A slightly confusing topic frightens me when I think deeply. What is good and what is bad. If you really think about it, the more you think, the more of a dilemma you are in. The simplest definition is : Good is anything beneficial, bad is not beneficial or harmful to the object, society or being in question.
Taking lactobacillus acidophilus as an example, we can call it good bacteria and bad bacteria. When it is found in your curd or dairy products, it is referred to as “good bacteria”. This is because it benefits your body. It doesn’t actually benefit the body, it is harmless and modifies certain biological mechanisms which in turn enable you to live longer in many ways. Either you don’t have congestion in your intestines, it is easier to digest food, the list goes on. Let’s take that same bacteria and put it in somewhere else in the body, somewhere it is not “meant to be”. This bacteria in fact was not “meant” to be anywhere. We just found a selfish use for it and it extends our lifetime by a few weeks or months maybe by just being a prevention for some causes of death. Now that we have the bacteria in a different region, let’s look at some “problems” it causes : Cough, dizziness, hives, trouble breathing. Wow! Doesn’t seem like a good bacteria now does it. Words and phrases such as “problems”, “meant to be” and “good” or “bad” are just words that define the beneficiaries of something when it comes to our own selfish needs such as our survival instinct and our desire to live on.
Now let’s take a different example : Behaviour. Growing up, you would be exposed to remarks such as “you are a very good child” or comments such as “this is very bad behaviour” and “this was not expected from you”. Deep thinking will get you to the reality that good and bad are just made up social norms expected to be followed in order to maintain social order. If you followed rules set up by both society, you were a good child. If you did something such as break a glass, you were called a bad child and given a punishment. You were bad because now there was 1 less glass which was bought by “real” money, now wasted as you broke that glass. You were rewarded for being good and punished for being bad. Now your mind is thinking in a 2 dimensional manner where you blindly follow orders to recieve a reward, or to avoid being punished. These labels of good and bad were often used to define you as a person, hence people took offense when they were called bad and felt content when someone called them good. Not only did these labels activate a certain emotion in a person, the fact that doing things that are called good and bad led to the rise of social rules and the judicial system. This then led to social order and now, modern society, in which we are following rules and regulations proposed by random individuals from our own society which the majority of the people trust. Not only are we being scammed by the laws of this so-called “democracy”, but the laws are also being bent towards the selfishness of those creating it. There’s nothing “wrong” or “bad” because of that. Many will argue that it is unjust. But wasn’t it you who trusted that so-called leader? If your answer is no, wasn’t it you who trusted a different leader who would have done the same thing? If your answer is still no, why are you abiding by these laws? Stay puzzled by that last question, take a few minutes aside to answer it as it applies to everyone. Even today I am puzzled by this question. Me! A fourteen year old boy who does nothing but go in a cycle everyday — wake up, get ready, go to school, come back from school, play video games, pass time, sleep, etc. I do eat, I do socialize, but all of these things I mentioned are social norms that are widely accepted, no matter which country you are in. Why do I do all this? It is the fear of being bad and the pride of being good. It is one of the elements that make me and you and everyone on this planet a human, not by biology, but by psychology.
