Self Destruction/Improvement

I've always believed in a changeable model of human nature. That is, that people are basically stupid and self-centered, but can change when they want to. Well, the self-centered part, anyway. Like the comedian said, you can't fix stupid. You can, however, deal with little individual stupidities of thought and action.

But it seems like every time I put this belief into practice, whether it's for me or on the behalf of someone else, it's just ridiculously difficult. I mean hard all out of proportion to what it seems like it should be. Humans have a psycho-spiritual inertia that would rival a black hole.

I think I'm finally beginning to understand why, though, and it's tricky, so pay attention. We identify with our problems. Our bad habits and ugly character traits feel good to us in some way or allow us to be lazy in some way. This makes it hard to change them. But over and above all that, we feel that the bad things are part of who we are.

Since we don't want to destroy ourselves, we resist changing. This kind of occurred to me when I saw Fight Club, but it seemed too trite at the time. The whole headlong rush to self-destruction as a means of self-improvement thing. I still don't really buy it, not on that scale.

I do think, though, that unless we're prepared to embrace some self-destructive behavior, nothing changes. It helps if you have something besides yourself to change for. A kid, a love interest, family, hell a deity if you must. Because for most people rationally knowing you should change just doesn't have enough power to overcome our inertia.