A Real Update! :-D

[ishnianqueen]

Wow. Another semester over and done. Again. This makes 7, and that's actually a little scary. I'm not really sure where all that time went. Since I started this El-Jay, I've gone through the end of my freshman year (and one of my worst lapses of judgment) to halfway through what should have been my senior year.

I had a similar experience this summer

Comments

[ishnianqueen]

No problem. :-) I'm glad it helped someone...or at least someone read it! :-P

[king_herod]

- People do change - they adapt to the environment. The environment is not always good.

- It is so easy to be a good person, especially when with others striving to be good. It is not the bad person who does evil - it is the weak person unable to resist the devil. It is very simple and easy to be good. It isn't so easy to resist the devil painting the bad to look good.

These to me are contradictory; the environment in which we live--modern Western society--is one in which is is very difficult to truly do good. Ironically, very often the good that can readily be done (and is done) is attached to a bad act (look at the forms of charity most prevalent today; they are merely stylistic attachments to various consumerist expressions such as those stupid wristbands, the (PRODUCT)RED campaign ["Buy this iPod to fight AIDS"--why not just donate money?], and the list goes on). Other than that, your other observations are interesting.

Oh, and Merry Christmas, and we should hang out sometime...

[ishnianqueen]

But it is quite possible and fairly easy to be good in modern Western society. We're talking everyday, run of the mill life, right? Because there are subsections that do make it more difficult to be good. As I said, it's especially easy to be good if you're with others who are also striving to be good. They're really not all that hard to find - if you find one good person, just look to see who they hang out with and you'll generally find more good people. They live ordinary lives in the world and simply encourage one another to do good. Now, if you surround yourself with people who aren't making good or wise decisions, who are too weak to do anything but succumb to the "good" of the world, then we have a problem. Granted, even good people mess up sometimes, but the actual doing of good deeds really isn't hard.

....I don't know if that made ANY sense, I think the tryptophan is still hitting me. :-P Merry Christmas, Harry! PS - I found something for you at Tower right before they closed...