Beyond Evil and Good — My Morning Rant.
Oscar Wilde once said, “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are staring at the stars.” We have made a mess of ourselves with a soul-stealing, self-focused, pseudo-morality that looks like it makes us better and purer but which, upon reflection, is a death to our personal and collective humanity. We are persons. We are all made with God’s dignity. We are each created with the dust of distant stars. The distressed addict in the street has about them the grandeur of heaven.
To find our humanity again, to rescue it from the pseudo-morality of the corporate, litmus-test, socially repressive world of so-called “best practices” and social shaming, we must stop thinking about good people or bad people. There are only people—people who make choices.
Not all choices are equal. Some choices are made willingly. Some choices are forced upon us by others, by life, or by situations beyond our control or wisdom. But no matter what has been done, all we will ever be are people. And no matter what we have done, great or ignoble, all we will ever be are human beings.
When you are cheered by others, you are a person. When the mob jeers you, you are a person. All of us are now and always merely people. Once we realize that the best person can fail and the worst can find it in themselves to love, care, and strive for goodness, we can learn to accept ourselves and teach each other kindness. Maybe we can beat our swords into plowshares and find a new way of living — an ethic of compassion and care. Being human and accepting humanity gives us a ladder to a better world.
Our humanity has been formed in us by other beautifully flawed and broken human beings. We carry them in our souls. We may have lost many of them in real life through death or distance, but we still hold them within us. They are there in our taste of literature, champagne, and knowing the difference between tea and “high” tea. They are with us when we hear a song and in certain smells. They are part of the tapestry and poetry of our life. We should regret nothing for knowing them and treasure what they have added to us. Despite their humanity, we are who we are because of them — divine stardust.
If we are to be angry, let us be angry at the foolishness of the morality that deposes this humanity in us. That keeps us from finding the beauty of our life while we have it. Let the rage against that foolishness win. Find a wave of bitter anger inside yourself at the frailty of love, the foolishness of faith, and the delusion of hope inside this society’s caged, boxed morality. But let that faith, hope, and love, burn within you like the kiss of Jesus on the lips of Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor. Get caught in the undertow of a good hope, pulled against your will into the painful childbirth of a better world. Let the old world die within you so that it can die outside you.
Shout from that undertow that you are unwilling to be a paint-by-numbers artist because you have seen the stars, the beauty of the leaves of grass, and felt the freedom of the wind. Those things cannot be duplicated in the spreadsheets and business plans your fellows call art. Be a human, accept your humanity, love each other, and let a new world of strength and kindness be born in you.
