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“The fate of the world depends on the triumph of the good people!”
―
Mehmet Murat ildan
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“This good country, but sometimes, good people in good country have to fight.”
―
Dan Groat
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“In this very real world, good doesn’t drive out evil. Evil doesn’t drive out good.
But the energetic displaces the passive.”
—–
Bill Bernbach
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So.
If you google “where good resides in the hearts of people”, surprisingly, you will not get shit for results.
Sure.
You may get some results on ‘behaviors of good people’ or some shit like that … but you will not get anything about what good people think or what goodness in people and how it comes out in doing things or eve anything about how we need good people to step up an do good things <or even the repercussions that may occur if they do not>.
Regardless.
I was surprised.
I was surprised because the implication is that good just happens and that good people may not be that special nor does good have to actively fight for its place in Life and society.
And while I sometimes get criticized for believing too much in the good in people <and possibly not recognizing that people do a lot of bad shit> … I do believe good needs to fight to get its fair place in the world.
And that it needs to fight to be heard.
And that it needs to fight to be sure that good is clearly discerned from bad.
That may sound … well … sad. But it shouldn’t … ‘bad’ can come in a variety of shades and can sometimes even comes in a variety of colorful likeable hues and, like it or not, ‘bad’ can appear quite likeable.
Now.
Unfortunately for everyone … good, in and of itself, left to its own devices … likes to just happen. Good doesn’t really like to have to defend itself nor does it like to stand at some podium and point out …well … how ‘good’ good really is.
Well.
The risk in that is a relentless chain of lie after lie after lie … a relentless drizzle of bad … will eventually drown out good and will undermine even the most effective foundations, institutions and systems which were built to enable good.
So.
What do good people do.
They halt the lies.
They halt the doubt.
They say ‘no more.’
They say ‘no more people die or get hurt when we know how to stop it.’
Good people realize that “an important idea not communicated persuasively is like having no idea at all.”
Good people realize that “an idea doesn’t have to be big … it just has to change the world.”
Oh shit.
Yeah.
There are some problems with this whole ‘good people’ thing.
There are the truly good people … and then there are those who play at being good <even though they may be doing so with good intentions>.
To be clear.
All people are born good <science & studies have shown this> in addition, given Life challenges, you can be even be reshaped over time … and still remain good at heart.
And, yeah, sure … you can learn good even if you have been mangled by Life.
But then there are the people ‘trying to be good.’ It isn’t something that comes naturally and, yet, looking around y start thinking “gosh, I should be gooder.”
Well. That can be a problem.
If you do not understand what is really good and you just start copying good behaviors this is almost like learning by rote in school … you don’t really comprehend you just do it because you have been told it is the right answer.
And this is where altruism takes a hit.
A huge hit.
Some people decide that being altruistic is a virtue … so they go out and attempt to be altruistic.
Yikes.
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“So from then on, he looked at all his choices and said, What would a good person do, and then did it.
But he has now learned something very important about human nature. If you spend your whole life pretending to be good, then you are indistinguishable from a good person.
Relentless hypocrisy eventually becomes the truth.”
―
Orson Scott Card
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Those people, who o it well, become indistinguishable from the truly good person.
What that means is sometime important decisions and important crossroads are managed by people pretending to be good and not really someone good.
Suffice it to say … this is a perilous situation for someone depending upon this time & place.
Unfortunately … this happens.
It happens because good people are actually a small group of influencers, most often everyday people not some spectacularly articulate and ‘leader-like’ people, who have found a special niche in which they actually contribute at a high level in some very influential ways … just by doing it the right way with good intentions.
Good people are a special group of people.
More often than not while the rest of us were planning for ‘someday’ they got their shit together and did it today.
More often than not while we look around and see that ‘this is your life’ they were living Life so that they could never really define what ‘this’ is … other than good.
More often than not while the rest of us were seeking some version of perfection they decided their imperfection permitted them to perfectly impact he world for good.
Anyway.
Regardless of what kind of person who is embracing “good”, what I am describing is a decision to actually fight for good. I am describing a conscious decision in which you have decided good needs to be defended and hat it is not simply a natural arc of history inevitable in its outcome. What I am describing is a decision to never, ever, let the spirit of good & liberty & what is right die.
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“Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it.
The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the minds of other men and women; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs their interests alongside its own without bias.”
―
Judge Learned Hand
<from a speech delivered on I Am an American Day in May, 1944 I believe>
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In other words … these are people who elect to fight against the damaging and destructive, ‘bad’ … not only trying to positively shape the world, but also fend off the forays of forces of evil.
This is more difficult than you may think.
Bad is clever.
Bad is attractive by nature.
Bad is often the easier path <for all of us> and has its own gravity pull.
Good people refuse to conform and they fight the gravity.
What I mean by that is they have a strong compass with which they us to guide themselves through thick & thin, good & bad and doubt & criticism and the inevitable enticing pull of what is not good.
When they see a disturbance within what is right & good they strive to gain understanding and resolve it with solutions not just words.
They seek to affect the kind of change that counters the natural arc of what is good … not because they think they are good … but rather because they think it will insure a better world.
I believe good people who understand that good takes work with a good dose of pragmatism are underrated.
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“This is precisely the time when artists go to work.
There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”
—
Toni Morrison
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I believe they are underrated because … well … they fight day in and day out … often quite thanklessly … for good.
Their triumphs are rarely celebrated mostly because they defend the natural arc of what 99% of us almost take for granted — that good inevitably betas bad.
These people are underrate because they do not take that for granted, they do not believe is t is inevitable and they do not rest against the relentless chains of lies, doubts and despair that bad wields as weapons.
Good resides in all of us but some of us uses that good to fight for … well … what is good.
We need those people today.