Been there, done that....
Sometimes, sometimes not. Sometimes people seek out people they know are dark in the hopes of helping them.
The above statement describes the old Owl to a T. I was like that, trying to help or save every underdog, liberate every captive, or rehabilitate every "criminal" who came my way.... once.
Thank goodness, I came to my senses... because more often than not, the "dark" person always managed to almost drag me, the "light" person, down with them, and each time it got harder and harder for me to stay above the surface.
I don't bring "homeless friends" home to stay anymore, and I don't jump at the slightest request one of the "darker" people might make. I learned to tell the inherent difference between a genuine "cry for help" and being taken advantage of.
Interestingly enough, when I DID seek out the darker ones more deliberately, I was at places in my life where I almost wanted a reason to be taken under... maybe it was contagious, or maybe it seemed like an easy way out, but sometimes you get soooooo tired of trying so hard to be the "light" one, the good, honest, caring person, that sometimes you just want to hitch a ride to the dark.
I still find myself tempted, as it were? to venture into the "dark" and rescue someone again, but I always remember how it felt when I grabbed those hands in the past and felt myself being pulled under, and stop.
I think that depends on what you think of as the "perfection movement." It's not the goal of trying to reach perfection that I see as a problem, it's the irrational belief that it's possible to do so. People think they can just cast off their flaws, through conversion, conversation or medication, and then not have any flaws anymore. But it never works, either the old flaws come back to haunt you or new flaws appear. And the paradox of denying the flaws gets worse and worse, till often things explode.
That's the biggest myth of self-help, is that there is a "perfection" to achieve, because there is not. What is trying to be achieved isn't perfect, it's as good as one can be, and always trying to be better each time.
I understand where you are coming from here, but I don't think every human is honest about trying to be good. Some just want to appear good, some don't understand the difference between appearing good and being good, and some just don't care.
Well, I genuinely try to be a good, honest and caring person, but like anyone else, I can get angry, and I can find myself allowing the "dark" place inside (That's what I call the anger response), to set off a spark or more, and that, in my opinion, is simply human.
Nightowl >8#
