Vague Brand New Animal spoilers (ep 6), personal/identity thoughts
Thinking about these lines a bit regarding my feelings around "godhood".
How much of my desire to fix things and make a better world is self-righteousness? How much of it is just me wanting to personally feel better? What's the difference between feeling happier because others are happier, and wanting to feel happier by making the bad things in the world go away?
And what about "hard work"? What about the growth and understanding that comes through mistakes and turmoil? Removing those with the stroke of a brush would be supposing mistakes and struggles shouldn't exist, it would simply cause stagnation.
re: BNA, personal thoughts, +politics
@Taylor Re: feeling happy because others are happy vs. feeling happy because you did a Good Thing. Is there a difference? Should there be a difference?
re: BNA, personal thoughts, +politics
@faoluin I suppose in the end, there isn't. It's just easy to look at "I feel bad because the world sucks, if I could brush technique things better I would feel better" as being a selfish desire, because I'm thinking about my own feelings.
... but I'm thinking about how others feel too... so...
re: BNA, personal thoughts, +politics
@Taylor I don't think it's selfish just to have personal desires. The selfishness is when we act upon them for our own gains while exluding others. A benevolent deity solving the crises of humanity is not selfish. A deity who does so only to gain their praise and trust, and then installs themself as Supreme Ruler of the World, would be selfish.
re: BNA, personal thoughts, +politics
At the same time though, there's so much going on in the world that needs solving. Inequality and corruption are not things that should be treated as cute struggles that make people grow. They're painful and unfair and they're born from those that want to cause hurt. But those are things that must be solved together.
Evil is simple. In fantasy, Evil you can beat up and it makes Good shine through. In the real world, the unfairness and corruption and bigotry is made of lots of tiny cogs, and it requires all of us together to outnumber those cogs. It takes all of us crying out enough is enough until those in power can take no more, cannot use their power, or are replaced with those that do better.
And that's a lot harder than one person magically making everything okay.