I wanna write something crazy today. Any suggestions …? Well, since your suggestions are nowhere to be seen, I will proceed on my own cylinders. Truth be told, the aim of today’s Loose Talk is to scandalize you, yes you, reading this. Well, just a little bit. To achieve that, I will remind you that no matter how many verses and versions of the bible or Koran you’ve read, no matter how many Don Moen songs you can memorize, the bitter fact is that you are not all clean. You want to convince yourself and the world how morally upright a soul you are, but your goodness has got its limits. Let me put it more graphically; you are both a good person and a bad person. Well, to cut some slack, I know that you are largely a good person. There is inherent good and kindness and empathy and virtue in you. But then there is a tiny aspect of your being that is very capable of all sorts of bad things and evil deeds and sin and … well, and that’s the beastly side of you. That’s the ogre in you. Remember the religious phase that you went through as you drew closer to sitting your national exams? How a tsunami of salvation would sweep through the candidate classes as every student now turned to God in a bid to secure good grades? How many of these students still prayed to God after the exams? How many even remembered to thank Him for seeing you through the exam? My point here is that there are very few people out there who are genuinely and absolutely nice. All of us have a certain degree of evil in us, some greater than others, yes, but we all have it. Who can argue with me on this? The problem with this bitter truth is that it’s the hardest thing for anyone to accept about their own self. It’s much easier (and morally gratifying) when we accuse others of being ‘bad’ or ‘evil’. But life only begins when we simply man up and accept this, first about ourselves, then others. But just because people have a good and bad side to them is no license for you to exercise badness because badness is .. well, is not good. That said, sometimes we have to do “bad” things and not go about feeling remorseful about it. Take for instance lying, which is such a horrible word. In fact, what sort of ugly word is this?! My only problem with lying is that it’s such an ugly English word. A liar is simply a person who is very economical with the truth. (now doesn’t that sound much better?) What kind of life would this be if we were to stick to truth at all times? I guess we would have so many wounded people walking around. Imagine if girls had to tell men “you are too ugly/too broke” for me, instead of simply saying “I’m in a relationship” or “I’ll think about it”. At some point in your adult life you have also been accused of “selfishness” which, to me, is another long, ugly and unfortunate word. Often times, a selfish person is simply one who wants to enjoy what they have toiled for. Lastly, remember that greed, gluttony, lust, pride, sloth, anger and envy together make up the seven deadly sins. Steer clear of those.
