Good And Evil

    To endow the forces of the Universe with personality is a singularly human trait.  But even without humans, creation and destruction would continue.  Destruction is a simple changing of what is—into an opportunity for what will be—new Creation. The span of time in which one gauges the result affects the perception of the value we give the change.
    The human species is endowed with the greatest responsibility for our world simply because as a species, we may have the greatest capacity to change and affect it.  But the outcome of this affectation cannot be viewed in terms of good or evil.  Good and evil are the twins of man’s desire and personality.  They spawn from the sisters of selfishness and selflessness.
     Most creatures of the world—even the wind, waters, and rocks—are endowed with spirits of singular purpose.  Though their actions, or inactions, may affect the other inhabitants of this world, it may not be a part of their perception to recognize that singularity.  Humans have been endowed with that ability.  We are allowed the privilege of comprehending and evaluating the effects our actions upon our environment and fellow beings. In the actions of man, we have come to evaluate these forces as the result of good or evil—a Mesopotamian philosophy that dominates our time.  
    But what is evil but the imbalance of selfishness over selflessness, a dedication to action for a singular purpose rather than integration within the whole?  Selfishness is simply the cosmic perception of the Universe revolving around, and serving the interests, of one.  Selflessness is the perception of the whole and our perfect place within it.  While the utopian concept of all humans recognizing and adhering to the perception of the whole may be a wonderful dream, our experience walking upright on this planet would seem to teach us that many humans, including ourselves, seem to be missing the ability to hold onto a continual consciousness that lends one’s perceptions to the selfless ideal.  
    Perhaps due to the reality of mortality, we choose, or are born to, a bouncing back and forth between the singular perspective and an integration and balance in the whole.  We are driven, like the volcano, to affect—sometimes in the most violent way--the environment and lives of those around us.   We perch on the precipice—unable to step backward from our tendencies to violence, unwilling to give up our hatreds and prejudices, unable to learn from our histories.
    Whether or not we have the capacity as a species to evolve beyond the singular into the selfless is a dream yet to be realized.  For those of us who must, from conscience or upbringing, attempt the balance of the two, it seems that to reach that point we must come to an inevitable acceptance of the nature of creation and destruction, and of our own mortality.  
    The insistence of identifying and labeling our relatives as good or evil, of vilifying one and exalting another, seems more in alignment with the perception of selfishness.  We do it to align ourselves with one force or another for our own singular purposes, because to pit us against one another, for any reason, is the antithesis of selflessness.  Violence cannot achieve a lasting peace because violence is the blood relative of revenge and retribution, which demand that, at some time in the future, violence be re-created.  
    To take a longer view, and recognize the forces of destruction as forces that cannot be eliminated without the sacrifice of Creation—we come to an understanding that forcing the change of nature can only be temporary. Similarly, the pretension that we can acerbate the change of the nature of our species by violence, by force, or by words—is fanciful.   
    Realistically, it is not a decision that can be made by the conscious effort of humanity.  Among the ancient tribal peoples, praised for their good use and care of their natural resources and their social commitments, the languages carried no concept of their achievements.  There were no discussions, no conceptualizations about reality—there was only the daily minute-by-minute acceptance of the sacred in life and an acknowledgement of gratitude for recognition of each spirit their intimate contact with nature perceived.  
    Future evolutions of the nature of humanity will either happen or they won’t.  Ultimately, for them to happen, the nature of the universe must change.  We evaluate the actions of men through a linear timeline, splicing in our prejudiced or pre-conceived judgements here and there—that was good, that was evil—without realizing that the timeline of reality does not stop with the seeming end of each action but moves forward in reaction to it.
    Consequence evolves as surely as time.  To reach the ultimate evaluation of all these singular events one will need to be present at the ending—if there is one—of the Universe.  
    As human beings, mere specks in the dust storm of the cosmos, we should keep our ignorance of outcomes in mind, and live our lives within the boundaries of our personal perceptions—acting as we must, withholding the temptation to sit in judgement, attempting a daily balance of selfishness with selflessness, evaluating what we think we know solely from our own experience—in an attempt to finish this short and precious journey with gratitude, and without too much regret.