I. I. A.

Destruction's view

"SIN is not living up to your full potential. This sin is never forgiven."
-Frederick Douglass
For those of you playing along at home...yes, I finally found a source for this quote!

And Now For A Totally Contradictory Point Of View

So evil comes from within...we project whatever's within us that we don't like onto other people and call them "evil", to assuage our own fear. It's easy to believe that we've been "saved", that the only thing we have to do to fight evil is to isolate ourselves from anything we don't agree with and claim that coveted title, purity...untrue. This purging instead becomes a long and painful process of self-analysis and searching...something most close- minded "goodly" people shun in the name of avoiding corruption. Hmmm...is it strength to run from a challenge? To pull your head back inside a shell of purity when a little healthy philosophical exercise would help your flabby personal ethics (often atrophied by reliance upon the words that have been spoon-fed to you as truth)? But I digress (I do that a lot).

Ignorance is not in its barest form evil. Of course not. We are all ignorant. The knowledge out there for learning is infinite, so vast that you couldn't learn it all in a thousand lifespans... measured against that, not even the most brilliant professor knows the tiniest fraction of everything. Admitting one's ignorance is healthy. It is when one denies one's ignorance or revels in it that we get problems...in the former case, your head swells to such a size that you can't fit it through the door (not a pretty sight...I've been there before)...in the latter case, you have a person who is going nowhere, dependent on others to dribble the bare minimum of facts needed to survive into his or her waiting mind, where they consequently run out of the ears and drip onto the floor, unheeded. The former are the people who know the "truth" --who comprehend the infinite in all its entirety (ha!). The latter are those who have never thought for themselves and never will, priding themselves on their ability to keep their mind uninfluenced by everything that does not mesh with the vast decorative vase atop their shoulders...either case, you get people who will not listen...who will not change...who will stagnate...who thus become obsolete.

Indifference becomes selfishness taken to extremes...not that a little selfishness isn't good for you--on the contrary. Life focuses on the Self, and self-denial becomes both ridiculous and counterproductive. I can see nothing more spiritual than living a happy, fulfilling life, seeking to please oneself and to grow, so long as it does not harm others. But if asceticism is denying the Self, then indifference is denying the selves of others. It is the callousness within all of us that allows us to turn our heads, close our eyes, stop up our ears, tape our mouths shut--anything to avoid entanglements, to avoid speaking out, to avoid risk. We put up with the grossest of injustices because we feel it is "not our problem"--we do not care, and cannot be forced to care. Thus the great double standard--what is not good enough for us is good enough for others, the status quo is kept perpetually unchanging. Perhaps indifference stems from fear...fear that, if one dares to care, to love, to commit oneself one way or the other, one will be trapped...for the freedom of love (self-love, which enables love for others) is indeed seen as confining by those that have known nothing but self-imposed fetters all their lives.

Apathy grows out of indifference. Perhaps it can be seen as hatred of the Self...the inability and unwillingness to act, to grow, to live up to one's full potential. Apathy grows out of stagnation, the inability to progress in life--after all, if life has done nothing for you, why should you do anything for it? To live, perhaps? Everything that you do in the macrocosm you must first bring about in the microcosm...to love, you must love yourself, to hate, you must, deep down inside, hate yourself. So if you don't care about yourself, cannot be bothered with anything other than heodism or unthinking fanaticism for some nebulous, canned goal...you cannot bring yourself to act either on the Self on in the outside world. Life becomes and endless, monotonous routine, individuality a farce, love a shadow...and nothing becomes worth fighting for, and the world seems to mirror the shriveled husk of the apathetic soul. One does not live, does not take risks...so the spirit dies before the body does. Cheery thought. :-)

And Death is going to be really pissed at me for writing this. Keep in mind that she and I are talking about entirely different conceptions of ignorance, indifference, and apathy...just to add to the confusion, of course.