Of Humans and Mutants

Sometimes I look in the mirror and am not happy with the person looking back at me. I’m not speaking literally. I mean, sometimes I’m not happy with myself physically, but right now I’m speaking figuratively. Sometimes I look at that person and I ask “What is your deal?!?”

I guess we all have our bad habits, our idiosyncrasies, and our less than good behavior. We are only human after all. But part of being human is that we have the capacity to think about what we do and how we can improve ourselves. They say acknowledging the bad within you is the first step on the road to becoming a better person. Well, I have acknowledged that about me which I want to change. I have acknowledged and battled. I find that I am better for a while and then somehow I fall back into my bad habits. Most of these bad habits stem from my ‘too much’ problem. Too much thinking, too much feeling, too much passion, too much consuming. And each time I say or do something that I wish I hadn’t, I promise to myself that I will not be that person again. But inevitably, I’ll make the same mistake.

Perhaps the war between good and evil rages within us, not around us. Perhaps God and Satan (if that is what you believe) reside within us, not above and below us. Perhaps, as humans, we are constantly striving to find the balance between our light and dark sides, the yin and yang.

Perhaps the problem is that we try to yank out that undesirable part of us, deny it, and hide it in a basement like some kind of hideous mutant. We don’t want to look at it and we don’t want others to see it. Sometimes we try to kill it, bury it.

We find it easy to judge others for their bad habits, but find it difficult to look within. Everyone is busy pretending there are no monsters hiding in anyone’s basement or buried in the backyard. As long as no one ventures down there, or digs, we’ll all be ok. We’ll have our dinner parties and ignore the strange noises from downstairs and the mounds in the yard.

But maybe we should all venture down there, into the dark. We should all turn on the lights and look at our mutant selves. We should look and say “You are a part of me and I accept you. I accept you and I will bring you into the light and acknowledge your existence.” We should dig up what we can never truly kill and bury for good. We should embrace that mutant within. And then forgive it. And let it go. It is not about defeating, but rather overcoming.

I cannot change the fact that I am human and not perfect in any shape or form. I confess to each of the seven deadly sins:  lust, greed, sloth, pride, wrath, envy, gluttony.

That doesn’t mean that I feel absolved of my sins. No, confession clears the conscience, but not the soul. As a human, I will for the rest of my life work on balancing my dark and light sides. And maybe I won’t continue to make the same mistakes if I look that mutant in the eyes and know it for what it is. If I don’t hide it away in the dark, then it can’t sneak up on me. If I don't try to kill and bury it, then it can't haunt me. I can’t be afraid of it, of others seeing it and shunning me. I can’t deny its existence as I can’t deny myself. No, I have to face it. In the end, if I hide it or bury it, I'm only hiding myself, only burying myself, and will become the mutant in full.

Sorry if this one is a bit heavy. I can be that way sometimes. It’s a part of who I am.