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Youngest kid of six with an inferiority and black sheep complex, but determined that God saves not just his soul to heaven but the remainder of his manic-depressive life, so others won't say he became a Christian and remained a jerk.


MAIN THEMES

On identity
i won't be transparent before i'm opaque. and you'll get to know me starting from the small things: who my favourite bands are. what kind of movies i like. who are my heroes.

On Christianity
I’m convinced that when confronted with sincere, real love, the Jesus factor will become obvious. But let’s not plant the cross before we carry it. I’m not trying to con you.

On dreams
Some dreams are meant to be achieved. I know that. But maybe other dreams are meant to drive us, privately. Never known to anyone but ourselves.


OTHER THEMES

On melancholy
It is a sadness that, when choosing between crying and sighing, will choose sighing. I'd almost say that melancholy is being sad about sadness itself.

On memory and nostalgia
It saddens me when life moves forward and people decide that certain things are worth forgetting.

On language
I've learnt that the word irregardless is filed as a non-standard word in the English language. That's a lexicographer's way of saying it's not a real word.

On politics
Crowds are fickle things. So when we stand in the thousands and cry against the present government, do we know who we're actually crying for?

On society
People always want the best for themselves. But I want to sometimes take second or third or fourth best, just so that the loser down the road doesn't always have to come in last. It must feel like shit to always come in last.

On growing old
Leasehold property make me feel sad. It doesn't matter how old the family photos are that you put on your wall. It's your family but it's not really your wall.

On philosophy
I ask you, if God loves everyone, and if God is also incapable of loving evil, how can there be such a thing as an evil man?

On a daily basis
One line quips, like this.


CHAT





Friday, August 17, 2007
THE LIE OF GOOD AND EVIL

"It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious"
- Oscar Wilde.

There is no such thing as a good person or a bad person. yes, there are only people who are compliant or rebellious, easy or challenging, simple or complex, or in Wildean terms, charming or tedious. but there are no good or bad people.

some days, i wish this weren't so. if real life was like afternoon soap operas, the lines that separate good guys from bad guys would be clearly drawn, fat and thick. if i were a soap character, i'd know exactly who to trust and who was going to land me in a pile of horse mud by the end of each day's episode.

in film and writing school, they teach you that villains need to have redeeming qualities, and that heroes need to have flaws. that's supposed to be real. blur the lines between the wicked and the righteous and you have three-dimensional characters worth either killing off or giving the girl to (excuse the patriarchy). but even that fails to adequately tackle at least my reality.

because it's a lie.

there are no goods and bads when it comes to people. there is no such thing as an evil man. i ask you, if God loves everyone, and if God is also incapable of loving evil, how can there be such a thing as an evil man?

there are evil acts. maybe. maybe not just maybe, maybe yes. and righteous acts. maybe. you can do a good thing or a bad one. but to be bad. or good. that's just too much of a fullstop on one person's identity for my theology to hold. or i ask you: how much bad must a good man do before you call him a bad man? bob dylan asked that question before. there is no answer.

there's a chance that as life pans out, i'll be labelled a bad man by people. heck, i know i've been erroneously labeled a good boy before too. (what were they thinking?) but i know my only aid to brush aside labels like this is not by convincing myself that i am good, but by knowing that the greek dichotomy of soap operas and eastern yin yang of film school characterisation will forever be inadequate. we can brush aside labels only by knowing that the only label available to us all is not black or white but grey.

yes, that's it. no goods. no bads.

everybody grey.

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Genusfrog [ 1:42 pm ]

3 Comments:

  • A great teacher once said, "There is no good or bad but thinking makes it so." Kind of difficult to grasp, right? Our power of discrimination which God gave us enables us to know right from wrong, good from bad. Yes, if we take each human being to be a creator of God's, then it is not possible that God's creation can be bad. Therefore there cannot be a bad person. Only the actions are bad because God is not responsible for our actions. He had given us the power to think, so yes, when we do unwholesome deeds, they can be classified as bad - the deeds, not the person. The reverse is the same. We can call them good and bad traits in a person. The question is, which do we want to become? The choice is ours to make.

    By Blogger Jeanie, at 2:29 pm  

  • Correction - i meant to say "...if we take each human being to be a creation of God's..."

    By Blogger Jeanie, at 2:32 pm  

  • i love this post.

    By Blogger oomoo, at 4:10 am  

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