Good Person?

I went to see a play tonight. It is called "To Make It Right" and it was only an hour long. I found I probably could have watched a longer version. It was by, I believe, a first time playwright. It focused on a gay man who had previously left the seminary. When his cousin dies, the main character is asked to conduct the eulogy, since he is the only person in the family with any public speaking ability. Over the course of the play, things come to light and some speeches are made. The whole thing wrestles with attempting to reconcile your sexuality with a religion that says who you are is wrong. It seems to act as a call for understanding and forgiveness, and I think everyone can get behind that. It is pretty fair to religion, even if it undercuts sexuality just a bit.

Now, I hope everyone knows, I am not religious or gay so you wouldn't think there is much in this play I can relate to. That is not the case, however. I don't wish to go into specifics (some secrets don't just belong to me) but there was a chord struck with one aspect of the play that got me thinking on my ride home...what does it mean to be good person and am I one?

I know, this blog is just a solipsistic mess but when my company is mostly me, myself and I; I digest all my experiences back through the four chambers of the cow stomach of my own experience (that metaphor got away from me). So, everything I have to say is pretty me-centered here but maybe you'll see something of yourself in here, too.

When I was a teen, developing my own theory of religion, I got hung up on the idea that there is no real afterlife. I have heard, and I am finding it hard to locate solid info about this on the internet (where every bit of info seems to have an agenda), that your brain is flooded with chemicals at the time of your death that are only present in low levels during your life. I didn't know that when I came up with my afterlife theory but it fits. My theory was that you learn early on in life a belief system (like Christianity or Hinduism or something) that creates a moral scaffolding in your brain. Even if only subconsciously, you are aware if you are doing the morally "right" or "wrong" thing as you go through your life. Even if you can justify your actions on the surface, deep down, you know if you are a dirty sinner. So, when you die, your brain uses that scaffolding and all the subconscious decisions you've made about your own actions to place you in an "afterlife" tailored by your ideas of what that afterlife should be.

For example, your parents are hardcore Baptists and raise you as such. Even if you later reject the church, the scaffolding is in your moral center of your brain just as language and mores are. You go through your life, helping others sometimes and being a real dickwad at other times. At the moment you die, your brain tallies up your own votes and sends you to whatever you imagine heaven or hell is. As we all know, your mind can dilute your perception of time. Why not live out an eternity between your last two heartbeats? And if you consider this idea blasphemy, just assume it was intelligent design that made our brains that way.

In that case, you are a good or bad person based on pretty early learning processes. You can overcome those initial scaffolds of morality but it is like learning to write with your non-dominant hand times 1000. Doable, but taking a lot of time. Plus, you are moving from a phase of your life where adults are planting "THE TRUTH" in your head to later years where you realize no one really has a clue what is really going on. So you aren't changing these "facts" with new, solid info...just doubt as to their veracity.

But who chooses to be a bad person? There are sociopaths, who have no regard for any morality. They would be labelled as evil but they wouldn't really care about such labels. That leaves me with people who know the difference between right and wrong and choose wrong. Back in college, I learned that we have all these coping mechanisms that keep us from believing we are doing something horrible. Justifications, excuses, compartmentalizing, rationalization...all these things are ways to keep us from feeling evil.

Without getting into the details, I wronged someone close to me when I was very young. I carried intense guilt around with me for years and years. Finally, I asked for forgiveness and sort of received it. Through therapy, I was able to forgive myself. Coming home from the play I wondered, is that old guilt still hiding in the back of my brain for judgment day? Did I really forgive myself or have I just wallpapered over my sense of responsibility for hurting someone else?

Then I began thinking of other things I have actually done wrong or had planned to do wrong if I knew I could have gotten away with it. I have made some hurtful decisions throughout my life but been lucky enough to be surrounded by people who don't hold them against me (or at least not for long). But how long will I hold those same bad decisions against me? Will I punish myself? Am I punishing myself?

There are people who will love me no matter what I do. I am almost 100% certain that I could walk into my mother's house with a severed head in my hands and she would ask what the person had done to deserve it. There are friends who have lines I can't cross. Some are really basic (like I can't tell them the truth about how I perceive their behavior or they will get defensive and yelly) and some are more forgiving (like, I can make some pretty major mistakes and still be welcomed back). Some, I apparently crossed a line years ago and, to this day, have no idea what I did to piss them off so.

If you strip away your rationalizations and justifications and look back on your life, did you do more good than harm? Does anyone think they have really lived a sinless life? I have never done anything as bad as the thing I did when I was much younger but I have done plenty of bad things. I have never felt more guilt than I could bear or live with (obviously, as I am still alive). Do these things accumulate in my soul? Do I even give myself credit for the good things I do?

Lots of questions tonight. Probably uneasy sleep in my future. Be good to each other.