Goodness.......

Hello amigos!

It's the "blue moon" back again after another longish Arctic summer day! After 3 years, I am reliving the experience of spending Durga Puja away from my family or close friends, because of some last-minute change in plan for a deferred vacation. This seemed to me to be an opportune moment to resume that which I enjoy doing, but also struggle to do more often...as it is not an easy escape for me to get into the mental frame for it frequently! But, I am not here to complain or opine - in fact, I AM enjoying this time alone much more than I thought I would 2 weeks back....and this 1:30 am blog will break my singular monotony with some recent things in the news that baffled and intrigued me so much, that I almost remembered the feeling of childhood....that same feeling of coupled bafflement and intrigue I still vividly remember I used to feel with every new learning at that tender age...prior to the actual understanding of such things much later! So friends, this is my effort to understand the recent headline-hogging issue of all issues - no you didn't guess it right this time - it's not Corruption, but the very antagonist of it - I call it "goodness"!

"Goodness" does not seem like a very intellectually nuanced word to use, but isn't it a very simple, subtle and yet powerful message to begin such a discussion from? It is that something every human being is born with, his/her genes programmed with, him/her having the capability to express or live by in this world. Agreed, it is a theoretical absolutism not practically encountered....but to understand and appreciate complex questions such as "why is a human being corrupt/greedy/violent"?, we might as well start from this nonchalant truism, and then work through the process of its degradation through earthly life.

Let's try it. A child is born - he is "good" in the truest sense of the word. He is innocent, curious, fragile and yet "good"! As he grows up, he learns, imbibes his learning, thinks and finally interprets the information - and this process is repeated for billions of such "learning"s. All this happens via a combination of his innate curiosity, the vast unknown he encounters in daily existence and within the social structure of human civilization. He is also fragile and innocent to start with, but gets progressively stronger and more mature with age and experience. So what happens to "goodness" in the mean time? To me, "goodness" is perhaps the one thing within us that starts to age the earliest, starting from the very day we start employing our cognitive senses for the first time! I also think "Goodness" ages faster than anything else within us...our bones, muscle, organs and even neurons! I feel this "goodness" (you may substitute with "conscience" or "inner voice" or even "God"), from that 0th birthday onwards, fights a long and hard battle with our other "X-ness"s for a viable existence within us.......very similar to the competition in the natural world!

As we grow with age and experience, our "goodness" gets compressed more and more within us by the now ever-increasing forces of learning, possession and maturity. Now these aspects, some may argue, do not necessarily compete for that same space in the human mind that "goodness" also occupies. Others may say that the mind expands, hence allowing for such extra non-innate aspects to take shape beside the inborn "goodness" as we grow up. But let's think for a moment. Have we really come across another human being in our lives who had absolute "goodness" in him/her? I know, care for and love many human beings in my life....but I would never spell out that I, or any other person, is completely free from the aberrations on "goodness" that growing up brings about! Do you know anyone who is as "good" at 10 or 30 or 70 years old as ANY new-born baby?

Now let's rethink this logically once more....if EVERY baby is born essentially "good" and NONE of them later on is able to retain that pure "goodness" in him/her through worldly life, can we still say that growing up has NOTHING to do with "losing or eroding of goodness"? Can anyone still argue for or believe in that one perfect form of growing up, wherein the "goodness" would be preserved....even when not a single person in this world is really as perfect or "good" in its truest sense as he/she was as a new-born? So now, this would then mean that we are ALL "not good" to some degree...in our own little way....and when none of us is clean, definitions/judgments of "corruption", "violence", "deceit" and "falsity" are ONLY relative at best, and convenient at worst!

If it is man who has defined relative boundaries of acceptable behavior, acceptable selfishness, acceptable ego, acceptable rudeness, acceptable dishonesty....based on popular or arbitrary vote.....and these ever-fluous opinions vary from one society to another....from one civilization to another.....from an election to the next....from one religion to another....between countries........which definition / opinion / vote is right? How can there be multiple definitions of morality for different grown-ups, when babies of all sex, color, country and race were indeed "good" - the same "good" to start their life journey? Suddenly, all our ideal-sounding debates and finger-pointing at each other over corruption and violence dim into the relative gloom of misplaced self-righteousness! How tragic to realize that all of us (from a saint to a death-row convict) were "good" once.....the same "good"....at birth?!

I wrap up with some verse ---

With every breath I take I fall a little ....
With every fall I have I grow a little ....
With every bit I grow I free a little ....
With every freedom I value I hope a little ....
With every hope I have I live a little ....
With every step of life I dream a little ....
A dream to be "good" once again ....

- Shammodip Roy