Bizarre idealistic assumptions of civility

If you're out walking and you come upon a large dog lose that comes running up to you, of course you're apprehensive of this dog. You rightly so worry that it might try to harm you, you do try to be on your defensive. And the dog in turn, if it has a clue, does the same with you. And you don't dislike the dog for that. You don't hold it against the dog that it doesn't just assume the best of you.

If you go to pet it and stumble over your own feet and it mistakes your sudden movement for an attempt at aggression, the dog then thinks you're a bad person who will try to harm it.

If this happens, you don't hold it against the dog. Such is life.

Should it be so very different with people? It shouldn't. The world is full of hate and indifference. Of course we shouldn't be just assuming the best with people... Of course we shouldn't just expect others to assume the best of us...

Why would we do otherwise?

Assuming the best of others is the civilized thing to do. It's insulting to quickly suspect ugly things of people.

And if you're an idealist, then you just don't want to face the truth of this world. You want to believe that people are good and you want to deal with them as if they are.

And... you want the same in return. Which you're not going to get. And you're going to get insulted, etc that others aren't making such bizarre and idealistic assumptions about yourself; that instead people will quickly dismiss you as a bad person if you stumble over your shoe.

You will also be annoyed that you're expected to spend so much time doing the human equivalent of dog butt sniffing with people instead of getting beyond such barbarism and into actually interesting talk. But, you sure as hell better spend all your time on such crap as otherwise you're actions will be misinterpreted, you will be dismissed as a bad person.

Feh. Tired.

The fake smile again versus truth seeking

If you're truth seeking and practicing the golden rule, then a smile is a very rare thing in your interactions with people. To smile you must instead be conjuring a better world in your mind and trying to share some dim shadow of it, some dim shadow of your creativity. This other world... is actually not real. It is fake. The smile is fake. I suppose. Unless you cannot live without faith in it. Then you could believe this better world really exist and your conjuring of it, your attempt to share a tiny, dim, pitiful piece of it could be a positive sort of mysticism.

But if you go that far, as to need to truly believe it's real, to spend all your time focusing on it, that means you've given up on this world. That means you're either a pessimist (underneath that "fake" smile) or probably actually a realist... not that I plan on conceding that yet.

I had a phase where I was truthseeking and practicing the golden rule all the time.; being optimistic, being ridiculously idealistic. Appearing very down.

Perhaps some time can be spent conjuring some better world and trying to share a dim piece of it with others; some time smiling for no real good reason.

Perhaps some balance....

This is a more positive slant I suppose on the idealism versus realism previous post. Maybe.

Idealism versus Realism

The most idealistic thing imaginable is to think that people can work through their differences. Yet such people appear to always be going on about disagreements, always starting shit. Always honestly saying confrontational things. And thus these people are thought of as pessimistic.

The most pessimistic people never voice disagreements. They just secretly think shitty things about people while wearing a big fake smile and being "fun" to be around. They keep their relations superficial and are thought of as being positive.