Goodness? I treat people as I want to be treated. That's about the extent of my goodness. I believe the world would be a better place if everybody was the same. As for the dark side, it's all around me, can't escape it, it encompasses us all, I just can't put on the rose colored specs anymore. I really cant find those pink tinted happy glasses.
Counterintuitive? Like your two quotes above? People that won't do anything about the evil surrounding them are the happy people as they don't worry about things that are beyond their will. Revisit my comments on worrying about the Ukrainian war.
I do like Epictetus!
If I were a true nihilist I wouldn't bother with commenting on anything really. Cynicism is learned from life experiences, at least in my case. Despondent, yes, I worry about things that are outside of my will, things of which I cannot change. Things that just a modicum of intelligence could make a difference. An intelligence that is quashed by human selfishness. A selfishness that permeates our vast civilization. The same selfishness that starts wars, destroys our economy, divides peoples and creates that darkness we are all buried in.
Counterintuitive having a dark side with a tad of intellect? The most evil people in history were very intelligent, as were/are the most perverse.
Huh, might say the scope of my will's extent is commenting in this forum. I could stand on the corner with a sign, but I have better things to do.
Not to blow my horn here. I can't be all evil though. If I were evil I would have just watched that toddler float out into the great Pacific ocean a few years back instead of pulling it out. On the other hand that incident did allow my evil side to show it's ugly head when I told the parents they were
for allowing their kid to get into such a predicament. They almost got a beatdown for that. There's a five or six year old kid out there that has to put up with all this crap because I acted. Ruined that kids life didn't I?
