Thoughts by a Wise Friend:

“Just as courage isn’t the lack of fear but instead it is overcoming the fear in us...being good isn’t a lack of evil

but instead overcoming the evil that is inevitably in us.”

Written by Will Klassen, published with permission:

TWD (The Walking Dead TV Series): “Evil people aren’t the exception to the rule. They are the rule.” They didn’t finish as to who actually is the exception unfortunately, and neither will I just to make that an easy test.

Many years ago I saw this rule played out in an interview of a Holocaust survivor, and the question he had waited decades for people to ask; What was going through his mind when he saw the death camp guard for the first time in a courtroom and had starting weeping?

I’m sorry I can’t find the link to this interview so I can’t do actual quotes. From my memory the survivor’s reply was that he was so happy to be asked that question since so many just wrongly assumed he cried because seeing the guard that tortured him personally brought back so much trauma. Instead, the reason he cried is because when he saw the guard meekly sitting at his trial in plain clothes, the realization that his own assumptions that this guard during his days of total terror was the sole embodiment of evil, was wrong. The epiphany was that this guard was just a regular human and the evil is in all of us. The survivor cried because he saw that the guard was the same as him, and he was therefore capable of the same evil.

Just as courage isn’t the lack of fear but instead it is overcoming the fear in us...being good isn’t a lack of evil but instead overcoming the evil that is inevitably in us.

The lesson I learned from this story was not to hate those that do bad since they are evil, but instead to know that same evil exists in us all and a bad action is just a weakness where we are unable to overcome our selfish nature.

Where that evil or selfish nature comes from is easily found. When we demanded complete free will from God, he granted it to us. It would be a very impotent free will if there was not both good and evil to choose between.

I’m not saying those that do bad shouldn’t be held accountable. I believe the opposite because it is through the consequences for our actions that we learn to resist our selfish nature, and nowhere is that more plainly on display than raising children.

Just some ramblings that go through my mind as I’m watching zombie shows late at night.