Good vs Evil

The battle of good against evil is thousands of years old. But what exactly is evil?

 

A couple of years ago, I was reading this book by David Farland.  Off the top of my head I do not remember which, but it was one of the books in his Runelords series.  And the question of good vs evil came up. One of the characters had a definition for evil. I am describing what I remember of what he said.

 

He said imagine a circle that includes all of your possessions and ideals and  thoughts. Now imagine that circle being inside a larger circle which is all of the possessions and ideals and thoughts of your family. And now imagine one more circle outside of that one which includes all of the possessions, ideals and thoughts of your community.

 

As you go through your life each of those circles should continue to grow. Things that contribute to that growth are good. Things that take away from or injure the occupants of those circles are evil.

To be honest, I really like the imagery involved in that. It’s very simple, cut and dried. A rival tribe comes into your community rapes, loots, plunders and murders your people. They are evil right? Against blatantly obvious examples, it allows you to feel justified in believing this system.It sounds good on the surface. But it’s really too simplistic.

What is good? What is evil. Click here to find out.

Somewhat of a repeat

In the process of doing some reading, designed to help with my goal of self improvement, I was asked to do an exercise that involves some self reflection. I decided to post the parts that I was writing down here, so that I can come back to them later. Some of the information I already shared here in the A bit about me post.

 

First I was asked to describe my five best qualities. This was pretty easy as I have a good opinion of myself and am not constantly struggling to come up with just one nice thing to say about me. I am honest, intelligent, loyal, hard working and observant.

 

The next one was a little harder though. I was asked to name ten positive things that I have done in the past year. Let’s see. I have reduced our household’s monthly bills by about $200 by making different choices with our air conditioner usage and internet provider. About a month ago I started a blog(this one). Recently, I have committed to(and have been) spending more time on self

improvement. Just a week ago I acquired completionist in DDO, which is something that I had been working on for about 2 years. In the last several months I have read several new books, some fantasy fiction and some on self empowerment. I have watched many of the movies on my to see list. Last week I helped some friends resolve an issue that has been plaguing their relationship for over a year. I have provided feedback and advice for someone close to me that is going through some of her own self improvement steps. Spent time playing with my son, probably the one thing on this list I have enjoyed the most.  And last but not least I encouraged a friend to get off his ass and stop procrastinating about going to vocational school.

 

More on the most fascinating subject in my world by clicking here

Commitment pt3

So we are talking about commitments and how people use the way you handle your commitments to determine their judgement of you and your overall value to them. It seems logical then, that we discuss what the most likely possibilities for how you can handle your commitments.

 

The first thing that comes to mind is that you can commit to whatever anyone asks you to do, even if you have no intention of actually doing it. This is one of the worst possible ways of handling things. It doesn’t start out seeming that way though. In the beginning people will think you are awesome because you agree to all kinds of different things that need doing. And they “say man won’t it be awesome to have all these things done! ”  But, then as time passes and people see that your words and your deeds do not meet up, they may start to get angry that you don’t do the things that you say you will. Worse yet, if you are consciously, making agreements that you have no intention of keeping you are lying directly to the people that you are making those agreements with. Isn’t lying intentionally telling someone something that you know is not true? So this option makes you an unreliable liar.

 

Then there is the absolute opposite end of the spectrum. You do not want to make commitments that you are not going to keep, so you decide not to make any commitments at all. And at first, this seems like it might be a good idea. I mean at the very least you are not lying about what you are going to do. You just aren’t declaring anything.  The problem here is that no one can count on you for anything at all. You might be on time, you might not, if you bother to even show up. You might pay your bills, you might not. You might shop, read a new book or watch the neighbor’s kids, or you might not. Nobody has any way of knowing what you will or will not do. So you aren’t a liar, but you are still unreliable and can’t be trusted to do anything without supervision.

More on how we handle commitments here