I came across a cartoon that stated, “If you need the threat of hell to be a good person, then you’re just a bad person on a leash.” Putting aside the concept of hell (of which I am more than skeptical), I will say that there is a ‘bad person’ within each of us and life is a struggle to keep them on their leash. It is hubris to say “I’m a good person” and ignore our weakness, our all-too-easy corruptibility. Yes, there is a ‘good person’ within each of also (though some do seem to keep theirs on a leash!).
My ‘leash’ is not the fear of hell but a belief in good and evil and the need to choose a side. I will not say I am good and go my way (as those who passed by in the parable of the Good Samaritan); I will work at being good. I will exercise my free will and take part in the struggle. It is part of finding purpose in existence. The truest of hells is that which we create for ourselves here and now, the life without purpose or direction. Despair ever lurks at the edge of existence; some are better than others at keeping it a bay.
Inevitably, this is a theme in much of my writing. Characters make choices and not always easy ones. They attempt to arrive at what is the right, the good. Sometimes they fail. Life isn’t easy, you know—certainly not as easy as saying we are good or have empathy. It is all to easy to ignore that empathy when it doesn’t serve our selfish wants or becomes burdensome. Acting does not necessarily follow knowing.
So we have our leashes and should recognize them. Otherwise, we are adrift, understanding nothing of life nor of ourselves.
