Past and Present, Good and Evil

The past is fast, while the present crawls. I can remember a lot of precise details that people hope I have forgotten. If someone says or does something that strikes me as extraordinary, then that is something I place in the vault. I may not say anything at the time. I may not remind them of it ever. It is enough for me to know. I do not need to share, not to them.

I think I am good judge of people and not easy to deceive. In those rare cases where I have been deceived, it has been someone I respected that did the deceiving. I had rendered myself vulnerable by suspending my good judgement. When the deception results in an injury to me, I castigate myself for being gullible. No one likes to feel like a fool.

I am really too hard on myself. Being deceived is not so bad. Nor is it uncommon. Everyone is deceived to an extent. People deceive themselves on a daily basis. Once betrayed, the advantage to me is that the betrayer is exposed. I can be betrayed once, but not often twice. I remember and will handle the betrayer in a different manner than I would someone I admire. My impression of a person decays rapidly after I know that they have been very dishonest with me.

Is trusting and loving worthwhile or not? To never trust or love certainly renders one highly resistant to deception. This seems to be the tact that some souls take. I suppose they are tired of encountering the tedious liars in our world, and so they withdraw into themselves, so as not to risk further injury.

Perhaps love is worth the risk of being deceived and betrayed. The reward for trusting and loving can be found through another who is also capable of the same trait. Backstabbing liars must contend with their own kind after being exposed as such, and there is no honor among thieves. Still, there may not be any cosmic justice in the universe. I'm not really sure on that point. It seems to me that evil-doers get away with their evil, if they are persistent and determined. There are also advantages to good, some obvious and some subtle, and sometimes--don't be surprised--good wins. I feel I have no choice but to be good. I find the mere thought of evil distressing and depressing. Perhaps some people have the stomach for it, but I don't. If evil always wins, then eventually there will be no good left, and then the evil will have to feed upon the evil, and that in itself is cosmic justice.