Well. We "sort of" watch.
Most of the time we sit comfortably on our sofas, only half-paying attention, running our thumbs over a tiny keyboard, "reaching out" to a friend we'll be meeting for lunch tomorrow. The conversation beginning with something like...
"Hey...did ya hear the news? That guy went to a school and..."
*******
I have a very diverse group of family and friends traipsing with me through this journey we call "life". Different faiths, cultures, spiritual beliefs, "non-believers" or "not-sure-so-far-ers".All of us weaving through the over-grown brush of our daily struggles, carrying the weight of previous joys and traumas, on our way to the wide open "purpose" of it all.
All of us acknowledging that we have no idea what that answer may be. Zigzagging or bee-lining it -- all the while accumulating countless scratches and scars. Maneuvering nonetheless.
Last summer, I sat by a beautiful lake for a week. A setting like no other. Yosemite. Since I couldn't pull myself away from life at the time, someone chose a number of books for me to read. A few too many for my less-than-ambitious-spirit at that point, but I chose one that seemed to speak to the "scientist" I occasionally like to entertain in me.
Odd, really. Given that I was in a place some might call so "spiritually powerful".
*******
The Moral Landscape, by Sam Harris.I certainly am not, nor have I ever been, an "atheist". Many things in life admittedly. Atheist is not one of them. But I do love to test myself and challenge my belief system. Shake its foundation a little before someone else has the chance to weaken its joints. The never-ending job of preparing, "insuring" and "ensuring" my little house.
At times, I conclude, maybe the journey IS just that. The tests. The questions. The journey itself. The seeking, ensuring, assuring, and insuring ourselves.
In any case, Mr, Harris' point, in The Moral Landscape, was something that I had never heard before from anyone. No one of agnostic or atheist belief. I found it fascinating.
"Good people" are a crucial part of "natural selection".
I have heard the debates about whether people are inherently good or evil. Whether people needed to be "controlled" by old religious laws or newer laws of governments. All the rest. However, what was refreshingly new for me in Harris' book? What did I hear that seemed strangely optimistic in what I believed was a most unlikely, potentially pessimistic, place?
"Goodness" did not have its genesis (if you'll pardon the expression) in religious faith or laws or governments. In fact, "good people" survive, and have survived, simply because they are good. The "bad" have always been ostracized. Sent to be alone. They couldn't survive alone. They died. "Bad" is working (always has been working) its way toward a very grim statistical presence -- if not eventual "extinction".
So, as we listen to the news and read the reports, we can have faith (oops, again!) that good people, survive, triumph, and, in fact, thrive. Even when we don't always see them, celebrate them, reward them, or realize just how many of them are out there.
They aren't on the news. They don't always make the headlines. But, there are more good people out there than we know. They "do good" quietly. Methodically. It's just them. No attention. No drama. No need for recognition or accolades.
They've had all the same bumps and bruises of the "troubled souls" wounded by someone along the way. Quite likely, they've had more hurts and trauma than any of those who "wear it like a badge of excuses and reasons" for their "bad" behavior.
"The bad" parade and scream about the damage for all of us to see. Yet, surprisingly, those who likely have survived far worse and endured much more, struggle for strength and seek no attention, no pity. They don't suffer. They feel the pain. Experience it as all humans do. They seek the "whys" and whats, the "take-aways", of that singed hand, and they use that to grasp and heal the hand of the next hurt survivor in line.
In fact, "the good" go on to "right" wrongs, be compassionate, and be stronger for the pain. They see no need for wrongs being used as reasons for wound-driven acts or crazed behavior.
We hear from the noisy, attention-seeking, histrionic, excuse-prepared, desperate wrong-doers pleading and crying a version of "the devil made me do it".
But. There's the truth.
There are millions who have dealt with and endured the torture of that same "devil" -- or an even greater abusive demon -- and they rise to serve. They rise to endure and make this world a better place.
So, Mr. Harris, from perhaps one of the least likely places I expected to hear words of reassurance and "hope", I thank you. You specifically explain that at the dawn of man and woman, as our species struggled to survive in the often horrific, unforgiving environment of prehistoric eras, those members of the societies who were "labelled" by the group as "free loaders", "parasites", and "predators" were left to themselves.
Inspiration for "goodness"? A harsh reality. Death.
In 2012, those who aren't desirable are not taking over. They are the ones struggling to survive. They are the news simply because they are the few-and-far-between. That IS news.
The "good" are not of a particular faith, race, culture, or lack thereof. They are not the ivy school educated elite with quantitative "scientific and intellectual superiority". They are simply "good people". Selected for. Naturally! They will survive...and thrive. How cool is that?
No comments:
Post a Comment