Deceptive appearances

From the outside, I appear to be a together person. There is truth to this and I'm certainly a person to whom Fate has been very kind, for which I'm always grateful.

However, for several years and especially since my mother's death I've been confused about what to believe and how I should attempt to live the remainder of my life. Perhaps I'm starting to get somewhere now. Below are the lyrics of a song I wrote a few days ago that has become a sort of anthem for me.

Fool for love  

Words and music, Owen Scott, III

(April 13, 2016)

I have said

There are two kinds of men

There are fools

And there are fools who know.

That all men are foolish

And I am just a man

Who plays the fool each day

And I can’t let go.  

It may be impossible

It surely seems that way

To turn this world around

But who’s to say?

In the Great Scheme of Things

No one counts for much

Like seasons on the wind

We come and we go.

But somehow all the same

Each life’s a burning flame

Each day’s a treasure cave

Each moment shines like gold.

Each breath’s eternity

Each thought is lightning

Each kiss is everything
Each story must be told. 

Things

Objects and abstractions, the things of the human world, only exist because we believe in them. They are fictional- even I am merely a social fiction created by the unfolding organic processes of life.

The perception of evil

As far as we know, evil only exists as a property of human cognitive activity. Evil exists in the context of humans' attitudes toward other humans and the actions that stem from the attitudes. We perceive evil when we view documentary footage of sharply dressed Nazi soldiers with firearms juxtaposed against piles of emaciated bodies of concentration camp victims being dumped unceremoniously into trenches by Jewish slave laborers who soon enough will be the ones being dumped. We personify evil in the form of supernatural beings with horns and muscular bodies or feminine curves and serpent's eyes.

Evil stems from beliefs that are transcendently false, beliefs that contradict the transcendent truth "everyone is valuable and worthy of respect," beliefs that are spiritually psychotic. The exemplars are "I am important and you are not," and "My people are intrinsically better than your people." Evil is characterized by expedient selfishness and the absence of compassion. Evil is proudly and shamelessly wrong.

Death is a stranger

We only know life.