Plight of the Conscience

Warning: Authoress not reeking of optimism!

There are days when my mind ponders what it means to be a good person. There are definitions which mark good and evil clearly as opposites – as black and white. But what is the final judge – how do we decide we have upheld the virtues to call ourselves “good” or “evil”.

Is being good being self-sacrificial? Having no desire of oneself and simply using your existence to deliver joy to others? While this does sound noble – what happens to the person when the joys you deliver aren’t enough to satiate the complex human you’re trying to please? There is no satisfaction – it robs you not only of what you can achieve for yourself but also makes you realize how insignificant your efforts have been. Happiness is short lived when it is given away. When these frustrations pile up – and you demand self-worth – is that losing the title of goodness?

Is being good fearing God? Living by a set of rules that have been chosen by the wise – religion, values, learning from others? There are times when you’re faced with so many trials that the very foundation of there even being such a thing as normal let alone good exists. It is when your faith is tested that you choose one of two paths – hold on deeper to the guiding Spirit – believing beyond reason and common sense and hence preserving your goodness. But what of those, who give in to their exhaustions, the words which leave their lips and are not answered, who try to understand what is given to them and what is taken from them? What of those who feel alone - who find reason and logic to alter their version of “good” – do they still retain that quality or are these now imposters?

I guess – we all have our own definitions of what is good, what is not – what is right and what is wrong. Perhaps that is what they call the conscience. The conscience which puts in you the fear of doing wrong; which gives birth to guilt and urges you to do things which are perhaps not in the best interest of our survival instincts. The conscience should hence be our upholder of truth – of virtue, of all that is good.

But then what happens when our conscience realizes its efforts are not accepted. Its ideas are not the “popular ones” and when all you believe become echoes of someone else’s thoughts? What happens when the conscience is plagued with doubt? With insecurity and in this uncomfortable moment, it rapidly starts looking for a foothold to define “right” and “wrong” again. But how can the upholder now be so perceptible to change – are our souls, conscience, Gods all only images of what we are comfortable believing in? Images of what we don’t want to question. Are we merely puppets of our own fears – soldiers of our own internal wars, the victims who lie on our own battlefields – the tattered soul, the resilient conscience, the child of an unconquerable God?

Or is good, evil and conscience just a thought of a mere mortal trying to give our actions, our existence some meaning.