The thing is, and I've said this time and time again before, if everyone were as Michael is, there wouldn't be a need to "look out for yourself" or let fear dictate the way we live and react. The problem lies with the rest of the world, not with Michael. Of course, not everyone is like Michael, very few people are, in fact. But that still doesn't make him wrong. By giving people the benifit of the doubt, Michael is actually living what he preaches, in seeing the good in everything, in looking for the good instead of the bad. He's gotten burned a lot because of that, but it's not his fault, and I wish more people could understand that. Kindness and generosity should be rewarded, not critisized. People are afraid to be nice because we live in a world where nicness is met with a knife in the back or spit in the face. Michael is brave for allowing his heart to lead him rather then his mind. It isn't as if he's unaware that the world is filled with people willing and ready to abuse him. He is. But he doesn't let that fear control him, like most people do. He doesn't let the need to survive or protect himself direct him and his actions. He lets his need and desire to help other people do that, and he makes the world a better place because of it. That's admirable, to the fullist. If you go in knowing that there is the possibility of being hurt, but disregard that knowledge or expectation for the chance to bring something beautiful in to people's lives, then that right there is a true agent of change and it is what will, ultimately, open people's eyes to what is real and cause them, in turn, to improve their ways and state of being.
Michael put it best when he wrote about what innocence is in "Dancing The Dream". When he said,
"As innocence fades away, more complicated things take its place. We think we need to outwit others and scheme to get what we want. We begin to spend a lot of energy protecting ourselves. Then life turns into a struggle. People have no choice but to be street-smart. How else can they survive?
When you get right down to it, survival means seeing things the way they really are and respoinding. It means being open. And that's what innocence is. It's simple and trusting like a child, not judgmental and comitted to one narrow point of view..."
Or in "That One In The Mirror", when he says:
"But everybody didn't do their part. Some did, but were they stoping the tide?... When I woke up the next morning, that one in the mirror looked confused. "Maybe it's hopeless," he whispered. Then a sly look came into his eyes, and he shrugged. "But you and I will survive. At least we are doing all right.." I felt strange when he said that. There was something very wrong here. A fain suspicion came to me, one that had never dawned so clearly before. What if that one in the mirror isn't me? He feels seperate. He sees problems "out there" to be solved. Maybe they will be, maybe they won't. He'll get along. But I don't feel that way- those problems aren't "out there," not really. I feel them inside me...
When that one in the mirror is full of love for me and for him, there is no room for fear. When we were afraid and paniky, we stopped loving this life of ours and this earth. We disconnected. Yet how can anybody rush to help the earth if they feel disconnected... "
