Good Vs. Evil

My brother ranted the other day. He ranted that ‘good’ is only an illusion that is reinforced by antiquated stories that get passed down through the ages. His experience is that there is no balance of ‘good’ vs ‘evil’ and only malevolent actions.
Well, that is if I paraphrased and understood correctly anyway.
These thoughts got my mind working—made the little cogs turn and essentially, if you strip away all the pessimism and anger, he is right.

‘Good’ and ‘evil’ is just an illusion, an illusion that can evoke endless emotion. A wicked act will wail in your mind. It will torment and torture you, driving you to fury! Just as a wondrous act of kindness will warm your heart and elate your soul. The concept is one that encompasses the causality of benevolent and spiteful actions
What I am saying here is that the concept of good and evil is an illusion however I am stipulating that both are illusions. If good is, then you have got to believe that evil is too.
But what does that mean in a world where all that is televised is the wrongdoing? All that is shouted about is the malice, the anger and the suffering. The evil side of the illusion is forced upon us so we must complete this two-sided illusion. We need to tell and remember the stories that fight the battle for good. We must do this because at first glance we live in a messed up world that is fuelled off stories of woe. If we don’t remind ourselves of all the good that does exist then the evil that appears to ooze from every pore of our bedraggled world will bog us down.

Now to put it in slightly chirpier a way: the world is wonderful and under every unturned rock you can find its’ hidden wonder, if you were to look.

Yours pre rock flipping,


Victor

A Journey

Dear empty space, empty chair, empty room,

Often-times I talk about how I detest transition. I love the start of things; the initial bright idea and the reward I feel at the end, when an idea is brought through to conclusion, speaks for itself. However, the actual journey... I find myself saying that I hate it.

I crave the feeling of purpose; the excitement of starting a new adventure. The feeling of joy when you are thrust into an opportunity, but the hard bit—the actual travel part. The transition... I tell myself, unilaterally, that I can’t stomach it.

I reach the point in the journey where I can’t see the end past the horizon and I falter. I look for other ways out. Ways that take less effort, ‘the path of least resistance.’ I long for the transitional journey that will give me the energy and reward of inception and completion without the arduous trudge between the two.

Now I just find myself thinking, ‘Why do I hate it? What is so wrong with transition?’ and I surmise that it is just a phobia of the journey itself, an irrational fear of being in the middle of a journey with no sight of the end and no way to retreat to the start. I also start to understand that the journey would not be a journey without the effort required to surmount these difficulties and that the reward at the end would not be so sweet without them either.

Someone once told me to make sure that I never let myself off the hook. Never-the-less; that is what I do. I get to the middle of a journey and try to find ways to avoid it. Tell myself that I will continue on that path another day. Needless to say, I should not do this and neither should you. I should stop making excuses for why I don’t or won’t do something or I will start getting bored of life because isn’t that all it is? Journey upon journey; transition after transition and I should embrace that and so should you. I shouldn’t let myself get bogged down by the fear of the journey and just get on with the hard work of completing it. Once I realise this I could find that I am not that far from the end at all, one more burst and my journey could be complete and I’ll be ready for another.

I’m talking of many journeys here; the everyday journey of learning something new, where the start fills you with purpose and the end fills you with achievement. A journey where neither the start nor the end would feel as triumphant if it was not for the struggle in between. I am talking about the journey of having an idea and having the courage to take it all the way. Everyone is on a journey and they may be nearly done or they may have just begun, either way they are still on their journey and I ask you now, as a closing sentiment, ‘What journey are you on? And are you really charging headlong into it, or are you letting yourself of the hook?’

Yours, on a journey

Victor Blemish