What's the deal with Humans, anyway.

If you've been following my Facebook posts lately (and why wouldn't you be, a-haha), you may have noticed I've been obsessing a bit over the way the World and I interact with one another. And I've been trying to determine how I really feel about the Damned Human Race.

It's not an important issue. Not to anyone but me. So really it's sort of a selfish obsession, one that betrays my self-absorbed side-- and yeah, I know I can be self-absorbed. Not always, but often enough.

Anyway, my point: Humans. What's their goddamn deal, anyway? And why do I sometimes feel like I hate them with a passion and other times I feel almost tender about them? Granted, I feel tender about them when I don't have to be around them much. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, or at least more forgiving.

I guess, for the most part, it's more a phobia or uneasiness about people than an actual hatred. Except when it is hatred. Which it is, sometimes. When I'm forced into dealing with them directly, handling their inability to, say, follow simple directions or know when to stop talking or when they don't seem to realize they believe amazingly stupid things or when they are cruel and petty. When they are willfully ignorant, clinging to some unreal and idiotic version of reality. Yeah, that inspires some loathing in me and tries my patience beyond anything. And my ability to stay friendly and easy-going under those circumstances erodes more the older I get.

But the other side of it this is: I hate seeing anyone in emotional pain. I want to help (even though I'm not great at it), I want the person who is suffering to have some peace. I hate injustice of any sort (and this old world is full to the back teeth with injustice). Would someone who really hates humans feel that way? I don't think so.

And finally, most of the people I feel like I hate are very removed from me. My interactions with them are brief, or even non-existent. I hate them from afar-- Michelle Bachmann or Deepak Chopra or Dr. Phil or Glen Beck or Fred Phelps. It's a very intangible kind of hate, and I've realized it's not them I hate so much as what they represent.

Among the people I interact with on a regular basis, there are very few I actively dislike. And you could argue that most humans are basically decent, anyway. The Boston Marathon bombings-- If those two scumbags responsible made you feel negatively about humanity, then surely all the normal people who rushed in to help the injured restored your faith in the human race a little?

So no, I guess I don't really hate humans. What I hate are the stupid, senseless things humans get up to sometimes. I hate the closed-minded, delusional, bullying, self-important, deceitful actions we're capable of as a species. It's easy to mistake that for some kind of misanthropy.

Don't misunderstand me-- I'm an introvert by nature, and being a social creature is always an exhausting challenge for me, even with people I know and like. Smiling, talking, being friendly, take a lot out of me sometimes. But I recognize its value, and I get that it doesn't have much to do with what humans are like. It's all on me.