sometimes-illusions

I'm not paranoid, well, not mostly. I'm skeptical. And rightly so. This is an unpredictable world. People can't simply be trusted. Trust should be earned. Naivety and ignorance belong to those who freely hand out trust. Very few people are who they say they are, or who they seem to be. This is understandable--after all, very few people understand themselves well enough to know who they are. Even those of us who like to believe we are self-aware would be delusional if we presumed our perspectives whole and accurate. The most we can hope for is to comprehend some of our strengths and weaknesses, and perceive where our efforts for improvement will be most effective. Even then we conclude that we will, in all probability, not achieve our goal satisfactorily and will most likely affect other areas of ours or other peoples lives in ways we can't predict or prevent. But we do consider. And hopefully in these mental pauses we also recognize these same traits in the world around us. Hopefully we cautiously and confidently face the known and the unknown, taking realistic steps outward from ourselves, allowing our knowledge to deepen our appreciation for the complexities of life while still permitting and enabling ourselves to participate and engage with these sometimes-illusions surrounding us. This is yet another delicate balance, and I, for one, have never had much success with balance.