What I try to be...

"...is fundamentally a person.

He fears he may be a bad person because he knows what he thinks rather than just what he says and does. He chokes off those little reactions and impulses, but he knows what they are. So he tries to act like a good person, often in situations where the map is unclear."

--Terry Pratchett, referencing his character Samuel Vimes, Oct 2004.

Saw that quote this morning wikisurfing. I hadn't heard that frame of mind - which I admit to sharing - phrased quite so well before. The quote was in response to someone saying that "Vimes is not fundamentally a good person."

You ever feel like that? Like you're one lapse away from becoming what you [feardespiseinsert verb here] most? You see your choices laid before you and you can't help but be tempted by all the choices. And the only thing keeping you on the straight and narrow isn't the internal rewards of being of a good person; but the fear of what you might become if you stray. And the sickening realization that you're entirely capable of choosing the 'bad' path, and that a part of you truly wishes to fall from grace.

There's another concept that Pratchett uses when referring to Vimes. It's the opposite of drunk. No, not sober; it's as far from sober as drunk is, only in the opposite direction -- you have knurd. Knurd is about two drinks short of stone cold sober; it's where that nice haze that people live their lives in gets blown away; where all the illusions and assurances we fill our eyes with in order to function as decent human beings is wiped away. When you're knurd, you can't help but see the world as it is; and more importantly, you can't help but see yourself for what you truly are.