shrunk down to nothing more than a man (and in many ways that made him even "scarier"). A man who impacted the world in a hugely negative way (and actually some positive ways too), but a man nonetheless, who was a hero in his own story, but a villain in (almost) everyone else's.
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Katie21 y/o girl from Oslo, Norway. Who has bad punctuation and is always a little sleepy. Archives
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