An Unwanted Gift

I've been told I am naïve.  And, yes, even gullible.  Like that's a bad thing.  Haha.

For example, I have a hard time understanding how people can be so mean.  I think:  "Wow.  You must have had a terrible childhood."  Or : "Wow.  You don't really like yourself."  Generous assumptions to make.  But not for someone who is naïve. 

It seems I start a lot of my posts with "When I was little..." Someday I'll have to make a list of transitional phrases to interchange, but for now... When I was little I believed in inherent goodness. I believed that everyone was good and maybe Satan himself was good but just hadn't been convinced of his goodness.  Yes, I actually believed that with my whole little 6-year-old heart.  Can you imagine?  How naive I was.

Even when people hurt me, I still believed that somehow they were good.  Perhaps I had done something to deserve being hurt.  Yes, that was it.  It was my fault!  Then I would punish myself appropriately.  Oh, the vile words that mean people sneered were nothing compared to the things I told myself.  I would do my penance.  Then I would start the cycle all over again.  Again, I was so naive.

It isn't any accident that my stories revolve around people problems.  Relationships.  Meanness.  As a writer, as a human being, as a celestial soul I am trying to figure it out.  I refuse to accept that people are anything but inherently good.  I give my characters a LOT of room for failure.  I expect my characters to overcome.  To be better.  I am awed at how they do it.  How do they do it? 

Would it be wrong then to think my naivete is in some way a gift?  Because of it, not only do I expect I will be a better human being, but that you will be also. 

So, go ahead.  Be mean.  Say I'm naïve. 

I'll be writing.