Living good or living well?

It's 12:18am, May 20, I'm propped up in my bed against a formidable pillow pile which includes my panda pillow. The house is dark, and I'm listening to DJ Corey Craig's soundcloud on this machine. One of the reasons I enjoy DJ mixes is that they don't require me to think; my mind just hits the right BPM and I let it go. Another is that it reminds me of the years, say roughly 21 to 35 when I enjoyed going out just about every weekend and dancing, or watching dancing, or trying to dance or trying to watch it. There were always distractions...

I wasn't focused then, or rather not focused in the way I am now. I used to accept, at face value, the stories people told of themselves, or others. Well, perhaps not the most outrageous ones; I remember one young fey thing in Bloomington when I was just legal who loved to claim to be related to Dianne Von Furstenberg. And this sort of early Eighties affectation wasn't all that strange--Charles told me he'd met equally fey young things in ratty second hand clothes claiming to be the cast-offs of minor European royalty, Klein, or St. Laurent, or Lauren. There wasn't a smart phone with a data plan available in 1981 for instant fact checking. It was charming.

But if your story had plausibility and your manner in telling it seemed sincere, I was perfectly ready to believe it. So, of course, I swallowed some doosies.

My failures in spotting a whopper weren't born of strict innocence, but of a policy I consciously adopted to accept what people said as true and take responsibility for my own reactions to it. This, I thought, was the only course of action anyone could take without going utterly batshit crazy trying to protect against the inevitable scams and tales told throughout an ordinary life. 

I shouldn't fail to say that I've told some doosies in my time too, as I suspect everyone has--you inflate your position in the Dickens novel of your last relationship. you recast yourself in Medieval France from Valois peasant to Joan of Arc, you claim the ancestry of Lincoln, your father or grandfather boned Marilyn when she was Norma Jean. Our personal histories are percentages of authenticity, with threads of family aprocrypha woven in, with aggrandizement leavened throughout, with subjectivity spanking the bare ass of objectivity with a boar bristle brush.

I recently posted a thread on my Facebook page about being a good person--admitting my own doubts of being one, or even or what truly defined goodness in a person. I have to say that the responses that I got from my friends were so beautifully considered, that I wanted to push that conversation further--but honestly, I doubt Facebook is really for that sort of exchange on a permanent basis.

I don't think my comments or the comments of my friends hashed out any revelations--except one that slapped me awake: a good person can only be identified by subjective criteria on a personal level. Seriously. Even Mother Theresa has detractors, there is no one I can think of who has been universally named a good person (sorry, Jesus doesn't count--and there's the pesky fact that not everyone believes there was a Jesus, or if such a person existed, that he wasn't as dedicated to bringing the sword as the palm branch).

I admit, the topic is an item born of my own self fascinations during the past year. It's about wrestling with mortality,  but it's also about what type of reality to create as I move forward. I haven't been all about dying this year, I've also wondered a great deal about what I would be given a second chance to be. Would I follow the dictums of a goodness that demands a meekness to the vissiscitudes of fate, a kiss blower to the buzzkills of a peaceful life? Would I refuse to go quietly? Is being good a product of good works?

I think it's all that and more--but ojectively, I can only say that being a good person is above all not something you call yourself--it's a quality that others identify in you. That which one would wish to emulate, easy or not to do.

If there's anything I could have from PCB, it's more of this conversation. I encourage anyone who reads this to post a comment about what constitutes a good person in your estimation; what qualities, which acts, what combination, or if you hold no such objectivity and simply identify on the fly, or, know it when you see it.

It's 7:34am. I think I need a nap. Today, a good person might be the one who mows the yard, or plants the purple hyacinth beans, or cleans his bedroom because we will soon have a guest here...subjective, indeed.

This was my original posting:

Mark Price

May 16

I'm trying to puzzle out if I'm a good person, but a proper answer depends upon what a good person actually is--

Is it doing good deeds for others with no expectation?

Is it the implied benign neglect of doing no harm?

Is it that no one has complaint of you and does that ever happen?

Is it a conscious forgiving of the self for one's own flaws? Or a fulsome forgiving of the flaws of others?

I find I don't know. I tend to think it's part of all of those things and part of something I haven't even listed...

Thoughts?

Following are the responses to the post which I enjoyed immensely. I've redacted the names of the orginal poster as I didn't ask permissioin to directly attribute the words to them--but even anonymously, I find them of great value:

• All of the above, plus the capacity to wonder at all about the question of what questions to ask. You ARE a good person.

  May 16 at 8:34pm · Unlike · 3
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  In the 1960's, if you murdered blacks in the south you were considered good. It depends on who is defining "good". Or you can just tell them to go fuck themselves, I like that one better. 

  May 16 at 8:49pm · Like · 2
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  Mark Price True, there's context, often the elephant in the room. I am afraid I've already used up my life's quota of having others fuck themselves though. There may be another response to use!

  May 16 at 9:00pm · Like · 4
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  ..I believe that we people create good ore bad - very often out of the blue - we can not see the bigger picture of life - of cause and effect - of the whole universe .I learned from you know who - that when we do something for others and that makes us happy for ourselves - that i dubble light...Imagen what that can bring in a dark room------So we can expect to be more happy by getting happy for what we do for others - even if it was maby not the best for the person we sent it to / gave i to - but the intention came from a good place - our best - We can only do our best - that is good enough - the rest of the best we will learn in life - over and over - And then i believe that then 1 day - we see more of the bigger picture - and from there we can not change the things we did " wrong " ..but we can change the way we look at them - and learn from what we call mistakes - wich is experience....

  May 16 at 9:53pm · Like
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  Mark Price Charles and I were talking about the infinite number of possible second chances there may be!

  May 16 at 9:57pm · Like
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   For me time is an illusion - that gives time enough for all the seconds.

  May 16 at 10:02pm · Like
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   Very good question and I often wonder this myself since we have come to the conclusion that I'm a giver like mom and an asshole like dad. Ultimately you can only decide if you were good because it's how you feel at the end.

  May 16 at 10:45pm · Like
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   I stuggle with this all the time. I've often thought that perhaps I wasn't a good person. As a Catholic I felt I failed. As I studied Buddhism I felt as if I failed less. I'm not implying religion has anything to do with being a good person, I don't be...See More

  May 17 at 6:06am · Like
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  Mark Price Richard, you've hit the crux of the issue: I too don't know what a good person is. And yes, I've known people who were famed for their goodness and I found their goodness was a hollow lack of personality--they simply never said no and never criticized and never offered an opinion on any controversy and walked heel to toe through life. For the record, they aren't who I am thinking of or measuring myself against. One thing I think a good person does is live their truth honestly, even blatantly.

  May 17 at 7:10am · Like · 1
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   Mark, as a teacher I see so many types of people. The vast majority are amazing, great individuals. A rare few, I can feel upon meeting, are not, yet over time I have found good in those also. I once knew you well and it was the good in you that I always found attractive and on a lighter note, the bad side was always the fun side.

  May 17 at 9:18am · Edited · Unlike · 1
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   Mark, I think your comment that your version of a good person is one lives their truth honestly is spot on. We can't help how we are wired. I think our intent is important. Are we living true to ourselves? Are we living honestly? Do we try not to intentionally cause harm or irreparable pain? There will be times when we hurt people, but sometimes that has to be done to live true to ourselves. I think most people will have very different ideas of a good person. At the end of the day, I think we are all doing everything we can to make sense of this world and do what we feel is right.

  May 17 at 12:11pm · Like