It started as a marketing idea. It has since become a riddle most difficult to solve. We need to develop a brand based on one of the first words you ever learned and one whose meaning becomes muddled due to its commonality: “GOOD”.
It seems easy on the surface. Every English speaker knows the word and knows it’s denotation and connotations; we use it, or one of its synonyms, every day in almost every conversation we have. But pause for just a moment and consider the meaning of the most basic adjective. It’s so easy to say that something is “good” or “bad” without considering whether it is, partially, mostly, or absolutely so. The case can be made for most things to be good to any of varying degrees.
Try it. Say this sentence:
“(Anything) is/are good.”
Your mind will be able to conceive the ways in which whatever you thought of is good, positive, or beneficial.
Continuing the exercise, use the same subject and say this:
“(Anything) is/are bad.”
Depending on what you chose as your subject, this part will prove easy or difficult, but will certainly be possible.
This is the nature of duality: everything is both good and bad. Or is it? Is anything truly good? Not just mostly good, but absolutely good?
The following is a conversations I had online with a friend to test the theory:
2:58pm – Steve Khoe: what are some things that are good?
2:59pm – Friend: what?
3:00pm – Steve Khoe: take flowers for example. They are good. what other things are good?
3:02pm – Friend: from a guy? or in general…. im confused!!! I dont like flowers LOL
3:03pm – Steve Khoe: In life.
3:03pm – Friend: cheesecake
3:03pm – Steve Khoe: when you look at a flower you don’t like it? cheesecake is bad for your health something that does no harm
3:04pm – Friend: lol ok i mean looking at them is okay i guess sunsets or rises….both are good
3:05pm – Steve Khoe: I thought about the Sun, but sunburns are bad. sunrise and sunsets, I like it! what else?
3:05pm – Friend: hmmm…. puppies
3:06pm – Steve Khoe: puppies bite and they pee on things
3:06pm – Friend: ugh flowers die
3:07pm – Steve Khoe: you can get angry at a puppy, but not a flower or sunset. dying is not bad. And some of them are reborn every year
3:07pm – Friend: ok why are you asking this?
3:07pm – Steve Khoe: you don’t like it?
3:08pm – Friend: family is good… but not if you hate your family and you fight with them… so that could go either way Friend:s same
3:08pm – Steve Khoe: I’m looking for things that cannot be bad
3:08pm – Friend: water. I like water. Its good. Unless you drown im thinking
3:10pm – Steve Khoe: take your time
3:11pm – Friend: never thought this would be so hard lol most things have a good and a bad i suppose laughter… but that can be bad if you are laughing at someone LOL
3:14pm – Steve Khoe: You are right
3:15pm – Friend: have you come up with anything other than a flower? which I still disagree with LOL
3:16pm – Steve Khoe: No
3:16pm – Friend: sunrise and sunsets are about all I came up with what about when you find money in your winter coat from last year thats good 😛 (happened to me yesterday HA)
3:17pm – Steve Khoe: Money is amoral
3:19pm – Friend: lol this is depressing
3:21pm – Steve Khoe: don’t think about it and maybe something will come to you in the future
So you can see that the closest I have come to something that is purely good is a flower or flowers and even the other person thought they were “bad” when she considered them as a present.
Her offering: sunrises/sunsets. Possibly closer to absolute good, as I’ve not been able to construe a way in which they are bad. Maybe you can?
And maybe you can help me with this riddle. Is anything in this world absolutely good, to and for all, or, at the very least, does no harm to anyone regardless of circumstance? I welcome your submissions and considerations.
Some people have learned to answer the question “how are you?” with “well” instead of “good”. Humans are like anything else, we are statically amoral and our condition can be only “well” or “unwell”. We are “good” and “bad” depending on how we use and apply ourselves under our circumstances and how we affect those who perceive us.