Walking With Leppers

Every day we encounter multiple instances when our ethics are put to a test. Whether it be kindness to the person driving ten miles under the speed limit in the fast lane, or not telling your boss they are full of shit, there is no shortage of circumstance in which we are given an option of treating a situation gracefully or errantly. Of the times we treat situations errantly, only a portion of those render negative consequences. Of the negative consequences, only a portion of those bring your character into question to others. If only a fraction of potential ethical missteps actually result in negative consequences, at what point in the process do we assume accountability? Where is the entry point of misconduct. Is it in thought, action, or consequence?

 When the word ‘sin’ is used, a majority of conversational avenues become closed. It is either because a) a person is committing a particular sin being referenced in said conversation and has no interest in admitting fault to their actions (when your Aunt says sex before marriage is sinful at a family reunion, but you and your girlfriend have three kids), or b) a person doesn’t believe in the verb ‘sin’ because he/she holds the belief that all actions are neutral, that there is no governing force of morality, and that all morality is simply a matter of perspective. If either of these are the case than there is no basis for making the proclamation that there is any such thing as an immoral act, therefore something as heinous as ‘sexual misconduct’ is only determined on a societal level and only wrong based on circumstance. While that may be true, and there is no scientific evidence to refute that claim, it leaves a major gap for excusing people for their shortcomings.

                While situational morality is something I don’t believe in, I also understand how easily it can be to find yourself determining how you feel about the actions of yourself or someone you admire based on your feelings of affection toward yourself or someone you admire. For example, when it comes out that a politician has been convicted of sexual misconduct, I find myself easily saying “throw them to the hounds”, but when someone I admire like Louis C.K. is exposed for behaving inappropriately toward women, I find myself looking for the easiest escape route, hoping to avoid making a moral judgement about his character. A frustrating example comes to mind when people who consider themselves politically left or right harshly criticize or attempt to downplay politicians who face allegations of misconduct (either sexual or other) as long as it is politically convenient at the time (cough cough Roy Moore/Bill Clinton).

                When you make a moral judgement as to the credibility of ones’ character based on instances of misconduct (sin) you are making what could be described as an evolutionary decision, based on its potential consequences to you or your family in its recurrence. In other words, if someone you know borrows money from you but fails to pay you back, you would be wise to no longer lend money to the individual. If you continued to do so, you would most certainly lose all your money, as the lack of remorse that individual had toward their neglect of repayment would provide them no ethical consequence for having never repaid their debts. In terms of survival only, it is never in our best interest to lend anyone money, or provide charity in any way. Scientifically, the only benefit to regarding sin as existent is in terms of its consequences on our survival. But if that’s the case, is there an evolutionary benefit to charity, grace, or forgiveness?

                The argument could be made that the dopamine release response to an act of charity is an evolutionary benefit. You could claim that the act of forgiveness relieves you of any negative and potentially harmful harbored feelings toward another, or that maintaining a relationship with someone who plays an important role in your well-being is worthwhile evolutionarily. But do either of these benefits outweigh the benefit of having never committed an act of charity? Scientifically, ethics are cold, brash, and baseless.

                The idea of ‘sin’ is simple, yet nowadays its nearly a sin just saying the word itself. It does, however, require that you view morality as something more than just determined by circumstance, and it also assumes that there is such a thing as free will. Of course our relation to sin as it aligns to religion is that it is the antithesis of Gods will and is a tool for Satan’s stranglehold on your spiritual well-being, but there is a more secularly digestible format in which to understand its significance— It is the idea that all animals on this planet commit acts of atrocity toward one another either reactionarily (emotionally) or instinctually in the name of survival—but humans are the only animals (that we can prove) have a recognition of these actions, their effect on others, the consequences they have on our own life, and an ability to make a conscious decision to deny these actions despite our emotions or instincts. (House pets, which humans trained, being the only exception.) At its core, the idea of sin is that we are given an opportunity to make a choice to do either right or wrong, and we choose to do wrong. We can make claims of other species' decision making based on ethics, but we cannot accurately determine whether it is based off of a moral code, or because it is evolutionarily advantageous. In the sense that there is provable, testable ethical decision making, we stand alone.

                While that isn’t so hard to understand (assuming you can first admit there is such a thing as right and wrong and that free will does indeed exist), the people who tend to use the term ‘sin’ in our society, most commonly, come across as judgmental, causing a reasonable defiance of their belief system and throwing out the simple idea that there is indeed a wrong way of dong things. There are many consequences on a societal level of dismissing the notion of sin—variations in a common right and wrong, denial of any right and wrong, lack of accountability for misconduct, etc. But what has caught my eye most recently is the magnification of sins committed by those whom we disagree with but disregarded when acted out by those who seemingly share rudimentary and convenient values with us. (politicians, actors, athletes. Friends, family, ourselves.)

                The flaw begins with the idea that it is our actions that define our character. That we can say one person is a “good” person because they have committed no obvious harmful actions, and another is “bad” because they have. You can never gain anything from judging a human or any other animal on this planet solely on their actions, nor would you be wise to be caught by surprise when a human or animal acts in a way that you deem immoral or unjust. While it may be evolutionarily beneficial to make a judgement as to potential action, there is no gain from judging their character wholly and independently based on actions. If you judge them only on past actions, you leave no room for the potential of reform. If a vicious wolf is kept in a cage and cannot bite you, does it cease to be vicious? If Hitler were to live a life of anti-Semitism, racism, and overall hatred, but were to have never stumbled upon the resources to act on his malice, would he then be a good man with incredible speech-making ability and leadership skills?

                No matter the nature of your upbringing, your career, your deicisions, or your actions, you are guaranteed to encounter thoughts and actions in yourself that you know are contrary to the well-being of your character. It is in our animalistic nature, even as children, to feel hatred, lust, jealousy, or malcontent. We feel this inevitably at some point within out lives. It is merely a matter of catching these inherent qualities as they occur, choosing not to act on them, and making an attempt to correct the soiled thought process that ushered their occurence before it becomes habitual. Worst case scenario, they continually occur and the inner-warfare of ethical thought continues with them. Best case scenario, they become secondary reactions This in itself is no grand statement or revelation in human psychology, but it does reveal a crucial point that is scientifically observable about sin.

                  Sin begins with thought. Bad actions are a product of bad thought. Good actions are not always a product of good thought, but rather a disregard for bad thought. It is an ugly reality, but it is a reality. The ability to do wrong dwells at the core of all of us as living creatures on this earth. The ability to recognize that, refuse to act on it, and work intently on redirecting and limiting those ill-thoughts is a beautiful opportunity that should not be taken for granted. And when it comes to making a judgement on another’s actions, recognizing their remorse, and eventually forgiving them for their actions, understanding the nature of sin within all of us (atheist, agnostic, religious, or whatever identity you lay claim to) makes for an easy point of reference. A point of reference necessary for understanding first the potential for sin in yourself, the potential for sin in others, and the ability to combat it and eventually conquer it.
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Half Empty

In 2003, the worldwide phenomenon of social media was brought to the light of public eye. After meddling with email, instant messaging boards, and the beginning stages of text messaging, society took a new leap (or some might say stumble) and a new tool of self-expression, Myspace, was created. A year later, Facebook lassoed our attention spans, and a year after that, Twitter. Eventually, a few years later, Instagram took hold, shortly followed by Snapchat.

While social media is most definitely a valuable tool to interact in many ways, it seems to unfortunately bring out, not only the worst in many of us, but also the most childish. It can often be used for pictures and quick statements. Initially, most of us were sold on the idea that it would be a 21^st century way of interacting with distant friends or relatives. Now somehow it mirrors a loneliness and lack of quality thought that I might have never known ran so rampantly within our peers. It serves as a panic room for our most exaggerated fears, a mediator for groups in disagreement to jab at one another, and it allows people who might never meet to provide either discouragement or affirmation of ideas. Within its first fifteen years of public access, it has become the center of many of our paradigms. A stop-gap for our own loneliness, lack of voice in social situations, and in many cases, a platform to illustrate our own mental misfiring’s publicly.

………….

When a bachelor cooks a meal he cooks for himself. When he shops he shops for one, and when he eats he gets his fill, assuming he has the time to finish his food. He may walk through the grocery store and find himself stricken by sadness at the family in the aisle beside him with the screaming children and the overburdened parents. Maybe the parents are well-off. They buy a mixture of healthy name brand foods and late-night junk food for the teenagers staying up late fiddling their fingers on an X-Box control pad—maybe they are pulling out the food stamps and divvying out calories evenly. Packages of block cheddar cheese, frozen apple juice, fat free milk, a tub of peanut butter, a couple cartons of eggs, and a box of Ramen Noodles might occupy the space around the child squatting in the grocery cart.

                The bachelor may find company with his friends. On a better night, he may find himself drunken on the dance floor with a girl he hardly knows who shares the same quiet yearning and emptiness as he. They may hope both of their negatives can converge to form a positive. They shuffle into a group of young people once regarded as “the future” of our species. Every adult had once warned them about the sharpness of a cold reality, which they now dull by gluttonous alcohol intake and slurred conversations about social justice and the nature of ethics. 

“Adulthood” used to have a grandiosity attached to it. It used to sparkle and glisten with the naivety and excitement only observed through the blissful eyes of the inexperienced. Like a Christmas present under a tree to a child, wrapped neatly are the contents of independence, freedom, and self-reliance. As a child you believe that once unpackaged it would most certainly be the key to a revelation of purpose and calling—right? Instead it was five days of hitting snooze on the alarm clock, sitting in traffic, getting stuck at the same intersections, cursing your career choice (or lack-of), all leading to a reward of mindless indulgences disguised as “youth”, which scientifically relate to an animalistic need for spreading your DNA in hopes to achieve some sort of physical immortality in the form of genetics.

Is this all?

The bachelor may never feel sadness when he sees the family beside him. He may only quickly glance over, only to continue his life the way it was as he entered the store. It is of course very likely he may go home, stare at his Facebook feed, engage in a dead-end debate with someone who disagrees on how we interpret the 2^nd amendment, and find himself in a technology fueled half sleep. It lasts seven hours, until the alarm breaks the slide show of random imagery telling stories of seemingly miscellaneous interactions and events that either happened, will happen, did not happen, or happened in a fashion entirely different than he had perceived in the time of its occurrence.

As the word “dream” drifts through his mind, his day dream ends, and his work continues. He sits in traffic on the way home and the dream lives on. It’s a dream of a new road, a new scene, a new city, a new apartment, a new girlfriend. Maybe a dream of the purity he once felt as a child staring at that present under the tree. It seems now as though when he had opened the seemingly innocent gift, the powers it granted him overtook him. His lack of preparation for the responsibility that comes with that big word “adulthood” seem to place him consistently behind the eight ball in his life, and what may now be “youth” and was once “childhood” will soon be “elderly” and eventually “deceased.”

Is this all?

If he were to have felt sadness while sitting in this grocery line it could have been either a sadness for the parents or an envy at their life. In all likelihood whichever it was, it was probably a little bit of both. He probably hasn’t the capacity of on-the-spot sensitivity to recognize what he feels. If he feels indifferent to his surroundings in the monotony of the moment, he suffers from the same ailment as if he were to feel sadness. Oddly enough, however, if he could suddenly uncover a hidden capability of reading another’s mind he might see that he is not alone in this ailment. What seems like jealousy, indifference, contentment, or sadness is actually rampant amongst the fellow shoppers. He might see that the family beside him is struggling financially, or maybe that they have so much money they’ve lost touch with necessity and recognition of each other. He might see that not only the father and mother feel this, but so do the children. He might turn and see that this is common with the customer in front of him, behind him, the one walking out the door, and even the cashier.

“Is this all?” They might all be asking. He might realize that it is not only he who desires more, but everyone he encounters.

The truth is none of us have ever or will meet someone who has it all figured out. The beauty of the human state is that we have such variety in temperament, feeling, personality, circumstance, and potential decisions. We are all within a spectrum of imagining and reimagining ourselves, how we view each-other, and how we view the world around us. We are in a constant state of coming and going, our society is evolving at a faster rate with each passing decade than it ever has prior, and every decision we make has deep implications for the future of us all and the generations to come.

Somehow we require so little of our interactions with each-other. For some reason far beyond my understanding, we have an entirely too low standard for those who’s views we align with our own. And for those whom we disagree, we meet on a hypothetical never-ending battlefield of social media and major networks. We gallop on the backs of bandwidth, wielding keyboards and shallow acronyms as our weapons of choice. But it is not our divisive opinions that are slaughtered in the process, instead it is our wit, integrity, and our responsibility as adults to lead our brothers and sisters of the human race, as well as the generations of keyboard wielding warriors to come.

Most importantly, however, we have very little requirements in the extent to which we achieve our max capacity as highly intelligent and capable beings on an individual level. We instead stoop our intellect to a level just above Chimpanzee. We exist just enough to pay the bills or buy into (or simply purchase) an excess of attractively packaged mindlessness that contributes nothing to either our evolutionary or spiritual character. Our society, science, and technology moves at such a pace that it could develop an ability to harness its own intelligence before we ever give ourselves the chance to recognize the potential of our own. Many of us have no intent to provide any contributions to our own well-being, let alone our families’, fellow countrymen’s, our species’, or planets. We dwell within our own contentment, malcontent, or envy so deeply that our thoughts and actions are immovably shallow.

This is not all.

It is not some peculiar and unfamiliar challenge we face. It is a problem of having a glass capable of holding eight ounces of water that is rarely filled past four ounces. It is not a problem of capacity, it is a problem of substance. Many of us have no problem talking, though nearly all of us portray ourselves as disinterested in consciously listening. It seems we poor the glass out before we can fill it up. While it could be simply labeled as a lack of thought put into individual actions, it is more a lack of quality thought, which is not insurmountable. We all desire more from ourselves, whether we recognize it or not. When we do not strive to grasp the reigns of our own pursuit, we find ourselves offering our inadequacies as reflections of ourselves in interaction.

Often, I thought this was solely a product of poor parenting. It is not. I could claim it is a lack of education, but I would still likely be wrong. And while those are most definitely contributing factors, improvements in those avenues and others like them only assist in preparation for the contents of the neatly wrapped gifts of “adulthood”. Adulthood is an achievement, much like old age. independence, freedom, and self-reliance are absolutely something to be excited about within your adolescence. But they are in themselves gifts earned through experiences who wield power, requiring responsibility, accountability, rational thinking, humility, and truth. Without these accompanying traits we are all bound to the slavery of our own pathl

essness and insufficiency.

When we get to the point of being an adult, we must require a base level of attentiveness and self-awareness from ourselves and each-other. After all, as a child, you aspire to have those characteristics in your back pocket as an adult. We are not victims of social media. It is not the inventions fault that we are disinterested in interacting with each other in an adultlike and responsible manner. Every one of us is capable of contributing more to the pot of human interaction than we put forth, and it is the pursuit of fulfilling those capabilities that will drive us away from the strife and divisiveness we encounter on these platforms. The gaps in our own mental, physical, and spiritual development are waiting to be filled by our desire to listen, learn, and grow—not to be exemplified by hatred and discouragement towards our brothers and sisters. We are capable of more. We are called for more.

We use the word “dream” to describe aspirations, but our aspirations for our own lives are far from measly dreams. They are not abstract and filled with miscellaneous content outside of our ability to guide. They are not theoretical and frail, able to be crumbled by circumstance or obstacles. They are attainable, they exist in all of us, and it is one of the great and exciting opportunities of life that we be granted the “gift” of pursuit. Find your capacity and exceed it. Fill your cup. It deserves all eight ounces of your being, not four. You aren’t chained to your job, you aren’t chained to your apartment, and the life you live now can ALWAYS be enhanced. As long as you are alive you can dream. As long as you can dream you can achieve.