Knowing Right

I  don’t know about you but I learned about right and wrong in a hodge podge of events. “Hot! Don’t touch!” that was most likely my first warning of something not good for me. The stove is not wrong or bad. Neither is the heat. But touching a hot stove is bad for the body, the skin, the finger or hand. Best avoid contact.


Ok. “Hold my hand.” That admonition was made to guide me safely forward. Across the street, surely, and into and out of the car without getting hit by passing cars. Going up and down steps was another peril to be guided through and around. So many of such things when you are tiny.


Anyway, over the years we are told what is good or bad, safe or dangerous, and whatnot. We gain some experience with these things. We observe others (brother and sister?) run afoul of these dangers, and woe is witnessed; best I avoid that!


As we pass through ages and phases of life, we garner a sense of right and wrong and proper behavior for the circumstance. Later, we explore each of these things on our own and come to realize how to navigate them as an adult. We change our mind, maybe, and create our own index of right and wrong.


Later still, the fine points of life beckon us to experience more details firsthand. We often plow ahead without much care. If results are miserable, we learn more about what made them miserable. Then we take note on what to avoid, or how better to encounter the danger more successfully.


With more and more experience we learn.


Like art, talent, music, speaking in public, whatever, we must take the plunge and step ahead away from our known base of safety, comfort. It is in this netherworld we gain knowledge of self and ability. Without the risk, we would not make the move. We would be devoid of the new experience. We would not learn about ourselves. Safe but bland. Not fulfilled.


Right and wrong are not black and white. There is a world of gray involved in life. It must be experienced to be known. More experiences inform us of finer details. We learn the difference between craft and art. We learn the difference between feeling and thought. And we know success and failure in many degrees.


I don’t automatically know right from wrong. It must be learned. Each of us must do this work. All of us, and at different moments in the continuum of time, making for differences among us in thought, deed, word and morality. We are different. Our experiences are different. Our timing is different. This all makes for a challenging social order in which to live.


Listening is important to understanding. Articulating one’s own mind is also important to the discussion. Having the discussion helps all participants grow in understanding.


This is why civility in discourse is so important. The right and wrong is yet to be determined. And always will be.


February 26, 2020