“This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival… Be grateful for whatever comes. Because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.” ~Rumi
Yesterday my boyfriend’s father told me that he doesn’t believe that everything happens for a reason. He explained, “Where I can’t get on board is, if that’s true, then why do bad things happen to good people?”
It touches close to home for their entire family because not only does one of their sons’ girlfriends have a rare and terminal form of cancer, she met their son because he successfully removed a melanoma (a fast acting, lethal cancer).
His girlfriend is in her late twenties, and she’s one of the sweetest young women I know. While she beat it into remission last year, it’s just come back. She’s living with constant fatigue, a broken rib that won’t heal, and the harsh reality is that she could die.
His father and I began to connect over this age-old conundrum: Why do “bad” things happen to anyone—especially the kind-hearted, ourselves, or the ones we love?
Hundreds of thousands of years of religion, philosophy, and artistic expression have sought to grasp: why are we truly here and why is there suffering?
Certain chapters of my own life have seemed ruthless or even tragic as they were happening.
As a child, I was often disappointed by my father, a person in my life who I loved dearly and who disappeared on my birthdays and holidays. sometimes without so much as a call.
As a young adult, I learned that he battled his own demons with drugs, alcohol, and a traumatic past, which helped comfort me for why he wasn’t around when I was a child, but it broke my heart in a different way. I have often asked myself, “Why is there so much pain in the world?”
Asking this question led me to realize it was more about my own pain within. My suffering drove me to search for happiness and freedom within myself. In fact, it’s been through the most challenging and darkest experiences that I’ve cultivated the greatest connection with the light of my heart.
Have you ever heard how when someone has a near-death experience, they begin to realize what’s truly important to them in their lives? It’s said they often begin spending time with the ones they love, and ticking off items from their bucket list to do what they love.
A really dark experience can be like a metaphorical near-death experience. Through the most painful life circumstances, I’ve discovered what’s most important to me.
I’ve realized what’s most important for me is feeling free to do what I love, write, speak what is true from my heart, and cultivate a deep connection with love inside and outside myself.
With love as my intention, I’ve overcome circumstantial challenges to realize that connection, authenticity, and freedom doesn’t depend on what happens in your life as much as how you respond to what happens.
But how do you overcome challenging life-circumstances rather than falling victim to them?
The question I ask myself in times of resistance is:
“How is this supporting me?”
Not everyone believes that certain things are “meant to be,” but opening yourself to how a negatively perceived experience could be supporting you is a powerful way to stop resisting what is and create space for acceptance.
When you fall into a state of acceptance, you naturally connect with your being-ness: the now.
When you are truly in the now, this present moment, is there ever anything actually wrong?
Rumi must have known this about non-resistance, as his words remind the world to embrace everything that happens as a gift, a gift to support you.
If you want an end to pain, resist nothing you feel in the present moment. When you open your heart to feeling, rather than responding with “why” or “why me?” you have a great opportunity to transform your circumstances into your destiny.
Difficulty and challenge aren’t inherently bad. The difficulty of running that marathon, working to chase your dreams, or overcoming challenges—including the failures and disappointments—aren’t they part of the stuff that makes our lives meaningful?
While it may be easier to say this about marathons and dreams than to say it to the little girl who felt more and more betrayed by life with each birthday missed by a father who seemed to cause a hole in her heart, or to the young woman who perceives to be losing her dreams because of a debilitating illness, it doesn’t mean there isn’t a purpose in what is being experienced.
It’s not for me to understand why she is facing this twist in her life story, or what’s true about circumstances that have touched the lives of your family, friends, or those who you feel connected with during tragedies that may hit another part of the world.
I can only say that by embracing every emotion caused by my own life stories, every perceived tragedy, and asking life with an open heart, “How is this supporting me?” I’ve reached acceptance and neutralized my own judgments time and time again.
I have spent a lot of time reminding myself, “This is how I’ve asked it to be, so what is it trying to teach me?”
Sometimes the answer was just to feel helpless, to let go of control, cultivate patience, know a deeper compassion, or just realize that no matter what, I love my father, despite the role that he has played in my life.
I love life, despite the challenges I face.
I’ve learned to keep my heart open to feel. And now I’m not so afraid of feeling. It is through feeling the depth of all my pain that I’ve created more space for love—and now I just feel more alive.
So why do “bad” things happen to “good” people?
When you stop resisting, start feeling, and ask how life is supporting you, you get out of your own way. This is what it means to surrender. And from seeing life that way, bad things stop happening; or rather, it’s not that “bad” things stop happening, you just stop seeing them as such.
For example, if I hadn’t experienced so much pain and suffering in my life, I would have never gone on a journey to connect with my heart at such a deep level.
How can I label pain and suffering as “bad” after realizing it’s what has supported me to expand, to experience more intimacy and love, and become more authentic? True acceptance subtly transforms “bad” into “meant to be” and slowly life naturally becomes less painful and more fun.
The truth is, life doesn’t always give you what you think you want; life gives you what’s perfect. But perfection only becomes your experience depending on how you choose to respond to what happens.
Did Nelson Mandela stop believing in a vision of freedom in jail? No. Do you think Mandela would have felt free stifling what he felt so strongly on the inside even if it kept him outside of jail? In fact, do you feel it’s possible Mandela felt freer even within the confines of that prison cell? Why would that be true? Because he was free in his heart.
He transformed his circumstances into his destiny, and he transformed the world. He was just a man; he is no different from you or me. He chose to transform his circumstances into his destiny.
Freedom and happiness have nothing to do with your circumstances, and everything to do with your level of connection with the truth that you feel in your soul and express to the world.
As my boyfriends’ father and I sat there, he said in an afterthought, “I suppose if that kind of disease happened to me, I would just do my best to stand up as a living example to my children of how to face such an experience with ease and grace, so they would also know that it’s possible.”
And isn’t that all anyone can do, face our own individual challenges with as much ease and grace to discover what we’re meant to do: be our selves, follow our destiny, and realize what’s truly important—love.
For when you transform what happens “to you” into your life destiny, you become the change you wish to see in the world.
Photo by Mitya Ku
About Kirra Sherman
Kirra supports others to experience more aliveness and awareness, to make decisions from the heart, and realise the happiness not dependent on circumstances, but in who you are in your heart. 33% off the “Settle into the Moment” 5 minute Meditation ($5 off) designed to bring you out of fear-driven busyness and into your heart: use code TINYBUDDHA here.
Though I run this site, it is not mine. It's ours. It's not about me. It's about us. Your stories and your wisdom are just as meaningful as mine. 
Wow. I’m floored by this post. What an amazing rebuttal to your boyfriend’s father’s argument. I really agree with you. But one problem with the unfairness of life is how people go around hurting others, even killing, sometimes by the millions, as in genocides. I get hung up on the injustice of wrong doings. In minor infractions it is unfair, but other times it tragic. Should the innocent just accept this and feel enlightened for the infraction, if you know what I mean?
This caught me with love:
“I suppose if that kind of disease happened to me, I would just do my best to stand up as a living example to my children of how to face such an experience with ease and grace, so they would also know that it’s possible.”
Excellent post.
If only this were truth of reality.
Hi Kirra,
Your post brings to mind a TED video I saw many years ago by Aimee Mullins. In spite of both her legs amputated when she was one year old, she participated in Palalympics and is now a fashion model.
This beautiful talk brings tears to my eyes every time I see it. During her talk she talks about how as children we are told adversities are bad and should be avoided and circumvented at all costs. But, they are the vehicles to our growth and instead of running from adversities we should “grapple” them and play with them.
http://www.ted.com/talks/aimee_mullins_the_opportunity_of_adversity.html
You are a very bright young woman. And kudos to you for ‘figuring’ this out earlier on rather than later. You will live a beautifully rich life.
Nobody is spared pain and suffering. It’s what you do with it, how you respond and what goodness you can still bring out and into the world.
If you haven’t yet read, Man’s Search for Meaning, please do. You will be further transformed.
Absolutely inspiring, and beautiful story/post!!!! Thank you for sharing your soul, love, and insight…amazing messages!!! 🙂 One of the most impactful for me was “Freedom and happiness have nothing to do with your circumstances, and
everything to do with your level of connection with the truth that you
feel in your soul and express to the world.”
This is beautiful Kirra! Thank you!
First, this is a beautiful post — and I connect with much of what you have to say. We must experience suffering to grow, and being happy has little to do with how many “bad things” have happened to us. However, since your post does touch one one topic that I have experience — the terminal illness of a loved one. A dear friend recently passed after a quick (4 month) bout with stage 4 melanoma. Despite the ease in death we all wanted for him, he did not go gracefully. He was angry and despondent. No — he was more than that. He was pissed off. He had to die at age 35 and leave his young wife, 2 young girls, and a large group of loving friends. And you know what? He had every right to be pissed off. He fought until the end. Was our desire for a graceful death for him …or for us? We don’t HAVE to accept suffering just to make things easier on ourselves. Sometimes, suffering and pain SUCKS and the best option is to use the discomfort as a force to change, to fight, to say “I do not accept this faith.”
Oh hello Miss Harden 🙂
Hey Tim –
I feel where you are coming from and your question is a great one because I spent many years pondering it as I can relate to that feeling you are touching on. I feel inspired to give you two responses:
The only way I have ever managed to go beyond the “unfairness of life” that I have seen in the outside world is by connecting with that feeling of unfairness within me and how it makes me feel. Why? Well, have you ever noticed how certain phenomenon in the world, or in your personal life circumstances seem to push buttons within, often the same discomfort arises but based on different catalysts? What’s important is that something happening out in the world or in your circumstances can have the power to touch something within you. But that unfairness, that injustice, or sense of tragedy – and the emotions they may arise – aren’t they already within you? I think that’s why people often refer to a reaction to what happens outside as a ‘trigger point’, because you can’t trigger something that doesn’t already exist within. In this way, it’s not really about the innocent, it’s about you Tim, and how it’s causing you to feel. In my experience of “enlightening”, you bring awareness (light) to how something affects you and once you realize what it’s triggering for you, you have more space to realize the perfection of your own trigger, and therefore more love and space to realize that what they are going through is perfect, too. Consider this: anytime you feel a discomfort within, there is a judgment, or a charge, and if you have judgment for what the “innocent” are experiencing, is that love? My true advice is to be with how the the injustices you make you feel within you because that is a beautiful opportunity to cultivate compassion for what others are experiencing, but not from a place of judgment, from a place of neutrality (love) within you… because you’re finding compassion for your own experiences that are being triggered by the outside. 🙂
And to answer your exact question, for me, enlightenment is about becoming one with the energy of life, and embodying love through my own heart. The question that arises for me is: Would love let itself be taken advantage of? Would love let the rest of the world walk over it, or treat it with injustice and then call that enlightened? I don’t feel that. I feel that love stands for itself, and while it accepts all possibilities without resistance, it removes itself from outside infractions. And in my own life, when I am aware I’m being taken advantage of, I don’t allow it; I remove myself from the situation, or I speak my truth in how I feel about it. Allowing yourself to be taken advantage of on the outside is not enlightened. To me, enlightenment comes from taking responsibility for your internal state of being before or after an infraction and expanding into more love through each and every experience. In fact, it’s been through my experiences of infractions that I’ve been given opportunities to stand up for my truth through awareness while taking responsibility for my judgements – to be free of them.
I hope that helps and makes sense. Feel free to connect with me further if you’d like more support and sign up to my weekly newsletter where I expand on topics like this at length: RevolutionOfSelf.com
With warmth,
Kirra
Kirra, thank you for this lovely article! It is amazing to me how information comes to me in waves. This idea of “why bad things happen to good people” or to children … or to anyone for that matter, has been flowing to me. If you are interested, you may want to read Mike Dooley’s book “Manifesting Change” where he discusses this in the last few chapters. I found your post here quite in line with what he talked about. Love and blessings to you and yours!!! ~ Sarah
Thank you for sharing. I can feel it’s going to be a good one. I love TED talks.
And on the sharing tip, here’s one of my favorite inspiring videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k08yxu57NA
My favorite TED talk though is: Jill Bolte Taylor’s Stroke of Insight if you haven’t seen it.
Your take on why bad things happen to good people is a little troubling to me. Life is a paradox and I think it’s really okay to not have an answer to a question like this. Bad things happen, and I don’t think they necessarily happen to build character. Would you tell that to a parent whose child has died? Of course not! You would hopefully support that parent through his or her grief and stages of grief – and maybe the parent comes to a point of acceptance or not. No one can predict or project themselves into future suffering – it comes when it comes. It’s unpredictable which is probably why it’s been the topic of every religion on the planet. Perhaps suffering exists so we know it’s okay to exist in the question without having to have an answer. The reality of our lives are often more uncomfortable than we want to believe.
Overcoming “adversity gives us a sense of our own power.” Reimagine adversity. Adversity is just change. !!
As a parent who lost her son to suicide nearly 2 years ago, I felt the need to put my perspective across, not only to acknowledge what you said about a grieving parent but also to point out that what Kirra said is a possibilty , its all about choice. Don’t get me wrong, this could have easily destroyed my life, if I let it. Instead I refused to let his loss be wasted, I chose to be better. I chose to surrender to it with ease and grace. No, I haven’t accepted it, I probably never will, but I’ve surrendered to the reality of it. There is no point resisting it, its never going to change. So, in response to what I believed my son would want, much soul searching and exploring every aspect of his life and dealing with it, I have started studying for a diploma in counselling. Its a small step but who knows, with a personal experience like mine I may be able to help not only those left behind by such a tragedy, but those who may be considering the same path as my son. If I can help one person going through the same pain, my loss doesn’t feel so pointless. Its hard to imagine I’ll ever be truly happy again, but to waste my life would be a waste of his. I’ve chosen to take this experience and use it to make me a better person, to share the love I feel for my son with others who need it in the here and now.
So, really, you don’t have the answer to the question in the title of your article. You are, essentially, saying to turn lemons into lemonade.
Hi I,m troubled by your response and to understand what mind set you are pitching this from, i feel you have misinterpreted the article and taking it out of content, i may agree with some views you have shared in particular in grief an loss, and yes things do happen it really depends where are mind set is at and how we view an perceive what is good an bad based on our moral and values its a subjective experience. as i understand what you expressed about religion, but I do believe we need some social an self understanding what is right and wrong as long its doesn’t come from fear base but a place of love and self awareness.
AS for me I personally don’t get caught in labeling good or bad i just do what feels right an healthy, I am constantly removing good an bad from my mind set and vocabulary its not easy but I’m getting better at it. Yes you’re right life in unpredictable and you never know whats going to happen around the corner, there will always be pain in our lives the difference is how we choose to suffer be the victim or victor, it comes down to choice conscious or unconscious you choose your life. My so called BAD experiences my horrific traumas of abuse a child has assisted me in building my character, and resilience is just one which comes from life skills something you earn an learn and you can never get that from a intellectual understanding, its the inner wisdom the spirit and intuition.
I hope you haven’t taken offense, and if you i do apologize but my own subjective experiencing and wisdom tells me that life is life its a journey of learning and growing and this earth planet boot camp can be hard work, and at times its not fair in what is going on in our personal worlds and the world around us, but all we can do is come from a place of self awareness of love and peace an compassion for ourselves and our fellow brothers and sisters. namaste
Absolutely great price of writing. You’re a fav
So watching a young woman get hacked down with a machete before my very own eyes is somehow meant to support me to “expand, to experience more intimacy and love, and become more authentic”? That by truly embracing this heinous act I can subtly transform “bad” into “meant to be” and slowly life will naturally become less painful and more fun? Really? O.o
Hi Kirra,
Thank you so much for sharing this video. As I was watching this video I was feeling amazed at the power of synchronicity.
In the video Ms Bolte talks about the differences between the right and left brain, and how when her left brain shut down and her right brain took over she perceived world in an entirely different way. She could not distinguish between her body and outside world as they became one.
I am reading a book A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink, and in this book he talks about the differences between the left and right brain. How left brain is calculative and analytical and likes to categorize things, and right brain is synthetic and looks at things as a whole.
Also, another book I read Dying to be me by Anita Moorjani is about her near death experience as she was between this this life and after life. You will be amazed by the similarities between the experience of these two individuals.
Once again, thanks for sharing the video.
Best,
Pawan
It’s a great point. I feel to respond to the idea of suffering to grow and the “acceptance of suffering.” There is such a fine line between pain or disappointment being a part of life, such as a feeling of tenderness that can arise in reaction to circumstances, and suffering being a part of life. I do not feel that suffering itself creates growth. In fact, it is the opposite of expanding. Why is suffering the opposite of expansion (growth)? It is a form of resistance. And you cannot expand through resistance itself because it’s a state of fear. In my experience, suffering led me to eventually surrender to suppressed pain within me, but ultimately I’ve learned that the only time suffering brings growth is when it brings someone to their knees, to force them to surrender, and from that state of surrender, find the presence for growth to take place. But if you choose to just be in the present moment, do you require to suffer? No, you’re already in a state of acceptance in the now. 🙂
As for the desire for a graceful death, I love your acknowledgement that it may have been for you, rather than he, that you wished for that experience. Perhaps there was also a part of you that felt anger at the situation, too. Or that still does. I wrote a response below to Tim that I feel would be supportive to read, too.
My next newsletter is going to be all about reflections if you have joined it already, and if not, I invite you to. 🙂
Hey Peter,
I feel my words have been taken a little out of context, because I am not saying that what you’ve experienced is MEANT TO do anything. But I do stand by my words in this way: I AM saying and I have experienced in my own life to my own extent, and I believe because of it that the heart is strong enough to overcome anything. I do not believe there is any circumstance too traumatic to overcome if you’re willing to step into your heart, and if you’re willing to overcome it.
With all my love,
Kirra
Hi Kirra,
Thank you for your response, but it begs the question then what is the context; because the quotations are your words after all? You’ve also said in your article that “The truth is, life doesn’t always give you what you think you want; life gives you what’s perfect. But perfection only becomes your experience depending on how you choose to respond to what happens.”
So how is watching a young woman get hacked down with a machete before my very own eyes in ANY way “perfect”?! If you take such a statement to its natural conclusion one could easily infer that what you’re saying is that we in fact NEED traumatic experiences in our lives in order to give us the opportunity to experience spiritual and personal growth. After all, aren’t we meant to ask “how is this supporting me”? Did you not write that “Not everyone believes that certain things are “meant to be,” but opening yourself to how a negatively perceived experience could be supporting you is a powerful way to stop resisting what is and create space for acceptance.”?
You said in your response that “I AM saying and I have experienced in my own life to my own extent, and I believe because of it that the heart is strong enough to overcome anything. I do not believe there is any circumstance too traumatic to overcome if you’re willing to step into your heart, and if you’re willing to overcome it.” With this particular sentiment I wholeheartedly agree, but it is not the argument that you’ve presented in the article, and as a premise on its own certainly doesn’t offer any insight into answering the age old question of why “bad” things happen to (supposedly) “good” people.
Regards,
Peter
I can’t say I’ve ever heard child abuse described as “character building”! O.o
So what you’re saying is that in truth the Roman Catholic Church priests who committed such vile acts actually did all those poor orphans a favour? An interesting perspective.
Hi again Peter. I appreciate your response once more. “How it’s supporting you” is designed to open one’s heart to feeling and to support one in overcoming any external circumstance, so it feels very connected to my article at large. If I’m being honest, it feels to me as though you’re looking for your answer to why that particular experience happened to you. And that was not the context of the article, as I said, it’s not for me to know why, but for you to find within you. I remember one of my mentor’s worked online with a quadriplegic who on the path of self-awareness only kept going and would continue to say: I just want to know who I truly am. He could see that his state of body was supporting his yearning to know himself beyond the body, in his soul. That was his perfection. I don’t know why that happened to you Peter, but if you want to find the perfection, I am not saying it would be easy, but I do feel in my heart it is possible. It may even take a lifetime, and completely change the fabric of your existence along the way, but if you want that, it’s possible. This will be my last “comment” response, but if you’d like to take me up on a free consultation go to my website and contact me to deepen the conversation; that is my offer to you dear brother.
No Not all why would you want to say that ? being a victim of child abuse, do you really think i hold that view an perspective,
There are many things that engrave our character upon the clay of our
lives, and shape our character for better and for worse into a unique
set of scratches and grooves. Our character begins to be shaped from the
very time we are born and is influenced by where we grow up, how we are
raised, the examples our parents provide, religious and academic
education, and so on. Our character can be dramatically altered by a
life-changing tragedy – the contraction of a disease, a severe accident,
the death of a parent, child, or spouse. Such events may turn a man
bitter or cynical, or may cause us to discover energies of soul and
feelings of hope and compassion hitherto unimagined. A person’s character
can also be greatly formed by a call to take upon himself a mantle of
leadership during a crisis or emergency – an event that tests and
exercises his physical and mental abilities.
Thank you for the response. You have given me a few more things to ponder. You seem to be centering around one form of suffering — resistance to change/impermanence (I believe it is called viparinama-dukkha in Buddhism, but I’m no expert). Only when you accept the change or surrender to it does the suffering ease. My thoughts were mostly around “ordinary suffering” — pain, death, illness (called “Dukkha-dukkha” in Buddhism). Accepting/surrendering to this suffering does NOT make it go away. I compassionately wanted my friend to not suffer — but I could not stop his suffering. There is an expectation in today’s society, especially with grave illness (and especially with cancer), of the “good death.” You can find stories of “good deaths” all over. These “good deaths” are people who somehow accept their faith of premature death, say everything they want to the people they love, then peacefully “fall asleep” and die — readily letting go. However, I found after my friend’s not-so-peaceful death, that there were many people willing to express their experiences of full-of-suffering deaths of loved ones. Most people do not actively share these “not-good death stories” because there is shame associated with terminal illness deaths that are less than graceful. I believe there should be more acknowledgement of their suffering even if it does not meet our expectations of how people should act while dying; just because they are going to die does not diminish their current suffering.
KT – Compassionately wanting your friend not to die doesn’t guarantee to change his fate (pain, death, illness), but with a deep respect to what transpired, in my experience, acceptance and surrender does have the power to change “what is”, just perhaps not in that instance. When you reach a space of true acceptance, where you become one with the space that feels almost as if nothing but the moment matters anymore – including life and death. From that space, and the more you realize the truth of who you are, acceptance does have the power to change what you may perceive to be unchangeable circumstances. But then, when you reach that true level of acceptance, you no longer have a need to change the circumstance, or how anyone else feels about it, you just give it and everyone else’s reaction to it… space. And space is, of course, a form of unconditional love. Warmly – Kirra
Looks like a closed discussion… but I largely agree with this post. I don’t know if I could even live if something happened to my son. But there is so much sense is going out and making a difference to others in memory of your loved ones, god forbid, if anybody should lose them. Its difficult, its hard, and sometimes not perhaps even possible for some, but there is the choice to make and I hope help is around for those in difficult situations as these to HELP make those choices…
Bad things happen to good people because the universe is in different, not because, as this article implies, everything is good.
The best way to deal with trauma, IMO, is not with positive thinking, but with hypnosis, or other similar methods (NLP, EMDR). What most people get from these hypnosis-like methods are not a sense that their traumatic experience was good for them, but an indifference.
Often, they re-experience the event in a guided way that allows them to feel how much control they have over the memory. Sometimes they even revisit the experience in a way that helps them understand that they did the best they could given the circumstances, and that makes the memory much less hurtful.
Know that I am not a practitioner of hypnosis, NLP, EMDR, etc. I am just an advocate for it. Trying to come up with ways that the experience was actually good for you will only take you so far.
Lisa you are such a powerful……. woman! To stand and live life after your son’s death, takes courage. To not give up on life, takes strength.
You’ve shown me just how strong someone can be, who refuses to allow their circumstances to create more loss by not living their own life.
You are such an inspirational person.
Such a meaningful article Kirra and thank you for sharing. I had to find meaning again in my life after suffering a major burnout and waiting 22 years to start making major changes for my career. I ended up with many health issues to deal with but what hurt me the most was,going through everything alone.
It was at this time when I realized the marriage I had been living in of 25 years,had been for my husband’s happiness and life and not mine. That he owned his life but controlled mine.
I also had to accept that when I decided to separate my family and friends no longer chose to deal with me. And eventually I did.
But as hard as it’s been through this struggle,suffering,and learning to surrender to what has happened to my life it has taught me lessons I would of not learned or seen.
Sometimes people say they are grateful for their loss,illness or tragedy but I can honestly say I don’t feel this way.The suffering and loss has been a great one and even more so doing it alone.
But what I can say is, if I knew what I know today, the struggle or suffering would not have been such a great one.
That the lesson from this loss was that I gained “me” back and I “own” my life. That for such a long time I had been living for other people’s happiness and life and not mine. And for that, I will always be very grateful for.
If there’s no such thing as a “bad thing” then there’s no such thing as a “good person” either.
What an odd interpretation you’ve found for what Naim said Peter.
I didn’t hear that at all.
I give a historic tour of a local State Psych hospital that’s been closed now for almost 20 years. It was in operation for over 100 years.
It’s interesting to note that just about everything a person could be placed in a psych hospital, or a jail for that matter, was at one time, in one place, considered perfectly acceptable behavior, for at least the higher social classes.
Suicide? OK in ancient Japan, native American tribes, aborigial tribes. Anywhere there’s slavery.
Murder? Ancient Rome the paterfamilias (male head of the household) had the right to put to death anyone in his home. Even his own family. Most all cultures the higher classes could murder the lower classes freely.
Delusions? A tribe would groom this person to be the medicine man, Brujo, or witch doctor.
Child abuse? In any society with slavery it was perfectly acceptable.
And even over the time the hospital was in operation maladies that we used to lock people up for are became considered normal (various sexual proclivities) or treatable with a pill (depression, anxiety, etc).
This revelation made me realize that “good/bad”, “insane/sane” and “pious/sinful/evil” are handles for a variety of society’s ever changing behavours. Sickness and crime are being unable to force oneself conform to society’s expectations. They aren’t absolute acts. You keep on the right side of these lines you’re a good person, you cross them, you’re not. But the line moves slowly over time. Faster and faster today.
There is no absolute “good” or “evil” except possibly selflessness and selfishness. And our society is even attempting to define selfish behavior as “good” too.
So what’s a “bad” thing? What’s a “good” person? It depends on what year, place and social class you’re talking about.
“My so called BAD experiences my horrific traumas of abuse a child has assisted me in building my character” [sic]
There you go Kev, not so odd at all when you actually bother to read what was typed. 🙂
An odd interpretation of life, thankfully not one that is not shared by the vast majority of people.
You’re conflating “good” with being “law-abiding”, when in fact there is a difference between the two.
As an example, no societal whim or piece of legislature can ever change the naturally occuring biological order of the human species that requires procreation to take place between a sexually mature male and sexually mature female of the species.
Science leads morality and legislation follow.
Sex changes. Soon cloning. Young people today have no problem accepting transgendered people. Just like the children of the 80s had no problem accepting interracial marriage.
The only immoral act is the one that isn’t currently socially acceptable.
There is no absolute morality.
These certainly do not change the naturally occuring biological order of the human species; they are nothing more than the contrivances of those who would seek to “play God”, if you will.
As for mankind’s perversion of absolute morality, I’m sure you’re familiar with Hannah Arendt’s concept of the banality of evil.
Thankfully, whilst history has taught us the vast majority of people are mere sheep (a contemporary case in point being the countless number of Americans prepared to willingly sacrificing their liberties in exchange for perceived temporary safety from terrorist acts), there are, on occasion, those rare gems (William Wilberforce being one such exemplary example) willing to openly challenge a society’s normalisation of degrading and unspeakable acts.
Then we are also playing God when we remove a ruptured appendix from a child that would have otherwise died. Or provide glasses for a child that would have gone though their (short) life nearly blind. Or fill a tooth that would have eventually spread a fatal infection to the brain. Or developed a vaccine for polio, influenza, etc. etc. etc.
Would you withhold these treatments from your child because you’d be “Playing God” by keeping them alive against God’s will to have them die from a painful illness?
The triumph of evil? Then why are we still here? Why after all this time hasn’t mankind collapsed but instead flourished? Why has the world continued to get better? Even recently, the crime rate, all kinds of crime, teen pregnancy, teen smoking is at a 50 year low. (coincides with the removal of lead from gasoline).
Believe it or not, contrary to TV news and church sermon, the world continues to improve.
Kevin I didn’t say play God, I said “play God”; which is to say I didn’t mean the phrase in its literal sense.
However, that is not to say that scientific endeavours can not be used for honourable purposes. To use your example of vaccine development, such a vaccine doesn’t seek to change the naturally occuring biological order of the human species; on the contrary, it does nothing more than use the body’s own defence mechanisms to infer a degree of immunity against a future encounter with the virus.
Is the world “getting better”? One could equally argue that with global overpopulation, global warming and the subsequent increase in climate related natural disasters, starvation, poverty, the depletion of natural resources, and the widespread loss of liberties and increase in fear due to terrorism activities across the world that it is indeed not. Having said that, I suppose you’re right though, because after all the rates of teen pregnancy and smoking are down in whatever locality you hail from, right?
Fuck the world no matter what people say its fucked up. I treat everybody with respect and they use your kindness for weakness. Thenwhen you stand up to it you become the bad guy. Fuck that nobody gives a shit about nobody accept it and you are better off. Rascism, social heiarchy, and sheep that believes evrything that comes out the fucking medias mouth has ruined this fucking planet.
Of course people have trouble with your point of view because they have a hard time admitting you might be right. Consider this: “good” and “bad” are values that we assign to people, things, events, circumstances, etc. Every human does it. We fritter away our lives in vapid, inane debates about the goodness or badness of this or that, all the while forgetting that every single occurrence on this planet, every fortune made and squandered, every empire built and torn down, every child born, every old man who dies, every line of every life story that ever was, is, or will be contains the significance of the most microscopic part of half of an atom quietly balanced on one of the tiny tendrils of a speck of dust. The universe is infinite. Our affairs, while part of that universe, are insignificant in light of the gyration of the whole machine. So, try going for a day and letting go of “good” and “bad” value judgments. Try to look at things as they actually are. Labelling something good or bad does not get you closer to the true nature of the thing. It is just a bias you project on it based of many things such as your past, your cultural norms, your personal opinion, difficult experience, evidence you’ve gathered over time, etc. Good and bad are just biases that human project onto events and those biases create barriers to the truth. This is why the author’s ideas are unsettling to a lot of you. Your ego has been challenged by a new point of view that involves giving up a way of thinking that has become entrenched after 10, 20, 30 years? More? So the question becomes: what are you holding on to tht you have to give up in order to move forwaed?
I had a priest friend once say that a persons greatest contribution in life comes from where that person experienced the most pain. This tragic event has given you the power and insight to heal others. Go do it. Your son is watching over you and is beaming with pride.
I totally agree – our greatest contribution in life often comes from our deepest pain.
You are wise, strong, courageous, powerful, and you are going to help many people – whether it’s through formal counseling or a surprising conversation with someone who’s suffering as you have as you bump into her at the grocery story. I understand you are not accepting it, but you’re surrendered to it. I send you love and peace.
Excellent reply and information – thank you
Congratulations on gaining back you! I can relate to a lot of what you wrote, and I also agree with perhaps not being ‘grateful’ for the suffering but for gaining through its path – growing, learning, becoming a happier you and living a happier life! Congratulations on all that, and I wish for you much joy today and in the future.
Our increase in fear has little to do with terrorist acts but the way the news business operates. At least in the US. Americans are more likely to die from a lightning strike than a terror attack. Yet so many are terrified of something that is statistically less dangerous than taking a bath.