The thought has occurred to me on many occasions and it is just now that I have decided to consciously notate it here, quasi-indelibly. By it's very nature, I'm not sure that the word "indelible" can be prefixed with the word "quasi" but I use it loosely to begin with because by "quasi" I mean that this blog is only as permanent as allowed by its owners which, in every case, is not me and can therefore be rendered a death of which i cannot control. But I'm getting off topic here, so let me reign it back in...
The thought has occurred to me on many occasions: What makes a person good? I suppose first we must agree on an absolute definition of what we take for goodness. I don't typically deal in absolutes, because nothing, to me, is an absolute. Yet, to be fair and to stifle variables, to quell arguments of the definition of such a subjective idea, let us suppose that "good" in the most narrow scope as possible means morally and ethically sound according to the most popular consensus of what people understand it to be. The Christian bible is as good a place to start as any, because, though most people may not know it, this is the ultimate rule book that dictates what most of society considers right and good. It lays out an ethical code one should follow for righteousness. Religious or not, most of the world population can agree with many of the rules the book puts forth. In fact, I posit that we all know them so well, we could usually make an accurate guess at what choice, in an endless sea of choices, would be more ethically sound, given any number of scenarios. Then we come to that Einsteinian problem of relativity. From a different vantage point, a good choice could be a bad choice, and so the question then becomes "good for whom?" But for the moment, I will dispense of all relativistic issues, dispense of all subjective possibilities and throw out tedious interpretations of what good really means. Lets get basic.
So, really now, what makes a person good? Four possibilities. One. What if there were an intention of goodness, but the end result turned out bad? Two. What if there were an intention of goodness, everything worked out, and it turned out good? Three--the darker possibilities: What if there were an intention of evil, but things went wrong, and the end result is good? And finally, four, what if there were evil intentions, success, and the evil idea came to fruition? I contend that it is intention that makes a person good. Even if something turns out bad, it is the intention of the individual that really shows where their heart is. I'm talking true intention, here, not simply saying that good intentions were present. But then there's another problem, and funny how logic problems can turn a simple solution into a dilemma so quickly. We now have a problem of perception against reality.
Perception IS reality. What I perceive to be true and real, really is true and real--to me. If I perceive the ocean to be yellow and the sky to be red, these things are real to me. I'm sorry, but no amount of arguing will convince me otherwise. The rest of the world could see the ocean and sky as blue, and that would be their perception, their reality. But not mine. And so my point is that perception is reality and we all live in vastly different worlds of reality. It could be a tone of voice that changes a positive statement to a negative one. I hear the tone of voice and interpret it as sarcasm. You hear that same tone of voice but interpret it as emphasis. The interpretation can change our perception of reality. And whatever we perceive is real to us. To tie this all together, I'm basically saying that I can see a good action, despite the disposition of the intention and perceive someone as a good person. Their intention could have been negative in nature, but they failed and a good action came about. In my perceived reality, that is a good person despite the intention they had to do evil. So, then, can intention really matter at all in the scheme of things?
I think there is no accurate way to decide if someone is good. We can only judge by a person's actions, never by their intentions. We are in a best guess scenario when it comes to judging others. If we see that most of an individual's actions are good in nature, we might be able to correctly assume that their intentions align with those actions. But that's all it ever is: an assumption.
The only thing we can truthfully decide upon is whether or not we are good people. It is a self assessment. We know our own intentions. We understand our own motives. But we are in a brilliant world, a world congested with competing personalities, all trying to assess one another.
This all comes down to a skill most of us have adeptly refined. It's one that I believe holds a negative impact on one's righteousness. And that skill is perception manipulation. We constantly try to force other people's perceptions. We want people to see us a certain way. We want to inflict an impression of ourselves onto someone else. So we weave a reality from the fabric of perception. The intention here is to control the environment, to hold the power of how people perceive reality. We want to be the puppet masters controlling the show and we try, with all of our might to force the view. Again, I feel that this is negative behavior. We all want to be good. We all want to be liked. The power is truly in the hands of those who release the attempt to control perception. Live life. Create your own reality. Let others perceive their own reality without interference. It is then, perhaps, that you have become a good person.
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