Look how beautiful my granddaughters are.

"I'm one of those sad souls who never stops loving people from the past, no matter how long ago or far away."

-- me

You know, I'm just a man. I try to be good, but often I fail. I try to do right, but sometimes I do wrong instead. I aspire to be a saint, but I'm still half sinner. "I do not understand what I do. For the thing I want to do, I do not do; but the thing which I hate, I do." (Rom 7:15) 

It's hard, maybe impossible, to try to be a good person, make an attempt at being someone who does what's right, and not have people judge you as self-righteous and hypocritical. People hate anyone who tries to be better than they are or want to be, themselves. And you're always going to fail, to some greater or lesser degree--that's part of being human. If Saint Paul failed as completely as he says he did, then what hope do I have to be perfect? It seems to me that I've always been very open and honest about how imperfect, flawed, and...to be blunt...f---d up I am. Maybe too honest about it. But still, there's always someone there to say, "See, I told you so. You're just like everybody else after all. Hypocrite." Even though "I'm human and fallen just like everybody else" is exactly what I said all along. I'm not better than everybody else. I'm not pretending to be better than I am. I'm just trying to be better than I have been.

I don't, like anyone doesn't, enjoy it when people think poorly of me, especially unjustly. But I am also not comfortable with someone who thinks too highly of me, because I know how flawed I am, and I dread the moment when their illusions are shattered. It's impossible not to disappoint someone who thinks you're perfect. 

I went yesterday, for my birthday, to see the new Wes Anderson film. First time I've gone to the theater in a long while. I love his films, and could give a long list of reasons why, but here's one which I hadn't even realized until this moment, when I saw it in an interview with him (which is printed in a book about his films, which was featured in a documentary about them, which is the perfect way to learn something about them: layer within layer within layer).

"The flesh is at once man's burden and his temptation. He bears it and yields to it. He must keep watch over it and restrain it, and only obey it in the last resort. Such obedience may be a fault, but it is a venial fault. It is a fall, but a fall onto the knees which may end in prayer. To be a saint is to be an exception;  to be a true man is the rule. Err, fail, sin if you must, but be upright. To sin as little as possible is the law for men; to sin not at all is the dream of angels. All earthly things are subject to sin; it is like the force of gravity."

-- Victor Hugo, Les Miserables 

"What is reported of men, whether it be true or false, may play as large a part in their lives, and above all in their destiny, as the things they do." -- Victor Hugo