Bad Examples, Good Lessons

Even the worst examples in your life can be transmuted into a positive influence, if you learn how NOT to live through them. 

   How do you make something beautiful, when everything around you appears ugly? When you’ve seen all of the ugliness lurking behind the smiles? This is the truly useful function of concepts, narrative, and framing. 

   I am thankful to my unhealthy, recliner-ridden relationships, the people who indoctrinated me, the best friend who played wingman to have sex with my girlfriend, the guy who was shot in my front yard for trying to rob one of the local dealers, every last cheating x, the friend that busted out my windshield and broke into my car while I was sleeping, the friends I lost to meth, the people we thought were some of our closest companions judging us for trying help the world live more virtuously, knowing we sometimes human.

   These are traits which stem from the kind of egoic selfishness we will now forever guard against, not because we had better examples, but because we can conceive of them. Because we can be them. 

   In the end, if you have known no one you can trust, you can still become the kind of person that can trust in themselves.