A friend in India asked a question this morning.  What is the difference between bad and evil?  So I took a stab at it.  I’m not entirely certain even what “good” means. If I looked up a dictionary definition, I’m pretty sure that bad would mean morally wrong, unsatisfactory, inadequate, inferior, of poor quality. Evil would mean profoundly immoral and malevolent. Which makes evil mean intensely bad, perhaps.

I get stuck in the weeds sometimes, though, when considering examples. Is murder wrong? Well, sometimes the deliberate killing of another with malice is the moral thing to do, such as in self-defense of the tribe, or in war for resources so you don’t all die. Even just killing isn’t wrong, because hunting, or because killing all the bad bacteria to save a life And that’s the thing with the examples, often the taking of one life is linked to the saving of more lives on the other side of the balance scale.

Which brings me to a question of why western morality is so intent on saving human lives. Is that always moral? Is it really morally our job to stuff as many humans as possible onto the planet at the expense of the biodiversity of non-human life? Is that really good? Isn’t death and destruction part of the cycle of life, and should be perpetrated and celebrated by humans from time to time to renew the tree of life/liberty/Yggdrasil?

Drinking poison is not always evil. Take chemo for example, or the various forms of illegal cancer cures like turpentine. Even self-destruction is not always evil. Some religious traditions love their self-flagellation. They love the self-imposed scars. Or they are Ahora and purify themselves with alcohol and fire and the skulls of the dead.

Instead, perhaps, not accepting that people must die, not allowing them to do so with reduced time and suffering, that is the evil thing. If I accept the premise that all life and all actions are sacred, because they’re all connected by the red threads in the tapestry of the universe, then I must also accept that all deaths and all destructions are also all sacred, even the suicidal ones. I don’t expect anybody to accept this with me. I am free to change my mind, should more information on the foundational structure of morality come along.

Most people I’ve met have a morality a lot like Daniel Quinn’s description in one of his Ishmael book series. There is the in-group, your own tribe of Bawks and Cawks and Dawks, which you are to keep alive at all costs, and the out-group, which it is preferable to stop from killing the in-group, which may mean killing them but not at the expense of your own deaths. Some people go further, and say that protecting your in-group extends to protecting your land-base from destruction. Most people don’t, because they are nomads and will move on to the next greener wateringhole they can find and take.

In the depths of myth, though, they’re aware of the ancient practices of human sacrifice to the gods for a good harvest. Unable to face death without fear, they scream “All Lives Matter!” and “All Lives are Sacred!” as loudly as possible, as if to drown out Kali, as if to drown out Moloch.

So, to answer the question, it depends on who decides what the definition of bad or evil is. Is it your tribe? Is it you? Is it “society”? Is it your government? Is it your church? There are splits and schisms all over the place on how people answer this one. Is it morally right to rape your wife if a child results? Can you see how different foundations of morality could make different cultures answer the question differently? The answer must be decentralized. It must be local. What is bad for me may not be bad for you. What is evil for me, may not be evil for you. Does that make us inherently unequal?

This week is a busy week, for a variety of reasons.  We had houseguests over the weekend, so there was extra cleaning and cooking involved.  The fish died.  It is the last week of public school for my three children.  I’ve got three doctor’s appointments.  There are band instruments to remember to take to school, meds to remember to pick up from the office on the last day of school, safe treats for the allergy kid to take to school, a recognition ceremony, swimming lessons, a field trip to plan for, soccer practice, and a meeting with the school principal, along with other longer term planning to do.

One of my kids is sick.  The best laid plans will always fail, one way or another.  Murphy’s Law states it best: anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.  Nassim Taleb agrees, and asks you to consider the risk of ruin.  What is the absolute worst thing that could go wrong?  This is actually an emotional centering type of activity, because, having thought of the worst possible thing, you aren’t completely blindsided by it when it occurs, and can roll with the punches that life inevitably throws at you.

If one of my children were to be expelled from public school, I could deal with that.  It wouldn’t be a bad thing.  No, it would be an opportunity.  If I find out that I need surgery, it isn’t the end of the world.  That’s an opportunity for my children to learn how to run the household.  Having accepted that bad things can happen, most of the time, they don’t.  Proper Prior Planning Prevents emotional meltdowns on my part.

A week like this requires a greater amount of meditation.  Here I am.  I am okay with whatever happens.  I am still here.  I will never be safe, this body is going to die.  Yet, I’m not dead yet.  I don’t control the world.  I don’t even control my own bodily functions all the time.  I don’t say, this wound will scar and this one won’t.  I don’t say, this muscle will tear and this one won’t when I crash my bicycle.  Yet, I do have enough control over my bodily actions to breathe, to relax when I can, to find some chance to laugh.  I do have enough control over my emotions to treat people with respect and dignity, to disobey them when necessary, to speak the litany against fear and manufacture rage when I must, and then look inward to see where my emotions have led.

Contrary to the public face I may present to the outside world, I suffer from fear, anger, despair, rage, love, joy, female PMS, a mother bear’s protective instinct, and all of the other intense emotions.  Yeah, emotions lead to suffering, but then, not having emotions is also suffering.  Life is suffering.  That’s where you are.  The question is, what will you do about it?  What makes the pain worth it?

There are a number of self-help authors out there, who try to get you to describe what your best self would look like 5 years from now.  The hope is that if you write it down on paper, you’re more likely to actually hold yourself accountable to that kind of goal.  A bit like how a sigil is supposedly going to work.  Some of them go further, though.  Some of them get the person to describe what horrible things will happen to them if they continue on down the road they are currently on.

What’s the worst that my bad habits can bring me?  Well, I’d be alone with no friends.  My family will be too busy to spend any time with me.  I would have no job, no career, no point, no joy in getting up each morning and knowing that what I was going to do that day would matter in the grand scheme of things, disconnected.  Okay.  So I’d be a hermit.  Great!  Then I could write books without getting interrupted all the time!  That doesn’t really sound all that bad.

No, that’s not hell.  Hell is other people.  Hell is working a pointless make-work job for a psychopathic boss who decides to mentally torment me by constantly belittling me, and making sure to point out every single mistake I’ve ever made, while never ever saying “good job” if I happen to get it right for once.  Hell is being made responsible for getting something done and not having the authority to get it done.  It is being overwhelmed by the sheer constant chatter of noise, making public speeches on a regular basis, being openly criticized for those same speeches on an even more regular basis, and having people be so busy attacking me that the entire enterprise falls apart for neglect.  Hell is being wrong, and knowing that I’m wrong, because the voices in my head are far crueler than those outside of it.

Well, that certainly explains why I avoid leading groups if at all possible.

What if I could change that?  What if I could change my own personal definition of hell?  What if I could be willing to face hell every day, for the bright and shining star of an idea?  I can face my fears, if I’m sufficiently motivated.  What would it take for me to be willing to be utterly wrong?  I think I know.

This week, I’ve been watching Jordan Peterson on youtube.  When I went to college and obtained my BS in Psychology (pun intended), his lectures were the ones I really wanted instead of the ones I got at my college.  One of the segments I watched is on how to pick friends.  Friends are the ones who actually listen to you when you’ve got bad news to tell them, without judgment.  Friends are the ones who celebrate with you when something incredible happens, instead of talking about something that happened to them 3 years ago, or otherwise downplaying the good thing.  The “friends” you don’t want are the negative ones.  They are the ones who are constantly miserable and constantly making you miserable when you’re around them.  Why would you choose to have a person like that in your life?

I thought to myself, I wonder what other fields of knowledge I can apply that concept of choosing not to be miserable in?  So, the first thing I do, is give it the acid test.  The best way to feel miserable I know of, is to believe in Near Term Human Extinction.  I mean, let’s face it.  If humans go extinct within the next 50-100 years due to extreme habitat loss (i.e. they starve or suffocate to death), there is not much meaningful progress that the human race as a whole could possibly achieve, much less you, you worthless eater and heat producing individual.

When you take people’s meaning away, they experience a large amount of existential angst, in general.  You have to understand, though, that not everybody derives their meaning from human progress.  In fact, a great chunk of people don’t.  If you’re a Christian who believes the rapture could happen any minute, and you’re still around and doing great stuff?  Your meaning comes from a different place than outcome based surroundings.  A lot of people with higher IQs than you have contemplated the meaning of life in the face of certain destruction for many tens of thousands of years.  Wouldn’t it be great if you could hear their thoughts on the matter?  Well, due to the internet being a bigger force multiplier on information exchange than Gutenberg’s press, you can!  You can read all kinds of old books online for free, or not for free, at any time or place that is wifi enabled.

So, here you are, facing certain doom (again).  Can you choose not to be miserable?  Well, yeah.  Tons of your ancestors, and tons of childless people managed to successfully do it in the past, so we know for certain that it can be done.  You know what?  You can do even better than choosing not to be miserable.  I mean, that’s a pretty low bar.  You can choose to be satisfied.  You can choose to be your best self.  It’s a bit of a cliché, but what else have you got control over?  Not the climate, that’s for sure.  You can’t even control your local politicians!  What makes you think you can control the vast majority of the politicians on the entire planet plus every single banker and transnational corporate CEO?  What are you, some kind of control freak?

Obviously, being a control freak was an adaptive response to something or other in nature, or we would not have so many of them around!  However, the point remains, that your locus of control remains in your self.  Then you think to yourself, gosh, I can’t even control myself.  Look at what I eat!  Look at what I weigh!  Look how much I don’t exercise and procrastinate from doing the things I need to do but don’t want to do!  What the heck does this have to do with climate change, anyway?  Ah, there you go again.  Being your best self isn’t about controlling the planet.  It never was.  It was always about choosing not to be miserable.

It’s hard not to be miserable sometimes.  If you’re a stay at home mom, nothing you do is ever acknowledged externally.  Nobody will tell you “good job!” and mean it, because you did the laundry, but didn’t manage to fold it yet, and you somehow managed to get everybody fed, but didn’t wash all the dishes yet.  If you are motivated by extrinsic motivations like people telling you that you did a good job?  Stay-at-home motherhood is going to be one very depressing experience for you.  So what are you going to do about it?

You’re going to decide that it is worth it.  Figure out what it is that motivates you.  Is it smiling children?  Well, that’s a problem then, because children don’t smile from approximately 9 years old until maybe 22 years old.  That’s still an extrinsic motivation, controlled by somebody other than you.  To illustrate better, intrinsic motivation is wanting to be honorable and productive, and extrinsic motivation is wanting to be seen as honorable and productive.  It is character versus reputation.

When you are intrinsically motivated, then you can face Near Term Human Extinction, just as your ancestors did, and choose to be your best self instead of collapsing in a puddle of existential despair because no progress will ever be made.  You can also face the sleepless nights and endless diapers of raising babies without collapsing in a puddle of existential despair because no progress in your friendships or career will ever be made.  What kind of person do you want to be?  Hardworking?  Smart?  Honorable?  Compassionate?  A lazy bum?  A genocidal politician?  You still have all of those options, and more!  Even if you, the individual, will die tomorrow, next decade, in thirty years, or whatever.  Everybody dies eventually.  Face that, and choose not to be miserable.