It’s been a frustrating week for people who believe in the inherent good in humanity. Violent acts played out in Australia and in the United States (who would have thought it could ever happen here?). Rob Reiner and his wife were murdered, apparently by their own son, and the person who some believe is the leader of the free world chose to mock that horrible situation with a gleeful diatribe. Class act, orange clown.

These are days that test the soul. For we want affirmation that we were right about people being good, because we do our best to be good ourselves, and assume others will be doing the same thing. There’s a Latin expression from the New Testament that explains this phenomena: Omnia munda mundis (To the pure, all things are pure). Isn’t it pretty to think so?

Trust, but verify is a better expression to live by. We covered that last week in this blog. It’s okay to believe in the inherent good in others, but don’t stake your life on it. History is littered with the corpses of trusting souls crushed in the blood lust of evil bastards who don’t think the way that we do. Accepting that fact helps us to figure out who’s truly good and who’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

We are all doing the best we can in a world full of good people, but peppered by rogues and sociopaths. It behooves us to develop the street smarts to discern who the latter might be. It’s all just survival skills, like learning to look both ways before crossing the road or sniffing the chicken that’s been in the refrigerator for a few extra days. Our ancestors lived long enough to deliver us here, the least we can do is stop believing we live in a Harlequin Romance novel, that we may carry our good genes forward to future generations.