Wicked Goodness

"One question haunts and hurts
Too much, too much to mention:
Was I really seeking good
Or just seeking attention?
Is that all good deeds are
When looked at with an ice-cold eye?
If that's all good deeds are
Maybe that's the reason why
No good deed goes unpunished."


What an amazing verse that is! For reference, it came from Wicked "No Good Deed," sung by Elphaba. While I absolutely love the song for its own sake, this part really set my wheels in motion.

A while back I was watching Charmed (no comments. I like it, besides, if I can pull philosophy from it, it can't be all bad. And the eye candy is good too), and one of the episodes had a villain that could enhance the deadly sin you leaned towards the most. One of the girls showed Pride. Without getting into it, you could get rid of his "curse" by helping another. The one exception was Pride. The reasoning was that when you are prideful, anything you do is a benefit to you, and therefore not selfless enough to remove the curse. Hmmm.

When someone does good, are they seeking Good, in the moral sense, or are they being drawn for something else? As Elphaba points out, maybe she was seeking attention for her deeds, feeding her pride. Of course we can also do good things to avoid bad attention. Corporations do that all the time. They don't want to look greedy, so they donate to a charity. Though it is indeed a good action to take, their reasoning is not for good. But this example is obvious. I think that what the song and the show pointed out is that maybe there is no such thing as a good deed.

Think about this. Can you really say that there is ever a time when you do something with no benefit? Picking up a friend in the middle of the night when you were sleeping? True, you don't want to, but really, you are doing it so that you can keep your friendship, which makes you happy and also gives you someone to call when you need help. Is that selfless or selfish? Maybe you went and worked all day at the homeless shelter. In fact, the last one of my friends that did this informed me that though he didn't get paid or anything, it made him feel good just to see the kids smile when they were given some food. Good? Or good for you?

I think you get the point. If there is always something to gain in any situation, can anything be "a good deed?" Assume again that selfishness is bad, would that mean that all good deeds are in fact inherently wicked? Now that's food for thought.

WIcked Goodness?

"One question haunts and hurts
Too much, too much to mention:
Was I really seeking good
Or just seeking attention?
Is that all good deeds are
When looked at with an ice-cold eye?
If that's all good deeds are
Maybe that's the reason why
No good deed goes unpunished."

What an amazing verse that is! For reference, it came from Wicked "No Good Deed," sung by Elphaba. While I absolutely love the song for its own sake, this part really set my wheels in motion.

I while back I was watching Charmed (no comments. I like it, besides, if I can pull philosophy from it, it can't be all bad. And the eye candy is good too), and one of the episodes had a villain that could enhance the deadly sin you leaned towards the most. One of the girls showed Pride. Without getting into it, you could get rid of his "curse" by helping another. The one exception was Pride. The reasoning was that when you are prideful, anything you do is a benefit to you, and therefore not selfless enough to remove the curse. Hmmm.

When someone does good, are they seeking Good, in the moral sense, or are they being drawn for something else? As Elphaba points out, maybe she was seeking attention for her deeds, feeding her pride. Of course we can also do good things to avoid bad attention. Corporations do that all the time. They don't want to look greedy, so they donate to a charity. Though it is indeed a good action to take, their reasoning is not for good. But this example is obvious. I think that what the song and the show pointed out is that maybe there is no such thing as a good deed.

Think about this. Can you really say that there is ever a time when you do something with no benefit? Picking up a friend in the middle of the night when you were sleeping? True, you don't want to, but really, you are doing it so that you can keep your friendship, which makes you happy and also gives you someone to call when you need help. Is that selfless or selfish? Maybe you went and worked all day at the homeless shelter. In fact, the last one of my friends that did this informed me that though he didn't get paid or anything, it made him feel good just to see the kids smile when they were given some food. Good? Or good for you?

I think you get the point. If there is always something to gain in any situation, can anything be "a good deed?" Assume again that selfishness is bad, would that mean that all good deeds are in fact inherently wicked? Now that's food for thought.

Othello

There have been times in my life, like right now, and I look back, and completely understand the play, "Othello." Shakespeare had a knack for making characters that reflected life, and unfortunately, I understand this one more than most.

For those of you who don't know, Othello is an army commander with great honor, who is constantly poisoned (mentally, as it were) against his wife, by his "friend" Iago. Iago is a masterful villain, but I think more so because he is seen by the victim as their friends. If you think about it, you have to wonder how he must have felt. This was a man, surrounded by friends, all of whom were trying to turn him against each other. Of course those trying to turn him against Iago were indeed right to do so, but can you imagine his state of mind?

Imagine that you know someone is misleading you, but you know not who the traitor is. Think about all those small coincidences that could happen to turn you against someone. Each of us has had these circumstances that turn us against our friends when they shouldn't, and that is without a poisoning influence. Add them together, one could go mad.

You trust your friends. In fact, many would say that trust is a necessary hallmark of friendship. At what point do you decide that you have to chose between who is lying and who is not? And what if, as Othello did, you make the wrong choice?

Thoughts like this are scary, and I don't know what to do. I know that for someone who constantly seeks the truth, and yet is blindly optimistic especially with those I care about, it is a constant, and painstaking battle to see through the veil. To know that someone is always lying- as two opposing stories cannot mesh- among your closest friends and families is terrible. I speak not of one situation, but of a repeating play. This scenario may well be the one thing that I hate on this earth.