Measure of Goodness

How can we measure goodness? Was my Sunday morning question to myself,…to which I have to reply that it’s not so much about how much of it we have, but it’s validity is more to do with the context in which it manifests.

Do we praise someone who is deprived of his or her liberty and incarcerated in prison for not committing acts against society? No, that is of little worth.

By the same rule of thumb, would we praise someone whose religious doctrine prevents them from doing “bad”? Surely not.

A measure of goodness must be directly linked to the possibility of being able to do “bad”, for if someone doesn’t have the possibility of being bad, then being good is no longer a choice it’s an automatism and as such hardly a reflection of goodness.

We have all learnt stories about ourselves and how we are which have been influenced by the pleasing consequences of behaving in a certain way or seeing the consequences of someone else behaving in a certain way and we begin to name ourselves “responsible” or “rebellious”, and we call ourselves that “I´m responsible” or “I’m rebellious”.

But yet again this is a false “responsibility” and a false “rebelliousness”, it has little in the way of authenticity and only becomes real when we can accept the part of us that is “irresponsible” or wishes to “conform”. The same way that being good only becomes authentic when we accept we can be bad, that is to say we have choice and we exercise that choice in favour of doing good.

I’ve heard many a recovering alcoholic state “I cant drink because I have an illness of the soul” and how refreshing it is to hear one state “I can drink, but I choose not to”. It is choice that gives abstinence its authenticity as a sobriety based in dogma is but another candy coated refusal to accept responsibility.

I like rainbows, they can’t be collected

This is me sitting, trying to be aware, not changing not wanting, just being. The here and now…I focus on a moment, but it’s already gone and becomes a memory and as I focus on the memory I realise it’s not real it’s my filtered version of how I imagine what was which changes to what is to be, a fantasy and delusion used to trick myself …forward backward forward backward, like a virtual ping pong ball from a 1970’s arcade game.

What does it mean to be me? And how can I be sure I am me? These questions spring to mind as I’m suspended between dread and impatience, dread of something terrible that never crystallises into a fear and impatience to get to achieve to have. Sometimes I feel I just want to bake a cake, that would be nice, with currants and raisins and then share it with someone I love.

The cat seems unimpressed and looks at me with half closed eyes that spell contempt. Would I like to be a cat? Not my cat he hasn’t fucked in years…but then again he doesn’t seem to have the need to strive…how would that be? How? What if? And other questions I use to sabotage and frustrate myself.

The older I get the less I want rules, models and established ways of doing things, but the more I hang on to them…why so much internal chatter? Who’s talking to who and what for? It sounds childish, but I’d like to send a Christmas card in summer but I know I won’t let myself. Where did I learn that I cant do that? Maybe the same place I learnt lots of other silly rules. I’d like to get thrown out of the cinema for smoking… where did I learn that it’s “bad” to get thrown out?

Power, Democracy & Drug Reform

Just wanted to share this excellent post by Julian Buchanan

Associate Professor, Institute of Criminology
"The drug reform entrepreneurs may attempt to hail privileging cannabis as an incremental step in the right direction, but the widespread and growing public support, the momentum towards decriminalisation, and ultimately, regulation of all drugs, will be dissipated, and the scourge, oppression and madness of the Drug Apartheid, a historic affront to human rights, will continue to haunt this generation and future generations to come. The entire international system of drug control is flawed and needs naming, shaming and exposing for what it really is, and then entirely dismantled like the Berlin Wall and the South African Apartheid. There can no half measures, no continued support for this shameful period of history when drug laws and policy have caused considerably more harm than the drugs ever could".

You can read the whole article here.