Have you grown soft?

I’m not sure that I’ve so much grown soft as that I am no longer certain that the evil in people is ordinarily under their control. Life bends people in extraordinary ways, and even Trump was once somebody’s darling baby boy. Even as I grow ever more crotchety with age, and pay more attention to the nonsense than I ever did in my youth, when forced to dwell on the malignancy exhibited in in individuals, I catch myself wondering “what horrors have warped this one? No one leaves the factory designed to behave like this!”

Not really. I wish. But I was softer and more optimistic when I was younger. As I get older I’ve become more cynical and more generally disappointed in humanity. My opinions themselves haven’t changed much (I’ve become more moderate and more resistant to joining a “side”) but acknowledging the BS of the two sides hasn’t made me softer, only the opposite if anything. I’ve become more aware that division and hatred and scapegoating are things we’re choosing because they make making sense of the world easier. So all I can do is try and resist that and take the more difficult path. But doing so requires some hardness.

Yea, this forum can tell you I was an aggressive atheist. This was when it was all over the news how religious people were doing bad stuff to kids, and on top of that weren’t paying taxes.

There are still states where you can’t hold office as an atheist, and even if it was possible, would still be a career killer. It’s more acceptable to be gay or follow Islam than be an atheist in America.

But anyways…..when you get older you just become less emotional I guess. I’m not gonna save the world and nothing really matters anyways. Money is power and I’m just a small-time dude who doesn’t have much.

I guess you can say I’ve gone soft or basically just decided to put my blinders on and live my own life.