This is the stuff i think about when i get my hair did. The loss of the mullet is freeing my mind. Or something.
In Islam, there’s the old adage about making 70 excuses for people. This could mean seeing someone do something stupid and thinking there must be a reason, or forgiving someone who said something that hurt you and writing it off as that person being in a bad mood. Above all, it means assuming the best about people we deal with. Which I don’t always manage to do. As such, I have this ongoing discussion/debate with my shrink about whether or not I am a judgmental bitch. I probably am, but I pretended for years I wasn’t and that something patently had to be wrong about whoever made me mad. What I did realize, however, is that I love a lot of people -family, friends and lovers- in a ferocious, fierce kind of way. And when I “fall out of love” my désenchantement is nasty and violent. I don’t like that side of me.
There was a podcast a few years back by Hamza Yusuf about keeping mad love for those you dealt with. One of the directions he went in was that making seventy excuses for people means not falling out of love. And falling out of love happens every day. I so quickly became désenchantée if I’m not careful. I want to try harder, do better, be a better friend- and a better Muslim. Wouldn’t it be great anyway to always think the best of people? Naïve, maybe, but using much less emotional capital than thinking everyone is an asshole.
What happened to making excuses for people? My new plan is to try going through life thinking everyone is totally awesome, or at least thinking that the people who count for me are totally awesome. To love the people I consider close like I just met them and have fallen madly in love. Blindly so. And to stop myself before I get désenchantée
nicolecunningham.ch 
3 July 2010 at 4:26 pm
That’s a good way to look at life. I believe that people are essentially good and most people mean well. I do worry sometimes that I’ll be let down though.
3 July 2010 at 8:13 pm
Agreed.
It is much more constructive to think the better of people, that they are not all unfeeling and unsympathetic Arses. Things happen for a reason after all, and karma will reward you in the end.
Even if the U&UA does bite you in the A, or even take a little nibble to see how you will react, you don’t even need to make an excuse, you can ride with it and roll it in your favour. And if the désenchantement subsequently sinks in (a feeling I know all too well too!) then come on over for a cuppa and we can hash the U&UA’s actions out!