The Zeitgeist

I bought an English newspaper today, which I rarely do, just to catch up with the world, hoping that somewhere along the war between countries, econonic crises, deaths, hungers, sickness and the poor that needs support are good news that is worth reading.
I scanned the pages and read that Egypt and Israel are still under a sour note; Obama asking his contituents to set aside politics and aim for more jobs in America or there will be another major economic downfall coming; women in the Saudi Arabia are vigilant and consistent in fighting for their rights to be experts behind the wheel; continuous war in Syria is killing and harming more innocent people each day; India's use of gold are losing its potential in the the local market due to high price; Oil prices are not going down; Paris Hilton came to the Philippines; etcetera, etcetera...call me sarcastic but I have not read any good news from the paper I just read. It made me wonder how terrible it must be the world we are living right now. All we do is complain, argue, fight and rage war against one another. It is also sad to think that IF the Mayan people's prediction that the world may end in Dec 2012, what legacy will the human race leave about the planet earth? I believe all mankind sleeps at night with only one prayer and hope, and it's for world peace. That we will wake up in the bright morning sun with promise and safety, that the rest of the day would turn out alright. We all like that, but that "like" is not that powerful enough to send strong vibrations around the globe in order to mobilize each one to work for peace.
Alas, my wishful thinking got hold of me, reality check, the zeitgeist (spirit of the times) is about pride, who is the better nation, who is the strongest, the most advanced and the most intelligent. Yeah, right, look what happened to Japan a few months ago!
I believe that even nature fights back over our shortcomings and abuse of it, and we pay hard.
But how can we change the world? A famous person once said that "everybody wants to change the world, but nobody thought of changing oneself first." Its been said and written many times that it has to start from within, we are created with the power to change everything around us if we start from the very source of it, ourselves, and then maybe, world peace.
To end, allow me to apologize for I made a mistake in claiming that I did not find anything good in the newspaper I bought for a cost of two non-fat yoghurt for my smoothie, I did, and it looks good under the gas range I have in my kitchen, to catch drippings from the food I prepare.

Is Being Good, Bad?

What does it mean to be "good?" Since time immemorial, we are told to be good, and being good sometimes is bad, there were those who were good enough to be called saints only to suffer from the very people they showed their goodness.

We are taught to love one another, but this "love" is more often taken out of context and so sensationalized that the purity of the word get lost in, shall I say definition.

There are many good people around the world but their voices is so small that most often than not they are not heard. People try to reach out, to touch other lives just to make it a little bit better, only to be reciprocated with violence.

Does being good leads to these things really? If so, then it is not good to be good, ain't it?

But why does goodness keep on echoing through time? It keeps on going and keeps on fighting to be alive and strong. Why?

Because after all these pain and suffering, being good is all worth it. It doesn't matter realy how ridiculed one gets from doing something out of the ordinary to make someone's life better, or one's life the least. No matter how strong is the will to do what is harmful, there is always that tiny glint of light deep in the darkest caverns of the heart called goodness, that will always be there to remind us that even the Son of God, amidst all the evils in the world, still chose to be a part of it, live it, and have a taste of it, by laying His life into the hands of the very people He showed goodness with.

One has to try, for it doesn't matter either how many times one gets to commit mistakes as everyone does, but one good deed is enough to start a chain of another good deed. I am one of those who do try, and I must admit, I have more failures that victories, but who's counting? I least I do try.

Good, Evil and Man

I just finished reading a book called The Devil And Miss Prym by one of my favorite author, Paulo Coelho. The story revolves around a very interesting question in which at the end the answer was quite surprising.

The question is COULD YOU BE TEMPTED INTO EVIL? The answer seemed to be so easy, and I believe your answer would be YES.
Since time immemorial, when the serpent tempted Eve to taste the forbidden fruit,which history tells us an apple (which is so available today that the old adage "an apple a day keeps the doctor away" sounds scary!), anyway, since Eve took a bite of the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, we can be easily persuaded to commit and do evil at a quick snap of a finger. It is so easy, men are so naive and gullible that the mere offer of wealth, fame and power overthrows their sense of divinity and compassion that pride, greed and envy comes and rules hearts and minds to a point men don't even think twice on deciding whether what they're doing will eventually lead them to despair.

Evil has many faces, but only one heart, which is despair. An evil person will succumb to despair when there is no more guilt left in his soul. He is like a rogue wolf running wild in the forest, will kill and devour any living thing that might cross his path without mercy.

The story is simple, a stranger with a sack of gold bars looking for salvation by offering his wealth to anyone who could commit the ultimate evil, a young and beautiful woman who longs to be free from cowardice and do whatever she wanted to do but keep putting it off for fear of failure, a tiny village where people are simple and onto one another, and an offer that even a priest would not resist, and all these characters will be put to the test, their faith and their goodness will be shaken and stirred (sounds like a drink?) to the brink of falling in the snares of temptation and evil.

They say each person has a guardian angel, and when there's an angel, of course there's the devil. We are told that angels reside on the right side of our personality and the devil on the left. They are in a constant battle as to whom will rule the mind and the heart of the person, the heart will be the battlefield and the mind is the vessel to which the idea would grow and will lead to action. Eventually one would rule over the other and whoever is victorius will merit the right to control the persons actions from the words the person would say to how the person would execute an act. In the story the two leads the Stranger and the Young Woman both have unseen devils and angels that argues and debates to which one of them would be heard and heeded by.

Confronted by temptation, men will always fall. "Given the right circumstances, every human being on this earth would be willing to commit evil," as the line goes from the book.

But no matter how far deep we fall into doing things that are bad, we are still, God's likeness and therefore I believe there will always be that spark of good in each and every one of us. Thus, the story is interestingly enough a good read, for I myself had questioned my own personal being, you see, whenever I am about to commit something that I know is bad, I would almost always think of choosing the "lesser evil" to which I justify everything. I keep believing that doing bad things "lightly" will spare me from guilt, but it did not, my conscience always reminds me that choosing to do evil, regardless, still is evil and there are consequences. More often evil presents itself as something that is logical, true, acknowledging, practical and safe, it cannot bring me peace.

Doing good, even in the smallest way, but done with heart and sincerity brings joy that is indescribable and real. In the end, the story tells me that in the midst of darkness the tiniest spark from even a lighted match can overcome that darkness. That deep inside every human being is the power to be good if we only choose to be.