Connie Johnson's Blog - Posts Tagged "metaphysical-crime-drama"
Books: A Gateway Drug to Other Realities
Sometimes those realities are wonderful, and sometimes appalling. Sometimes the human spirit is celebrated, sometimes lamented. But wherever you go with it, it’s mind-blowing and intellect-expanding. You may not agree with everything you read…but that’s kind of the point, isn’t it?
The Bell Curve of Good and Evil
THE BELL CURVE
Not a popular shape in our culture—but so very useful, nonetheless. According to some, 15% of us fall to the left, 15% of us fall to the right, and 70% are open (more or less—literally more or less) to cultural and environmental influence.
At a very young age, I became occupied by the concepts of good and evil. I am a post WWII child, and the violent excesses of that event were fresh during my developmental years.
And, I came from a family that encouraged reading, and did little to monitor or censor my reading material. Hence, by the time I was twelve years old, I had read The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, by William L. Shirer.
I grew up in a Reservation town, and the disparity between the indigenous North Americans, and those of us arrived in the past two hundred years, was evident, and abundant. When I was little, I only knew it was—I had not started to pick apart the why it was.
Then I decided social work was a good career for me, and spend 40 years sitting in the figurative bleachers watching good and evil play out before me.
So I write. I write away my own demons, I write away the demons of the world. I read them away, as well. Still and always, I have a voracious appetite for the written word.
Not a popular shape in our culture—but so very useful, nonetheless. According to some, 15% of us fall to the left, 15% of us fall to the right, and 70% are open (more or less—literally more or less) to cultural and environmental influence.
At a very young age, I became occupied by the concepts of good and evil. I am a post WWII child, and the violent excesses of that event were fresh during my developmental years.
And, I came from a family that encouraged reading, and did little to monitor or censor my reading material. Hence, by the time I was twelve years old, I had read The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, by William L. Shirer.
I grew up in a Reservation town, and the disparity between the indigenous North Americans, and those of us arrived in the past two hundred years, was evident, and abundant. When I was little, I only knew it was—I had not started to pick apart the why it was.
Then I decided social work was a good career for me, and spend 40 years sitting in the figurative bleachers watching good and evil play out before me.
So I write. I write away my own demons, I write away the demons of the world. I read them away, as well. Still and always, I have a voracious appetite for the written word.
The Good in the Bell Curve
Because if 15% are malevolent, then 15% are benevolent. The 15% without an agenda, the 15% who have no one but themselves backing their world view and their actions. The 15% who do right just because it is the right thing to do. The health care workers who worked the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, or Allan Law, who drives the night streets of Minneapolis, giving sandwiches to the hungry.
"True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost." – Arthur Ashe…and that’s where you find that 15%.
"True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost." – Arthur Ashe…and that’s where you find that 15%.
