{"id":12744,"date":"2018-02-21T11:01:00","date_gmt":"2018-02-21T05:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/?p=12744"},"modified":"2021-01-31T12:52:29","modified_gmt":"2021-01-31T07:22:29","slug":"naturally-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/2018\/02\/21\/naturally-good\/","title":{"rendered":"Naturally good"},"content":{"rendered":"

Towards the end of The Way of Zen<\/em>, Alan Watts has a line that creates a binary between natural and good. I must admit that I felt\u00a0some validation there!<\/p>\n

Over many years and experiences, the\u00a0resident (and dominant) cynic in me has\u00a0come to believe that “naturally good” in terms of a person’s character and behaviour can only be an act. This is also coming from the unoriginal observation<\/a> that we have a “delusion of free will”. The choices we make are less based on a conscious free will, and controlled more by a combination of genes which have fought and survived over millennia and one’s own experiences and environment. While cooperation and goodness are indeed a part of the survival toolkit, they are not the dominant aspects. We’re selfish, the only difference is in the degree of the act, and how much we have trained ourselves.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The self, as Robert Wright has noted, is more an instrument of impression management than decision making. A Level 1 act is to appear good in front of others, and a level 2 act\u00a0is for the self image. Highly likely that we don’t acknowledge either when it happens.<\/p>\n

To be natural is to be not-good (in the eyes of others and\/or self) a lot of times. To be zen is to probably understand that, and be able to go with the flow. The more I think and read, the more right Yoda seems – there really is no try!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Towards the end of The Way of Zen, Alan Watts has a line that creates a binary between natural and good. I must admit that I felt\u00a0some validation there! Over many years and experiences, the\u00a0resident (and dominant) cynic in me has\u00a0come to believe that “naturally good” in terms of a person’s character and behaviour can […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6052,1479,412,6268],"tags":[1933,5465,5463,5464,4625,1758],"class_list":["post-12744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-choices","category-thoughtstream","category-life","category-self","tag-free-will","tag-gene","tag-good","tag-natural","tag-selfish","tag-zen"],"aioseo_notices":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12744"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12744\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15568,"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12744\/revisions\/15568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}