Right and Wrong

How we spend our lives unlearning the many rules society beats into us as we grow up. We were told so many "rights" and "wrongs." But do not "right" and "wrong" really say there are only a few valid paths? Is not life rather just a process, a passage, a journey--something to be endured, yes, but to be celebrated also. Yes, it surely is easier when you work in a specific ball park (living in a given society according to its rules). But it is just as valid if you work out of an open field--not so easy some times, but other times easier and more rewarding--if rewards are the goal--I don't think they are. Life is life, nothing more, nothing less.

I am not here to be tested, to see whether I "sin" when "tempted." I am here to live. "To sin or not to sin." Isn't that statement a case of turning things upside down, of making a negative a positive? "Sin" is what not to do and it is spoken as if it were an entity in itself rather than a negative of living well. Rather, when speaking of actions and activities, accentuate the active and positive side: "To live well or not to live well."

Good and evil, pain (suffering) and comfort, all are part of one reality. Everything is. it is not good, it is not evil, it just is part of the path we travel. You must covet neither, you must shun neither. All carry us along our path of enlightenment, of life.

We have some very strong and deeply ingrained rules that tell us how we must operate and exist in this society: for example, we can have only one partner at a time; we cannot change partners at fickle will; we cannot experiment with different numbers of partners or radically different life styles and still live at ease in the collective of this society. But these are all social rules that we accept consciously or unconsciously--we can individually or collectively as easily reject one or all of these mandates if we are willing to live with the consequences in or outside of the society.