More on Being Good, Moron

In my last post I talked about what it means to be a good person, and I explored that a lot today in the echo chamber of my mind. I don't know if I really learned anything new, but sometimes it's just good to let something sink deeper into you - good or bad.

I spent some time watching episodes of Bojack Horseman. It's a show I fear, but also love at the same time. It's about an alcohol addicted man (well, a horseman) whose addiction touches everybody's life around him. As his alcoholism spirals out of control, so do his self-loathing, cynicism, hopelessness and self-destruction.  If you've seen the show you'd know that every character has their own flaws, and while I relate to all of them, I relate to Bojack the most.

In one of my favorite episodes, "Free Churro" (an emmy nominated episode), Bojack gives a 20 or so minute eulogy for his mother who had just passed away. There's so many parts of that episode that hits home for me - not so much Bojack's own resentment for his mother for the way she raised him (I had a very loving mother), but more about how he realizes that he was born broken, grew up broken, and how he will continue to be broken because he doesn't understand what it means to be human (or horseman, in his case). Or maybe he does understand what it means to be human, but he knows he's incapable.

"All I know about being good I learned from TV. And in TV, flawed characters are constantly showing people they care with these surprising grand gestures. And I think that part of me still believes that's what love is. But in real life, the big gestures isn't enough. You need to be consistent, you need to be dependably good.  You can't just screw everything up, and take a boat out into the ocean to save your best friend, or solve a mystery and fly to Kansas. You need to do it every day, which is so... hard."

I always think a time will come where I can finally show everybody that I am a good person, flawed as I am. I'm always waiting for that perfect opportunity where people will say, "Wow, JC is a great guy. Look what he just did."

But being good isn't a thing you do.  It isn't even many things that you do. It's just something you are. Because you care. Because you're there. Every day.  I missed the memo on that somewhere along the way. And I filled the "goodness" void in my life by gestures that held no emotional risk, like writing a cheque to charity or... well, who am I kidding - I can't even remember the last time I even made a good gesture on my own initiative. I guess I can't even be good incorrectly.

Have any of you ever written anything, like a journal or diary entry, and had a mid-writing epiphany  that you're a complete asshole?  Yeah.