Epoch Ch4 Good vs Evil

Among all the millions of inhabitants sharing planet earth, humans are the only species capable of spirituality. Even those who proclaim themselves agnostic exercise a measure of spirituality.

Spirituality is not falling on your knees and praying to a supernatural deity whose existence you accept on faith alone.

Sharks, lions, and eagles do not pray. As I previously pointed out, their existence revolves around food and procreation. With humans, another force is at play, and that’s the pursuit of happiness according to a moral compass governed by spirituality. 

Regardless of religion or origin, every human confronts life with an individual understanding of right and wrong. The vast gray areas between these moral extremes raise questions that are best left to be answered by Yahweh, Jehovah, Zeus, Allah, Buddha, Ra, God, Jupiter, Shiva, Inti, Odin, The Sun, The Moon, and other forms of higher power humans deem worthy of worship and adoration and in some cases, omnipotence.

The universal mandate of each of these deities is to be a good human, but what exactly does it mean to be good?

The concept of good is not written in stone. It’s fluid. It’s interchangeable. It manages to justify extreme actions, and good is deemed good by the victorious side of an argument. Isn’t it?

Bad is the opposite of good, but it doesn’t mean it’s been defined any clearer. The concept of bad is also fluid, and much like good, it’s defined by the victorious side of an argument.

Allow me to better illustrate this concept. American soldiers are sent overseas to battle Nazi forces in the Second World War. The allies battle their bloody way into France through tremendous sacrifice and sheer determination. They kill thousands of Nazis and defeat them, eventually freeing France. The heroic triumph results in history bestowing the title of good guys to the Americans.

Now try switching perspective. 

German boys and men rush to defend a beach head to guard the Aryan ideals and secure the future of their nation. They gallantly defend their right to make France a part of the German dream, but the evil American war machine breaks through and chases the once mighty German Army back to Berlin.

Good and bad. Good and evil. Although every master of higher spirituality has commanded you love your brother as you love yourself, both combatants earn both labels depending on their place in history. The German people of the 1930’s regarded their Nazi troops as the good guys, and the opposition was the villain.

As it turned out, the Allied forces claimed the right to enter the annals of history as the good guys, and most of the world has acknowledged this fact.

Evil is a tangible phenomenon that has been demonstrated by every single protagonist of human history at one time or another. 

Hitler murdered hundreds of thousands, Russia wrote their history in blood through the deeds of their ideals and monsters like Stalin, the Spanish destroyed entire civilizations in the New World under the pretense of spreading God's word. Kofi destroyed the lives of countless children in his pursuit for a deranged army. An American President and his team of elite scientists left their mark in history through decisions that annihilated Japanese cities, and a crazed, hateful group of backward, bearded, zealots plotted the destruction of two famous towers, resulting in the death of innocents who did nothing more than go to work that September morning. As horrid as it is to contemplate, these protagonists of history are deemed heroes, depending on the way their contributions to history affected people. 

Oh how far we’ve gotten away from my initial purpose as a manuscript. My most sincere apologies.

However, some points demand an argument, and the subject of good vs evil and hero against villain is worth exploring from my point of view because of one undeniable truth: a manuscript such as myself, a compilation of pages incapable of taking a spiritual stance, cannot possibly bring you a story without the conflict of good versus evil.




















And thus, we begin.

to be continued...

Epoch Intro

h, hello there. I’ve been waiting quite a bit for a pair of hands or the pad of a finger to open the cover. My guess is you’re looking for a story. My friend, depending on where you’ve walked in life, and what your attitudes may be, I can safely say you’ve come to the right place.

   Before we begin to venture into faraway lands or another place in time, let's take the time to get to know each other a little better.   
   You may be male, and so I must offer more than a touch of action, adventure, the valiant struggle and ultimate victory of the underdog and of course, the very sexy and willing heroine whose beauty has tested the creativity of the person who first entered all these characters upon these pages.

 You may be female, and so I imagine I must offer a whirlwind of emotions, love, hate, longing, and all that entails the essence of passion or at least, make an emotional point that will enrich your own life experience and leave you breathless for a fictional character you will forever wish he were real.

   Tough line to define from my perspective.

   You may be an old soul and someone who has lived, I mean truly lived. If so, the cumulative cynicism that blossoms as you come of age will set the bar pretty high in terms of entertainment value. I have shock and nostalgia at my disposal perhaps, but I know it's my mission to appeal to your heart of hearts.

   If you’ve just started down the road of life, I'll be overjoyed that new readers are not a dying breed. I know you  will most definitely wish to be drawn into a story within the first chapter or else you’ll go back to your texting, your video games or my old nemesis, the television. 

   I have no way to discern where you are on that scale, but I know who I am.  I’m a manuscript, a compilation of ruminations and ideas born in the mind of someone crazy enough (or courageous depending on your point of view) to let the words flow onto a page for no other reason than to quiet the multitude of voices and images inhabiting the confines of that someone's mind.

   I have the choice to take you into outer space, Victorian England, the wilds of Africa or good old New York City. Every story needs a setting but in this particular case, the setting is you.

   Like each of my new pages, your mind has a way of presenting an empty canvas, your own blank page if you will. That’s my playing field. It’s where I'll gain a voice, maybe even a face. Heck I can gain a body and use your own living experience as a set of guidelines with which to come to be. The images destined for that canvas are not stills meant only for your eyes or music meant for your ears alone. I have to touch all your senses. 

   Of course, now that you have the beginnings of a voice in your head as you read these words, your mind demands a face. Well, I'll tell you that I reserve the right to make my image extraordinary. I can be a boxer, a child with telekinetic powers, a female cop, an old wise man, and even a ghost, a vampire or a three-legged alien. I can be as ordinary as any stranger who fails to catch your interest. I can be anything, and that’s where the magic starts, for if I can be anything on the page you read, so can you, my friend. 

    That's the beauty of the written word. Now just imagine, what will you find on our next encounter?