Good and Bad - An Internal Exploration
Are we truly justified in our established communities if the cultural narrative is avoidant of things we deem as bad?
Our natural inclination in this life is to appraise experiences based on labels. These labels are great at allowing for categorization, which makes us able to create our own world surrounded by others with a similar operating system.
The difficulty with labels is that the associated appraisals are qualifying factors either promoting or demoting every experience. Once a label has been seen as good or bad, we immediately have a natural inclination to seek the good and avoid the bad. Or the opposite, seeking the bad and avoiding the good – the nervous system has reappraised “bad” to provide positive feedback and “good” resulting in negative feedback. We are then seeking the positive or negative interpretation our nervous system is calibrated to.
When we remove cultural and societal judgements, we see that the point of contact is always a relational point to our individual nervous system.
Good = positive nervous system feedback
Bad = negative nervous system feedback
By noticing ourselves seeking and avoiding certain experiences in reality, we see that our beliefs seem to align with the feedback from those experiences. This is known as confirmation bias, a psychological term noting that it’s natural for us to see new circumstances as a confirmation of our previous experiences.
Imagine you take the same route to work or school everyday for years. You no longer have to think about the direction, traffic, or even speed limit since you basically don’t even have to remember you’re driving. The thought “there will always be stop-and-go traffic at this exit since people don’t know how to zipper merge successfully” probably doesn’t even happen anymore after years of practicing the same route.
The same is true when we categorize our experiences of stimuli as good or bad over and over again. We no longer remember why it is that we always get a latte from that one shop instead of trying a new coffee house. It’s lost to us that experiencing different scenarios can provide a challenge and area for growth. We see change as bad, and a simple detour could inconvenience the entire day if we don’t follow the script for how we can get to the greener grass on the other side of the fence.
When we are running the belief program that there is only good or bad in life, we are actively engaging with pursuing that which is “better” and avoiding “worse” experiences. There is then a natural inclination to see good and bad as a spectrum, where there is always better to pursue and worse to avoid. With respect to all things being nuanced, as we receive a promotion at the company, we move away from the position that paid us less, meaning we are now in a position that is “better”. Now it’s our responsibility to avoid being demoted, since it’s “worse”. Oh, and there’s also the possibility now of the next promotion, again another step towards “better”.
At what point does the avoidance of negative experiences and pursuing of positive experiences end? Looking at time as a construct to explore, in this precise moment we all have the ability to choose to engage in seeking pleasant sensations or avoiding unpleasant ones. The act of seeking is pursuing that which we deem worth experiencing, and avoidance is the process of actively seeking experiences outside of those we have appraised as unworthy.
This task of appraisal isn’t necessarily one we are conscious of engaging with; remember that the nervous system decides what type of feedback we receive. Often we can be conditioned to believe appraisals are correct or just based on the influence of people we surround ourselves with. Family and friends, church or organizational involvement, schools or any other established group tend to attract those with similar belief structures. Within settings where beliefs are shared, judgements of good and bad can quickly transform into a culturally prescribed notion that has the facade of “keeping us safe”. Safety then becomes a breeding ground for dangerous rhetoric.
Seeing conversations that “should be avoided” is an excuse to not "inconvenience our shared truths” rather than opening up to humanity being a mutual experience. The inconvenient truth here is realizing that we are all human. We’ve gotten lost in the weeds trying to find the grassy field, not realizing that our responsibility is to remember that our weedy field is more than enough. To task ourselves with remembering our own humanity and how clearing the field of our hearts and minds first can provide space for a common, collective vision.
Vision is the willingness to fuel a revolution based in love and compassion instead of fear and hatred. Revolution is the evolution of the re-invigoration of spirit in the minds and bodies of each individual, capable of recalling for themselves their own inherent system of stability and worthiness. Worthy of receiving, of giving, of life, of love. Love can be forgiving to pave the way for Life to be for giving. Can we provide space for Love to infiltrate our Life through self-forgiveness so there’s a natural receiving and desire to give to others?
If we aren’t actively engaging in a process of giving and receiving that inspires tears of humility, then our lives are controlled by the recurring judgements of good and bad. If we cannot see each individual we come into contact with during our day with the compassion we desire, then we’re still trying to find a greener pasture. Even thinking there is an experience that is better than the one we’re in is an ill fated attempt to project ourselves into someone else’s field. The judgement of their livestock only causes internal resentment at the past decisions we’ve made to get to our current location.
The good news is that forgiveness isn’t as far away as we’d like to imagine. It’s in this moment, not the next. The simple reminder that you’re able to let go of, or surrender the judgement of the judgement. Yes, judgement of the judgement. The path out is through, not around. We cannot successfully find ourselves in another field and expect it to be different than the one we just left. Our new position in the company has the same context for “worse” and “better” as the last. The good and bad we recognize is only the starting point for noticing how we each truly feel judgement in the body.
The body. The projection of the mind. The uncomfortable mass of skin, fascia, organs, and surrounding space. We’re supposed to feel judgement there? Right, I did say it was inconvenient. The inconvenience is that we each hold judgement for others in our own body. Our bodies are each mirrors of what we witness in the world. Am I seeing and/or avoiding ugliness in the world? Could this possibly mean I’m running away from embracing the wholeness of my own self by thinking I can run away from less pleasant experiences?
What would happen if we moved through the discomfort in the body, the feelings of judgement harbored from years of feeding this narrative of good and bad? Could it possibly lead to a life that isn’t dictated by this controlling narrative? Is this a path leading towards personal liberation and an understanding that I’m the human I’ve been running from? After all, I am the human I saw, avoiding myself in the process.
“The grass is not, in fact, always greener on the other side of the fence. No, not at all. Fences have nothing to do with it. The grass is greenest where it is watered. When crossing over fences, carry water with you and tend the grass wherever you may be.”
― Robert Fulghum