Goodness

At times, I imagine how “Goodness” would be feeling at this point in time.

Imagine your utter definition being taken; hijacked, raped, twisted, turned and ripped off in gazillion pieces to suit 7billion perceptions.

Goodness is choked and suffocated in the chambers of relativity. It is dragged to the courts of highest illusions and questioned on its existence. It is brutally murdered in the verandas of our mind. It is tied in chains and shackles and humiliated on the roads of “pseudo intellectualism and development”.

It is flirted and tossed around in the candle lit jails of romanticism. It is fascinated and painted on the canvas 

to please the worldly beholder.

And somewhere, somehow, the Definition of Goodness stays. Intact. Protected. Breathing its natural breath. No matter how much 7 billion of us try to burry its real Definition, it surfaces; miraculously and magically. It lets us do all we want to do with it. It allows us to twist it and turn it till only we get tired.

And once, we’re tired; it resurfaces again. Shining its eternal light. Imparting wisdom and sharing secrets with those who are truly in search of it.

It is by far, one of those few surviving concepts of the world which have fought evil not by just proactively combating it, but by silently staying firm and intact in face of torture.

Goodness is not being good to all. Goodness is the wisdom of differentiating the Light from the absence of Light. Goodness is not bowing down to the master evils of the world regardless of what they do. Goodness is keeping your head high in face of oppression and injustice.

Goodness does not take the short cut of forgiving all. It says know who to forgive and who not. For if you mistake Goodness with forgiving all; it will give evil yet another chance to claim victory.

Goodness is identifying the Real Regret and Apology from a fake one. It says to forgive those who deserve to be forgiven; for their surrender to Goodness can turn generations of potential Evil to a mass awakening of societies.

Goodness is so independent yet so powerful a concept, that evil camouflaged as humanity is still insecure of it. Evil disguised as Niceness still demands the approval of Goodness. 

Man Khushaal Hastam - من خوشحال هستم

Today, I asked Zarminey (6year old Afghani green-eyed beautiful girl outside The Forum Mall) what happiness meant to her. She just blankly stared back. I repeated again, and again. She just couldn't understand. I was surprised. Because she's the most talkative person I know after me. She finally shrugged her shoulders and cracked a joke about the guard picking his nose.

And that's when I got my answer.

There are two kinds of happiness in this world.

One is natural, innate. The one we're born with. It’s a natural state of mind. Just like we're breathing, our heart's beating; similarly, we're naturally in a state of happiness/contentment. However, the more we acquire materialistic possessions (beyond our needs), we drift away from this natural state. We start limiting happiness. We start drawing its boundaries. And before we realize, we have confined happiness/contentment in complicated paradigms. We have put in stereotypes and conditions. We have attached strings to it. We have drawn a line between what makes us happy and what doesn't.

And that confined state of mind is called illusion of happiness. Wherein, we feel bouts of happiness after acquiring every next materialistic possession. Those moments are nothing but a mere mirage of happiness drenched in materialistic achievements.

Yearning to make those moments of pleasure last, we hop from acquiring one materialistic achievement to another, only to experience the collapse of mirage after every few moments. Every single time, our mirage breaks. We misread our strength to fight. And so, we leap to another possession, in the false hopes of achieving lasting pleasure. It is like expecting to stay alive on the ventilator till death.

With every hop away from nature, we move away from the real happiness. It is the natural state of mind. It can't be described. The definition for real happiness doesn't depend on worldly adjectives and conditions. It is just there. In you. In me. In everyone. It is essential for your survival. For my survival. Our mind might fool us; but our organs, every single one of them is still thriving on this very sense of contentment/happiness.

We were born with it. It is the only True Feeling.

Asking Zarminey what happiness meant to her is asking a human what breathing means to him.

Playing with her dupatta and giggling away, I asked her to teach me how to express happiness in Persian. She smiled and said “Man Khushaal Hastam” [  من;خوشحال هستم] and in that sentence somewhere, she taught me how to breathe again.