I am a two-faced person. This note-a-day project should testify to that.
My notes are either silly or sentimental. I defend everything with my go-to statement: "I go where the muse takes me."
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My horoscope tells me that I am generally a warm person, especially to the people who are closest to me. Sometimes, however, I can be cold and calculating. There are some people that I just don't trust.
Guess what? That's your horoscope too. That pretty much describes every single person alive right now. What I am saying is that we are all two-faced. We all treat each other in different ways. I'm kind of happy I don't treat my kid the same way I would treat someone I caught trying to steal my car. One deserves cuddles and foot tickles and trips to the swimming pool. The other deserves to have his hands slammed in my car door again and again and again.
This might be an opportune moment to say that I am a fan of public flogging as a form of punishment. Judges should dole it out to thieves, vandals, con men, and other non-violent criminals.
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From Audio Adrenaline's song, Man of God:
Sometimes I'm a liar
Sometimes I'm a fake
Sometimes I'm a hypocrite
That everybody hates
Sometimes I'm a poet
Sometimes I'm a preacher
Sometimes I watch life go by
Sittin' on the bleacher
But I've never been left alone
In any problem that I've known
Even though I'm to blame
There were times when things were dark
And I've been known to miss the mark
But someone fixed my aim
Sometimes I'm a man of God
Sometimes I'm all right
Sometimes I lay down
Close my eyes and pray to God
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When I started writing this note this morning, I was going to write about Jekyll and Hyde, which is English literature's ultimate depiction of humanity's dual nature. I stopped that after getting a spot of bad news on the family front earlier today, which has made me a little introspective.
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I'm reading a book called Why Everyone Else is a Hypocrite. The author, Robert Kurzdan, says that hypocrisy is our natural state of mind. We're able to find fault in other people but we so conveniently turn a blind eye to the same fault in ourselves. Kurzdan says it's part of our development under evolution - namely, it's a survival mechanism. The Christian in me says it's because we have a fallen nature.
I mean... think about it. A few paragraphs up there, I talked about how much I hate thieves and I wished violent punishment on them. But do I think I should be spared the pain and the humiliation of the floggers' rack? Well, yeah, I do. I've never stolen a car or a bike or a box of popcorn, but I have stolen people's trust. I have robbed people of their time. Is that as bad as petty theft.
And how many of us say that we hate liars? I don't like being lied to but I can't claim that I've been 100% honest in my life. So I'm a liar who hates liars. I guess that makes me two-faced.
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I'm of the opinion that the Sermon on the Mount is the best thing ever written. The Lord has some words for me and people like me.
“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
And at that point I rest.
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