On Evil

Am I, in actual fact, a bad person? I've carried this self-label for as long as I can remember and it was only two years ago that someone was finally able, after much work on both our parts, to convince me otherwise.

But maybe they were wrong and the seven-year-old me was right. Maybe I simply am a bad person. The embodiment of evil, so to speak. Because what is evil if not someone who is consistently and irreparably bad? Someone who makes others cry, who lets down and hurts their parents, who is mean, spiteful, envious and lazy. Who manipulates for personal gain and lies and cheats and steals. Who has never loved.

But isn't everyone one or all of these things at some point in their life?
Well, yes. Of course. But is it possible that I am these things more often than most?

And why? I don't choose to hurt people. I never chose to have loose morals. I didn't decide to be a c*nt. It's just the way I turned out. Or came out. It's been consistently and torturously beyond my means to change it. And God I've tried. I've tried and tried and tried till the trying has become a song stuck in my head for all eternity.
I'm so very tired of it.

And so perhaps I'm not a good person who sometimes makes mistakes. Perhaps, even though it smacks of melodrama, I am actually the modern definition of evil. I do believe it may be true. It is possible. I may quite simply be bad. And this being the case, perhaps I should just accept it and do my best to protect the world from the harm of me. Shut myself away from friendships and family and meaningful interactions to prevent any further pain.

And the fact that I'm writing this here - that I'm actually admitting this openly to whoever it is that will read this - scares me. Because it makes it feel true. As if it were a confession. Which it isn't, really. Because there is a part of me, the part that is gentle and light and caring and warm and so-very-full-of-love-and-wanting-to-be-loved that it breaks my heart a little each day, which still believes that I am fundamentally a good and beautiful person. And it desperately wants me to keep trying to be good. To keep trying to exorcise the evil. To keep seeking joy.

But damn it if it wouldn't be easier to just have this guy throw some holy water my way: