Not good enough

Edmund Burke said- "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is that the good do nothing."

I think this pithy dictum should be emblazoned on every flag, on the currency of every free country. But I do not even see it on t-shirts! It is a sad statement on how we think.

Have you noticed how the most self-righteous people are those who do nothing good? I do not mean that they commit crimes, or even that they get in someone's way. They just do nothing! The justification for their inaction is that they are not being bad.

However, simply not being bad does not make a person good. It is one of those unchanging laws of nature. To be good, one has to do good. Period. Sitting smugly on the sidelines of life, and patting ourselves on the back because we are not adding to the evil in the unfolding drama is just not right. More pertinently, our very lack of involvement is engendering the very injustices we repudiate.

I was watching a programme on Science channel and I was fascinated by what they said about conditions on other solar planets. If we were on a planet with no atmosphere, it would be as if we were breathing in poison. There not being any breathable air has exactly the same effect as there being poisonous air. We do not have to defile the air; just removing the oxygen is enough to kill. When there is no pressure in the air, our blood would boil as if it was being heated. A very high temperature can do that certainly, but it is the same if we just remove the pressure that is required for survival! Just a simple dearth of the required beneficial things is more deleterious than we can comprehend.

One cannot set up a community of nice people with nice building and lovely parks and expect the status quo to be maintained forever. All entities, physical or biological, must obey the laws of physics. To keep things in place, constant input of work is required. So also in the more crucial world of emotions. You need to keep feeding positive energy for anything to remain wholesome. Brain, soul, imagination, intellect- every human component needs to be nourished to bloom in its most marvelous manifestation. And the essential pabulum is basic good, honest virtue.

If we are not moving ahead, we are definitely not progressing. But stagnation is not only 'staying put', it itself is a regression. Just as knowledge feeds on itself to grow, so does good. Stopping learning is like walking backward. And not actively making the effort to help, to assuage, to comfort, hinders a furthering of civilization. And if civilization is not being furthered, it deteriorates. Entire civilizations have disappeared because powerful rulers have rested on their laurels.The physical body dies without nutritious food. The spirit dies without hope and love. The mind rots without constant use and learning. Society will collapse if it is not continually furnished with selfless acts of kindness and charity. All of us- the good and kind, the open minded and responsible, all we need to do to let the vile and corrupt take control of our world is, well, just nothing.

Fulfillment

One of my very dear friends put up a quote on her Facebook about a woman's fulfillment being dependent between a man and a career.

It got me thinking about fulfillment. So what would constitute contentment? A person is spirit and body together. For any form of satisfaction of the human psyche the body demands its nourishment, but it is the pabulum for the soul that is crucial.

Mental stimulation is fundamental for meaningful existence, whether you are fond of intellectual pursuits or not. It maybe gossip or fashion at its very banal, or philosophy when you prefer it to be more intense. It may even be the cartoon you like to watch and laugh at. Or it may be the stars and the universe you like to study. In any articulation, the mind needs to speak; even more so for a woman's mind.

You may be the CEO of a very successful company and have an adoring husband who looks like George Clooney, but if none of your psychological faculties are being engaged, your life is empty.

Also of equal importance is emotional satisfaction. And it does not stop with the man in your life. The plethora of emotions a person has need to be exhibited and expressed - laughter, empathy, grief, joy- and not in one simple, standard form, but in varying degrees, encompassing an arc across the human consciousness. One relationship cannot satisfy this range. So we need friends and family, co-workers and neighbours.

I would not want my life to be defined in any way by anything external to me- not a career, not a man. My life is definitely, infinitely, more. My sense of being has a little to do with the people in my life, and little to do with my work- but only a little. I am identified by how I act, what I hold dear, and what I believe. My family is a big chunk of who I am, my writing is a big part me, my mediocre career has its portion too; but it is certainly not all that there is. I find it gratifying that my life is so much more than any one (or two) things. The resulting total of everything is a unique amalgam that is much more than the sum of the parts itself.

It may be the world around us that makes us. But it is after all, the world within us that defines us.