The Importance of Being Good

It's a rather hackneyed point that we should be good. Its a rather uncool point that we should be good.

You don't see gangsters or many of the heroes in films actually being that good.

The value of being good is also dressed in much mediaeval mythology about punishment in hells, or bad karma and general suffering one way or another being the cost of sin.

But the fundamental truth is that the cost of not being good is actually personal suffering. This is the definition of what is bad: that which causes personal suffering. How foolish all the "cool" gangsters seem down the track when their lives are full of suffering.

When we are suffering however being good seems impossible. It is painful and hard to correct ourselves and even peace seems like a suffering as it only exposes the extent of our pain and suffering. It is easier to be bad, to heap on the suffering in an attempt to block it all out. Self harm, harm of others becomes attractive as it briefly disguises our inner pain.

Even the mental illness that eventually arises is a mechanism to hide the pain, to distract us into other imaginary self made suffering that at least is our own creation.

Mental illness eventually become psychiatric as our brain adapts to these patterns in behaviour that have developed to escape our own suffering.

It is a self perpetuating cycle however, and the only way out is to start dropping in good drop by drop, painful step by painful step to dilute and eventually flush out all the bad. A journey of perhaps many days, months, years even potentially lifetimes. But it is the only way. Every step of goodness is a step toward genuine peace and happiness and freedom from suffering. Like a stream cutting through the rocks of a gorge it is a path best done in tiny steps. Trying to do an enormous good deed in the hope of clearing our suffering may do a lot, but if our expectations are too high we will end up disappointed. We do not know how deep our suffering goes and how far we must dig and wash to clear away the weeds and dirty from which pour suffering grows.

When we turn and become commited to the walk out of suffering our direction changes and that is the single most fundamental move. This is the difference between a mere mortal and a saint. A saint despite the suffering, despite the wrongs they have committed, and despite the challenges that await them is commited to keep walking through the storm. That is all there is to it. Don't give up being good, even when every bad things and harsh sufferings hit us; even when being good seems to only make us hurt more: head down keep walking. No storm lasts forever.

Now one immediate problem is that people around us will probably try to drag us down. If we have good friends they will support us, and this is a good measure of good friends. But chances are we will experience resistance from out peer group. No one not committed to goodness likes to be shown up. If you warn someone who enjoys smoking that it may cause cancer, chances are they really don't want to face this. If we wish to change people, like the effort to change our self it is gently and in small but determined steps. We certainly do not wear a badge and start criticising our neighbours. This will make our own journey much harder. However if we are strong and well supported, perhaps there is a role for us as an evangelist of goodness (not necessarily with doctrine attached like Christianity or Islam or Buddhism etc) but simply as a reminder and encourager of people that the path to a happy life is one of good steps.

Caveat: I said that the definition of badness was that which causes personal suffering. This is how it appears when we are (most likely) looking at the world from our own perspective. But obviously as our goodness grows we begin to look at the world more and more from outside ourselves. We begin to see the suffering that badness creates not just in us but in other people. Develop to become an agent whose goal is to just end suffering regardless whether it is ours or others. In Buddhism this a a powerful and advanced step called the Bodhissatva. But we don't need doctrine and names the path remains the same for all people from all cultures and backgrounds.