what i think the best quality anyone can have is...

interjection: "who are you to give your opinion? why should i care?" you ask.
well you should listen to me because i, according to modern philosophers, am GOD. muhahaha (evil laugh – pinky held at the corner of mouth) these philosophers say there is no truth. truth is only dependent on the person himself, and is different for each person. and whatever each person says is truth for him. so what each person says is the ultimate truth.
...
it's just too bad that i don't agree with this, but believe that there ACTUALLY is a standard truth. otherwise...
i feel another evil laugh coming on ("what are we doing today Brain??" "the same thing we do every day Pinky: trying to take over the world!!")

but anyways, back to the main topic. ok, so i have come to value this quality as essential in a person. this post is a tribute to...
(wait for it)
(drum roll)

HONESTY

obviously! come on. what else did you think it would be? OF COURSE it would be honesty. i think anyone who has ever been lied to (i.e. everyone) would agree. but i don't just mean a simple lie. i'm talking about a deception so complete that it leaves you totally blind-sided. such a lie that when you learn the truth, it shocks you to the core of your being. one where when you find out the truth, what stings is not the truth itself – that doesn’t matter. what hurts is your own naiveté. how could you not have KNOWN? how could you have been so wrong?
somehow it haunts you.

i am reading augustine (omg, amazing!). he talks a whole lot about the whole 'Adam and Eve eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil' moment in the garden of eden. it is the greatest act of free will—actually, i'm just going to stop right here. i love the discussion of free will and i literally could go on FOREVER! but anyway, so this got me thinking. what is the knowledge that the Tree of Knowledge gave humans anyways? why did it cause us to be thrown out of paradise?
my answer: it gave us knowledge of Dishonesty, of an utter deception, of someone pretending like they want your best interest when really they want the worst for you, of someone using you for their own selfish benefit.

-serpent = the person who lied and fed you complete poop of a male cow (bullshit)
-Adam and Eve = you – so innocent, so willing to believe, so trusting and hopeful.

it never even occurred to them that the serpent was lying. yes, they knew that God had said don’t eat from this tree. and they knew that eating from it was wrong because of this. but they never thought that eating from it may be wrong because the serpent did not want what was best for them. they never questioned the motives of the serpent.

and so they ate the apple. ate it up. like it was truth. completely enraptured by the captivating smell. the beautiful colour. the wonderful taste. yes, on the surface that apple was perfect. it was coated with honey and went down so easily.

THEN, then God revealed the truth to them. no the serpent didn’t want them to be immortal and powerful like God. the serpent didn’t want them to know everything God did and have all the control He did. no no. in fact, he wanted the opposite. he wanted their complete impotence and annihilation.

"eve, sweetie, you were deceived."
"but why? i don’t understand. why would someone be cruel enough to do that?"
"well because by doing this he was able to show that you are not worthy creatures to reign in the garden of eden."
"so he used us as a vehicle to get what he wanted?"
"yes."
"but we trusted him! we completely believed him. we thought he was good and pure."
"well now you know, don’t you? now you have Knowledge that you shouldn’t trust everyone. now you know that not everyone wants what is best for you. some want to use you as a vehicle, a stepping-stone, to reach their own ends."
"shawwwg. that sucks. it hurts like a biatch."
"uh-huh. that’s why I told you not to eat from the Tree."

so then they couldn’t live in paradise anymore. isaiah berlin has this idea that people look at the world in two ways: 1) hermeneutics of understanding, 2) hermeneutics of suspicion. with the first, they view each situation in the best possible way and as in their benefit. with the second, they view it using suspicion, as something done purposefully against them.
to live in paradise is to see everything as good without questioning it (hermeneutics of understanding), without testing it to see whether it really IS good (the concept of paradise implies unadulterated goodness). but after the deception, they became incapable of doing this. every animal who spoke to them was a possible serpent in disguise. every fruit from every tree could possibly throw them down a spiral of bottomless ugly truth. instead of seeing the world as innocent until proven guilty, they looked at everything as guilty until proven innocent. so they had to come down to earth, where survival depends on trusting those who have proven themselves worthy.
how sad.

"the deception you show is your own parasite."