As it Seems
Overall my dad was what anybody that knew him during his lifetime would consider a good man. Kind, humble, responsible, diligent and dutiful about life. He certainly had many people that looked up to him. To my surprise I did discover at least one person who seemed to hold a grudge against him for reasons I'd rather not go into. Of course nobody came forward to openly state any grudges during the funeral, but we the family took all the praises and criticisms in good faith and with a pinch of salt. After all my dad had lived his life, and seemed content with the outcome before his prolonged illness and eventual passing.
His experience puts a lot of things in perspective. I kinda figured out that you probably don't want to be liked by everyone, so that's a given. Yet what I find sort of fascinating is how much we tend to either over or under stretch the nature of things to suit our desired narrative. It certainly applies in quite a few spheres of life from how we see and observe people to the way we tend to deal with one another. Save for facts, I've learned to treat emotion driven perceptions with wisdom - always measuring the potential long term consequences they might wield.
Yes we all have our leanings. I lean right (conservative) in many cases but there are many other areas where I don't agree with the accepted narratives. One thing I and probably many others might have noticed as we age is that nobody certainly has everything figured out. There are times where we may be wrong on our opinions and actions and sometimes it might be too late to backpedal or make corrections. It is also very much in our nature to judge people and actions by extremes for some reason.
When time passes and our exaggerations are revealed, we simply ignore the lessons and move onto the next issue. Few are apologetic or repentant in their emotional reactions which is why we have to thread considerable caution when following the crowd, or making emotion driven decisions. If ElSalvador for instance becomes a crypto success story don't expect any apologies from the mainstream media or the development finance institutions who have been staunchly against their actions. Nothing is ever as it seems. All we do know is that actions certainly have their consequences.