Good and Bad

This post is an afterthought to my previous post about animal cloning. It took me a while to dig out the excerpt below from an online forum  I participated a few years back. To my surprise the forum is still online but no longer active and my posts are still intact ! I’m disappointed I could no longer recall the article where I took the excerpt from hence I am unable to make reference to the author. The PC I used to browse many years ago at this forum is now a dinosaur sitting is in my garage – hard disk erased, waiting to be disposed.

 

quote

“Creative response to challenges is good; evil is stagnation. Unlimited power or unlimited knowledge is not good. If perfection were obtained, it would be boring. Only where there are limitations and challenges is there a game. Things that seem evil, such as dark ages and barbarism, often clear the way for a greater good. What appears to be progress, such as technological growth and natural science, often destroy things more valuable than itself. Good and evil are real enough from one point of view, but from a higher point of view, it takes both together to produce growth. Good may be bad if it leads to stagnation. Destruction can be as creative as construction. Graceful acceptance or retreat is often more creative than strength, initiative and bravery. Forgetting can be as useful as learning. Life is beautiful, in its evil and terrifying aspects as well as its good and gentle. Indeed, one requires the other to complete it. Stagnation is the only ultimate evil, and because of the devil in mankind, stagnation is always temporary. ”

unquote

People would not hesitate to speculate that the above article must come from a pure materialist’s point of view for they will ask the question  – “where is God in  this ? ”. Whereupon someone will likely answer “ God made the world this way in the first place “.

The quote “change is inevitable; growth is a choice “rings aloud when I read the above excerpt because permanency seems to be an illusion, that whether we like it or not, things will have to change.  We resist change because we dread the loss of our comfort, our loved ones, our wealth. We insulate our children from the world for fear that they will be harmed , totally ignorant of the truth that they need to see and experience the faces of good and evil, of success and failure to be able to be enlightened , grow and survive in this enigmatic world of ours. The irony is that the most painful changes we go through in life are the ones that make us stronger, like a resilient and fearless battle tested warrior wading through the dangerous battlefield of life with confidence and indefatigable drive.

The seemingly chaotic and random behavior of natural events and processes in this world affirms that nothing can be permanent.  Change can also manifest itself in self-destruction or eventual decay,  which is an intrinsic attribute of every life form in this planet.  The inevitability of the destruction of the human body is real and our fear of such eventuality is paramount. Like shipwrecked bodies floating in wooden rafts  being tossed around by the giant waves  we plead to God to spare us from drowning but we know we ultimately will.

The inevitability of our mortality is real but it doesn’t mean that life is a terrifying journey. It won’t be unless you want to make it one. As one saying goes , “the problem isn’t adding years to your life but life to your years.”  As paradoxical as life is, there is beauty and happiness waiting to be experienced. At some point in time we give up trying to understand why we are here. We even talk of eternity and infinity when we can’t really comprehend them.  But that’s alright because as they say, knowledge requires proof, faith doesn’t.  A certain level of spirituality, not necessarily religiosity, is essential to achieve that much needed sense of enlightenment and the acceptance that we must be here for a reason and even if we aren’t, we would want to make our journey a pleasant one.