Childhood

Yesterday, I was sitting in Central Park reading Saint Augustine’s Confessions.   I was able to make it 3 or 4 pages in until I got to the part about infancy / early childhood and I started thinking, “Wow, I was probably an obnoxious prick when I was a child”.

Just thinking about my natural propensity for selfishness and arrogance now and what I have to do to suppress that, I can only imagine what I used to be like when I was younger.

I haven’t had the opportunity to be around many infants or younger children for extended periods of time, but apparently they are all absolute terrors.  Beings that need and want and really only care about themselves – Augustine describes it a lot better than me.

So all of this led me to the following questions:

1.  What does the initial state of human beings say about human nature in general? 

I’ve always had an overly pessimistic view about human nature and selfishness, and for me, the initial stage just propagates that feeling.  It doesn’t make any sense to me why humans are born this way.  Maybe the point is to improve as a person, mature, and begin to care about the “greater good”, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t seem like there is any way to ever escape the initial flaws.

2.  Is it possible to ever change aspects of our personality that we don’t like?

I’ve never been able to and it’s annoying.

3.  Does anyone remember what his/her childhood was like?  How can you repent for sins of the past when you don’t have a good idea of what they were?  If you were going to be judged by God or anyone else, what would you want to be judged by?

I can barely remember high school anymore and it wasn’t that long ago.

4.  Are flaws like jealousy positive in any way?

Competition and jealously seem to be drivers of people doing "bigger/better things" which probably improves society as a whole.  The problem I always think about is whether increasing wealth, technology, invention, etc. are really improving what’s important in life or are just masking it.

5. What is the appropriate level of morality for one’s personality to build-up to - to be a person that cares only about others?  Is there such a thing as an unselfish act?

I have no clue about this one.

As an aside - I think Confessions is an awesome book.  When I first read it, I was in my atheist, god-hating, "I'm better than everyone else", closed-minded mode and I didn't take it seriously, but I would definitely recommend it to anyone who is on the fence about belief in God.