Salt of the Earth

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 Honest and forthright people are rare. They all probably live in the mountains or are part of nomadic tribes in Africa or Siberia. Inasmuch as I would like to emulate this persona of an honest and forthright person, I feel that I’m much too exposed to worldliness and have too much awareness about dishonest and deceitful people that it’s just ridiculous for me to suddenly become an all-trusting and open person. I don’t know about you, but I tend to be closed off as a form of self-protection until I know for sure that I’m dealing with someone safe. When I say safe, I mean someone who will not intentionally betray or demean me for the sake of their ego. Or use me as some dispensable tool in their pursuit of some twisted self-glorifying scheme. See what I mean? Such cynicism on my end. I think much of this cynicism is associated with my “priors”—which are based on lived experience—thereby causing me to decide that someone is this way or that. A sort of deterministic mindset, which makes me a contradiction because I’m struggling to be more religious…no, spiritual…er, no…maintain an open line of communication with God. Anyway, on the topic of determinism, here’s a question for us all, which is inspired by the movie “Arrival” starring Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner: Would you do anything differently if you knew your story from beginning to the end? Or…if you knew what a person’s role will be in your life, would you do something to change it? If you’ve seen the film, yes, it’ll squish your mind. Simultaneous implosion and explosion. Nah, just being verbose.