The One Thing I Know to Be Good

It’s time I share something I have never fully shared. Never fully admitted, to anyone outside of myself, and to God.

I, ever since I was young, have dreamed of being a martyr.

Of finding something so beautiful, so true — something my whole being knows is RIGHT — and giving everything I am and have for it.

Ever since then, I have been living a double life.

On one side, walking through the steps this world puts before us. Going through the motions, to stay afloat.

And on the other, secret side, desperately searching.

What is that thing? What in this world is so beautiful, so right, that it’s worth giving up it all?

Something I would be proud to die for.

This has led me to see life through the eyes of a scientist. Putting every experience, every feeling, every thought through the microscope, asking: “is it here?”

What is true “goodness,” and how does one align their life most fully to it?

I have studied religions, allowing myself to be fully consumed in their world, seeing life through their lens. Trying on their definition of “good” and of “bad,” and looking at the world through their eyes.

Through 20 years of this pursuit, I believe I am starting to see clearly at last.

Love. Every religion points to it as the answer.

But what is this word? An emotion that sweeps by, a temporary flash of the right collection of chemicals? A feeling of the heart, of unity with others?

We can point our life countless ways, towards infinite ends. Our whole lives we point ourselves in different directions, towards different goals, hoping we are doing it right.

I believe love is the resonance, the vibration that we feel when, on some Nth-dimensional plane, our life is pointing in the right direction.

On one level, our universe is a cosmic soup of atoms, quarks, fields, and forces, spinning and colliding in an unfathomable dance.

Looking at the universe from this lens, who could say any particular arrangement is better or worse?

And yet, here in this 3-dimensional experience we find ourselves in, meaning emerges.

There is one way of being, one shape of this cosmic soup, that is special. And that is love.

I can’t claim to know why, or how any collection of that atomic soup could be better than any other.

But I know for a fact that I feel love, and that it is GOOD.

And so, I choose to align my life to it. With every fiber of will I have — to whatever extent free will exists, with which I can lay my hands on the fabric of this world and wrench it — I will wrench it towards love.

Because the goodness of love is the only thing I truly know.

And I am grateful beyond any words could hope to express, for love. The one mysterious force that whispers what is good.

I do not believe in evil. I believe there is love, and there are places not yet aligned to love. I do not believe these places to be bad. For I have found the greatest joy that exists in this conscious experience is to use this will we have been given — this small window of choice — and use it to bring love to where there was none.

And so, that is what my life will be about.

It will look crazy. It will look stupid. It will look lost.

But I trust this thing in my heart. This small vibration. The one thing I know to be good.

And so, to my very death, I will trust it, and seek it always.

From Sean, this being that briefly lived on this earth, from 1991 – TBD.