I was thinking about a scene in the movie Contact. I don’t embrace the premise of the film, but one line has stuck with me since I first saw it.
It occurs when Ellie is transported by the pod to a distant “beach,” where she meets a being purported to be her father:
The alien offers an observation about humans:
You’re an interesting species. An interesting mix. You’re capable of such beautiful dreams, and such horrible nightmares. You feel so lost, so cut off, so alone, only you’re not. See, in all our searching, the only thing we’ve found that makes the emptiness bearable, is each other.
There’s so much packed into that third sentence. We live such a dichotomous existence. On one hand, you see people capable of such beautiful acts of selfless love. But on the flip side you also see horrible people doing brutal things to others.
Internally, I’m often torn between viewing people favorably, or seeing them in a darker cast. In some cases, I go back and forth between the positive and negative views in the span of a few seconds.
Sometimes it’s difficult to reconcile.