Tuesday, September 4, 2007

"The Wonderful World of God"


“The Wonderful World of God…”

In contradiction to the given title, one might refer back to reality that this contemporary world encloses innumerable injustices, substantial corruption, iniquitously towering poverty, perpetual racism and copious assortment of immorality. In accordance to the Holy Bible, it initiates with the fact that God created a perfect world with absolutely no sin until the fall of man under the temptation of the devil. The world is then filled with infinite sin by the exponentially growing populations of constrained sinners. But why would the world then be wonderful? All those immense amount of sin as well as the hardships encountered by the world, one would think that this is certainly an absurd topic. Yet this discussion will reveal the very basis of how much wonder there is in the world and would probably change the perception of how you view the world.

First, imagine if the world is perfect. Everything is justified (for there are no injustice), corruption does not exist, everyone is as rich as everyone else (thus, no poverty), the fact that everyone is exactly the same as everyone (basic concept of how racism commence is the thought that races are different) and no sin is present in the face of humanity. The world can be assumed to be boring.

In accordance to Taoism and the law of the infamous ‘Yin & Yang’, the world is balanced and that one cannot exist without the other. Examples would encircle around oppositions such as: tall and short, smart and unintelligent, health and sick, tall and short, strong and weak, rich and poor, right and wrong, good and bad as well as life and death. To elaborate, how can we distinguish tall from short if everyone is equally tall? Or is it equally short? To put it more simple, if everyone is tall (yes, a paradox because not everyone is tall, but assume everyone is) can that also mean everyone is short? In the past, people are shorter, but we could say that because we are taller now. We cannot distinguish one without the other. A more critical situation issue would be between good and bad? If only good exists in the world, it can be said that everyone is bad. Why? Because we would not know what is bad or what is good.

There is a significant effect of both coexistences in the world, so that one can be distinguished from the other. In detailed, because there is rich, there is poor. Because there is wrong, there is right. Because there is good, there is bad. Additionally, their coexistence in the world gives them the opportunity to have an affect on the other. The rich giving to the poor; and as we know ‘giving’ is a good thing. Referring back to a perfect world, say everything in life is going perfectly well: in academics one can achieve perfection with as well as without studying, true love or the term ‘soulmate’ can be achieved without hard work or the needs of whatever needs necessary, relationships can be perfect without arguments and differential thoughts, any sickness can be healed instantly and many other factors. If the world is as stated above, it is dull.

The beauty of the world lies in the fact that everyone strives and struggles to achieve the better. Finding love is not beautiful, but the struggles in achieving it causes love to be beautiful. Having a good relationship is not beautiful, but solving the problems in a relationship causes relationship to be beautiful. Scoring perfect on an exam is not beautiful, but knowing all the effort you put in obtaining the perfect score causes it to be beautiful. Thus, being rich is not wonderful, but seeing that the rich offers the poor, it is wonderful.

On the other hand, one could see that the ratio of pain to pleasure in the world is very much large. There is drastically more pain in the world as there is to pleasure. Due to this, we as humans value pleasure higher as it is scarcer. This is also economically proven that the less the supply, the higher demand and the higher the price as well. If we see that there are equal ratios of pain and pleasure, one, people will not value pleasure for it has been distributed in a 50-50 manner and that we would have the same amount of both happiness and sadness, and two, people will not seek pleasure or pursue happiness for they know one will or the other will appear in a systematic manner.

To end this topic, it is to be reminded that this topic does not have any means in seeking the so-called “silver-lining” or the optimistic side of life. But to value the life given in which we are able to strive and struggle, to know what is good and what is bad, and to pursue the better; and it is that act and effort that makes it beautiful. Thus, it can be concluded that an imperfect world is more beautiful than a dull, perfectly consistent world.

“Nothing's perfect, the world's not perfect, but it's there for us, trying the best it can. That's what makes it so damn beautiful.” – Roy Mustang, Full Metal Alchemist



Thus, Tuesdays with Jesse - What Would Jessica Do?

1 comment:

What Would Jessica Do? said...

haha so true...
come to think of it, the most memorable events in your life is our mischievousness =) sometimes we can laugh too by glancing back about it

-donny