Us and them: Maybe I prefer boredom...

Why is the world so cruel?
Or is ugly more apt?
Violent? Mean? Hateful?
Hard-hearted? Greedy?
Suspicious? Paranoid?
Scapegoat-seeking?

Ah, yes.
"Negativity bias."
The human instinct to feel and see
the worst
so we are not overtaken by it,
so we can protect against it
for the survival of our progeny.

At some point, or points,
we all play the hypocrite.
The "interpreter from underneath."

Yet, as I mentally note the voluminous
shared aspects of our common humanity,
in the back of my mind lurks the question,

What about the sociopath?

That category of humanity who, supposedly,
cannot feel empathy?

The rules do not apply to them.
Yet, they are human.
Are they not also subject to
our common emotions,
our shared humanity?
Some good must dwell somewhere
within them?

How can I describe it?
Understand it?
This lurking question,
this not-quite-human reality,
working at cross-purposes with my
desire to believe
there is good in all humanity.
Is it difficult because it is so foreign?
Or is it difficult because it is too intimate?

Questions to which there are no clear answers.

Am I unable to see the sociopath as fully human?
What are they, if not fully human?
My only conclusion is that,
either in the womb or later,
an empathy-void developed
for which there is no cure.
If I cannot have empathy toward that,
am I fully human?

That's what life is.
A whole lotta damn questions.
And not as many answers.
Life would be pretty boring otherwise...

Maybe I prefer boredom...

*~*

"Some humans ain't human..." by John Prine

But still, "I wanna believe in humanity..." By Carole King