Conjectures of a recovering dilettante --- Welcome to Pizzaonia! Reflections from a different perspective --- Diverti Mento, John Frank Giovanni, Frank John Franco, Vera V. Veronica and all of the Pizza digogo DiVinci family invite you to join us - We discuss and share ideas that are relevant to our new emerging world. A division of the Pizzaonian Newsertainment Network
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One day, while reading the newspaper, I came to the obituaries. As I read on, I could not help but notice how wonderful all of these people were during their lifetimes. I did not find one bad person in the group.
So for the next several days, I made it my special project to read faithfully their eulogies. You guessed it - only good people die. I could not find one soul that didn’t do something magnificent in their lifetimes. They all served the community well - they were all beloved by many, and the world was simply a better place because they were here. Don’t get me wrong, I’m certainly happy about this. I’m glad that we were favored by their presence on this mortal coil.
However, it does beg the question. Why do only good people die? Every now and then, I still take a peek at the obits thinking I might find someone in there who wasn’t all that good. You know the kind of obituary that says – “he really was a jerk, but we loved him anyway.” Something like that might be reassuring to know that once in a while not just good people die.
“Pizzaonia Emerging” Courtesy of the Pizzaonian Art Institute, Abe Straction, Curator
Within each of us is the desire to do good works. In the beginning as children, and for some much longer, that desire is motivated by selfish goals. Goodness is defined by what works in order to satisfy whatever self-centered end we are seeking.
As we grow older, most of us know this instinctively. What confuses us is how difficult it is to separate the difference between selfish and unselfish motivation. One could argue that you can’t. However, for any reflective person, this conflict shows its head early and stays with us the rest of our lives. How then do we resolve this basic conflict?
From my personal perspective, we don’t. However, this does not mean we are any less aware of the difficulty this creates. To compensate for this lack of clarity and resolution we have to create a process that allows us to be sensitive to how this conflict plays within each of our personalities.
The question that was presented to me early in my life by a very wise man was, “How do we make selfishness work for us and those around us?”
This is a situation where selfish needs and service to others can come together. If you need recognition for your good works, by all means please seek recognition, particularly if it inspires you to do more good works.
The business world is an excellent example of how selfish and altruistic aims can come together. Corporations and their leaders can develop projects that if successful will serve the public good. And at the same time, the creation of that public good can also bring a huge increase in profits.
On a personal level, how can we meet and mesh our selfish and altruistic goals? Can religion and faith be one of these areas? How many religious people mesh selfish and unselfish motivations as part of their belief in God? By its very nature religious belief systems combine good works with an ultimate reward.
Conspicuous public worship and charity can be a way of embellishing one’s reputation, particularly among other worshipers who share the same belief system. I am afraid perfect and unconditional love is the province of the saints, not ordinary people.
Here in Pizzaonia we have many portalized Americans, a majority of, which happen to be Christian. As far as we can tell this is purely coincidental. We also have all religions represented here, as well as non-religious atheists as part of our community. Nonetheless, Christianity is a major topic of conversation here at the seminary.
It seems to me that the one aspect of Christianity that fascinates believers and non-believers alike is the Christian promise of the “Good News” which states without reservation that not only is there a God, but a God who knows you personally and loves you beyond your ability to comprehend such a love.
This, in of itself, is hard to accept - then when you add to this belief that the way to this God is through sacrifice, and if necessary any suffering that goes with that sacrifice, it becomes a belief system very difficult to accept. This confronts and challenges our original motivation. Are Christians fulfilling their obligation to perform good works, even though the motivation to do so may also be self serving?
Not too many years ago we admired the great thinkers of our world. The philosophers and writers helped shape the direction of our culture. With their musings and philosophical projections, they allowed us to develop a certain maturity so we could perceive life with our relationships and understandings of our individual traditions.
Today we honor those who can create the latest app for our amusement and deluded version of information as knowledge. Instead of our philosophers and writers, we honor a group of technologically brilliant entrepreneurs with little life experience. They have created a virtual world which is now replacing our ability or desire to engage the actual world with in person reality.
What do we do about it? For many, the answer is nothing. They are perfectly comfortable with this process and engage it with anticipation daily. For others? I am not sure how many really care?
With technology being so ubiquitous, we spend more time in our cybernetic world rather than with live, individual experience. This seems ironic since never have we had more of an opportunity to share information with each other as well as with different cultures. Unfortunately, with this comes the illusion of being well-informed when, in fact, just the opposite might be happening – confusing information as knowledge is commonplace.
This could explain why the so-called sound bite has become so important. We have developed a culture that will not invest time pursuing knowledge. A quick sound bite will do nicely. Add to this a deluge of marketing experts that are paid handsomely to exploit every opportunity to advance their clients point of view, and you have our information networks of today.
When you have a culture that believes it is well-informed, when, in fact, it is not, you have a culture ripe for demagoguery. Public opinion can be changed with a well place sound bite at the right time. As the presidential political season warms up, never has this been so obvious.
Dictatorships have regularly exploited their enslaved constituencies. Democracies have invariably believed they are not vulnerable to this because of our freedoms. Good luck with this one. Till next time……