FreeBuffalo Forum Posts (2)

RE: Do you think nice guys finish first any more?

Well, first, it's probably true that most guys probably think that they are nice guys. I would have said I am a nice guy two seconds ago before that sentence just popped into my head. Now, I'm thinking about it. . .

So, as one of the first respondents said, how do we define nice. Well, I would define a nice guy or women for that matter as one that changes for the better when they get needlessly hurt by society or taken advantage of because of their niceness. Changing for the better would mean that the nice guy would not stop doing the right thing when hurt even when it's a disadvantage, looking out for others before themselves, demanding truth and openness when everyone else is all about obfuscation and mind games, correcting personal faults when they become known. In this sense, I would say that yes yes yes nice guys do win. And sometimes, not always, they might just be a much needed brightness in the world for a moment. Theoretically, if such people exist, they would be the only ones without a guilty conscience and would be at peace with themselves. I call that finishing first. Now. . . Hmmm... How to be a nice guy in such a corrupt world? Any suggestions?

RE: Why are we alone

I love the conversation here. I would like to point out the elephant in the room, though. I don't think we are alone at all. I think it is exactly the opposite. We are fragmented, fractured, splintered, writhed and contorted into a world of others more than I think we are willing to accept. I'm a very solitary person, but I have to be honest with myself and say that the solitude of "sensitive" people like myself is most often a natural way of coping with and harmonizing the incredible presence of others that are as equally fractured and incomplete as I am.

I personally find a passing yet blissful momentary "completeness" or something like that in loving others. It is perhaps only when we love and sacrifice ourselves to someone else that that we realize our condition of being part of something larger than ourselves. This recognition is an important step, I think, to a truer independence. I think there is certainly more to life than this passing bliss of love, but few things are as brilliant and satisfying.

This may sound strange, but I want to find the "truest" love possible because I think it will bring me a step closer to independence--not immediately, but slowly over time through lots of errors and hard work. So, I'm saying that we give ourselves to others to free ourselves from the continuous blinding burden of our own being as "that which is always a being toward others."

When two people truly "connect," its like floating on air. This process never ends, and we are always stuck in the middle somewhere as we are struck with the burden of otherness. This sense of being struck by our own being as otherness is perhaps what we call "being alone". The inner action that we take (force of love or compassion) to counteract being struck is what we might call friendship or perhaps love. We are never fully independent from and never fully dependent on others--just always either struck or picking up the pieces. But, herein lies the challenge and all the fun!