deviled Eggs In The Mindfulnest
good and Evil, cats and Dogs.
First of all, this are just my thoughts spewed out with thoroughly unstructured glee. I’ll be pleasantly surprised if I reach a conclusion.
I’ve been pondering on something since I saw a video by Savannah Brown (specifically, this one) and found myself both agreeing and disagreeing with one or two of the points she’d haphazardly thrown all over the table. I appreciate the candor with which she makes videos and honestly agree with her most of the time - but sometimes I also worry that she, and by extension some of us here, overthink for little more reason than because we see a door, we figure we should open it, not really caring if there might be a cliff on the other side.
She speaks of a ‘good‘ person for some part of it - or rather, our right to have a right to life. Is there anything we do that actually impacts others we know, while staying alive, while staying in our undeserved state of decadence? Can we, as people in the Western world who live with the comfort of ancient demigods, who have unrestricted access to vast, incorporeal libraries that stretch on for what must be miles of digital tomes, consider ourselves, any of us, as good people?
And does it… matter?
It’s honestly a big question. The worry so many people in my generation have (oh, don’t worry, this includes me) is about what impact we can leave on a hollow earth that seems just about ready to cast us off. People fear that there’s little point in working your 9-5’s and burning the midnight oil on whatever startup idea or novel plot or song lyrics you might have because at the end of die, we’re all going to drown or burn or both at once (holy shit I kinda wanna see a fire tsunami some day, wouldn’t that be neat…)
And others have a different, more benign fear: That they don’t deserve nice things. I’ll tackle this one because I think I actually have something to say. The other is an altogether different beast.
Look, I don’t know if anyone really ‘deserves’ anything. Human beings can see themselves as both divine children and concurrently as a blight on this earth if they really want, but the bigger question about what right we have to earth is the opposite question: What right don’t we have? Who actually scribbles out the rules of engagement with the universe? We were born into this world just the same as any fish or bird may have been. Nature is a dangerous place, and we have tamed most of it for our benefit because the alternative would have been to willingly allow ourselves to live and die in equal measure.
It isn’t right to hunt the seas and pull the skies down for our pleasure. But what is right? Right by whom? Right by what law, what order? Which god is coming down from the stars to bury their daggers in our gullets?
No, no. These gods are silent. Thinking about morality is hard. It makes you small.
Do you start wondering if any joy and kindness in your life is something you can own, or whether every feeling is fleeting? When good things happen in your life, do you think ah yes, the heavens dangle their treats down to me. Here is a good thing that has transpired, and as such, two more bad things will follow right on its heels. I don’t deserve to have a net positive experience in life - I am not fastest, nor smartest, nor most ambitious. I lack the perseverance of the greats, and as such, I am not deserving of true happiness.
I hate that. I revile the very notion.
You don’t owe the universe anything. It doesn’t owe you anything. That we are here is a cosmic joke, and that we persist in what we do is remarkable in itself. By situating ourselves somewhere on the road between good and evil, we do a disservice to ourselves.
What does it matter how moral or good you are in the grand scheme of things? So many of us worry about problems that are simply out of any reasonable level of control. If you start judging yourself against the scale of the universe, you’re just entering a losing game with no clear winner.
Yes, you could be better, you could be kinder, and you should persist and do your best to be the best you that you can be. But to flagellate yourself over your failings for no reason more than the fact that you feel like you’re beneath yourself is… well, it’s not worth much at all.
Relax. You’re doing what you can. And if you’re not, then burning yourself over it is only going to push you deeper into the pit of despair. Breath, and fix your posture because I’m sure you’re slouching a little. Take a sip of water and relax your shoulders. Stop staring at the screen too long and blink for gods sake.
You’re fine. And if you’re not fine, then you’re going to be fine. You’re not a bad person - at least, you’re not trying to be. Work to tame the demons within your reach and become better, grow stronger, kinder, but stop trying to measure yourself against the sands of time. Nothing good will come of it. The world is such a big, beautiful place, that to haunt yourself and worry about whether it deserves you is such a disservice to what you’re capable of.
You want to make an impact? You want to change something? Then fight. Stop thinking about what you could do and fight for what you believe in.
But… don’t overexert yourself. Stop worrying about whether you do or do not deserve something and instead become the kind of person you admire. Pain is fleeting, but the scars you tear into yourself are worse than any wounds the outside world might choose to inflict upon you. Keep your heart in your hands, and stop being so hard on yourself.
If nothing else, I believe in you.