life, for me, has always been about little moments of beauty and tenderness. the earning and losing of money has been a biproduct of the ultimate quest to just live a lovely life. but it seems like, for a lot of other people, the money is the primary objective. not living a lovely life, but being greedy, egomaniacal, or at worst - and with frequency - cutting down those around you to further yourself, all for the intangible construct of money.
i've seen old friends of mine from college who danced at my wedding do this. i've seen people i trusted with sharing my deep and unsharable sadnesses become the very reasons for those sadnesses; i've seen them befriend and pull closer to them the people or things that caused those sadnesses, telling me in a way that my friendship does not have the same value to them as this specific opportunity for them to further their career or self-esteem.
but what can you do. people are naturally self-serving, i guess, and their capacity for casual cruelty and chronic disregard for decency is what i've noticed.
a couple years ago, my friend martin pointed out to me that people only get in touch when they want something from you, and that seems to be so true, and i long for when i was oblivious to this.
addendum to add: i'm grateful for the safe haven of my marriage and my family and a few of my friends, people who love me and don't ask for anything but will get everything from me i have to give, because i love them for loving me.
we're lucky if we have one or two people who don't secretly delight in our miseries, secretly compete with our successes, secretly stay tuned for our failures, kick us when we're down.
