The Transcendental: The Church Project

'Bad'

March 16, 2024

Let's talk about the bad man. There is right and wrong, and we have good and bad. But what's the difference between being right or wrong and being good or bad? So, I was thinking of putting this into perspective by relating badness or the bad to bad reception - bad reception in terms of communication lines. 'Cause I was like: 'Bad' is a word that we link to a lot of things, and anyway, it is an adjective and adjectives are like plugs, and on its own, it's not gonna get work done. And in the case of bad reception, it kind of makes it clearer and easier to understand what the purpose of using the word 'bad' is.

When the reception is bad, that creates a space for misunderstanding or things not being communicated. This is where things don't work out the way it would have if the conditions had been good. So, we use the word for when there are problematic situations or situations that require some problem solving. And obviously, we solve problems to create a good space or condition. 'Cause people, sometimes, they ask: Why change behavior? Why don't we just love and accept people in whatever state they're in?

And that actually brings us to the reason why people have this emotional reaction to the word 'bad' when used for the man. It is because people relate wanting to change problematic behavior to love and acceptance. And that's not even the only thing that they relate badness to. When people hear 'bad person', then that's criticism/insult and shaming to them. It's not just rejection that comes to people's minds but an insult to their character. And then people then process the feelings or emotions that come from that with this form of defense and they're like: Alright, so I am a bad person, you can't change me, I love doing things the bad way.

So, the original problem kind of gets set aside and what's been dealt with is the rejection and criticism. People will tell you they don't give a fuck when they perceive that it's not about wanting good conditions and spaces for them but that you are finding it hard to love them or accept them because something is bad, there's a behavioral problem, so you're rejecting them and you think that's something for them to be ashamed of. And personally, I would love to know that the person just happens to have strong autonomy and that's why they're not taking onboard bad things like rejection and shaming. I was gonna call that 'culture' but what people call 'culture' sometimes, I think they're just bandwagon things where people just kind of follow suit because they see that's how people would do it, and in terms of 'bad culture', well, there's just little to no questioning whether that's right or wrong. But if it's so that they just have strong autonomy or sense of being free, I would still be offering to them this concept of changing behavior or changing something to make room for something good for themselves, to create good spaces and conditions for them that will then improve the quality of life.

'Cause it's not really freedom or you don't get to feel the good out of freedom if you actually are in a bad situation and you're experiencing difficulty there, and because you want to make it known to people that you don't give a fuck. 'Cause in that case, then it's just a protest, a rebellion, and not freedom. And freedom is a good state.

The difference between right and wrong and good and bad is that knowing the difference between right and wrong and choosing right is how you get good instead of bad as a state or quality or condition. It's really got nothing to do supposedly with love and acceptance and definitely not with respect. And this is what I have been putting emphasis on in previous writings. It is important not to make things out to be a matter of something else 'cause that's how people get lost, where they lose sight of the problem and they create unnecessary drama for problems. The problem with 'bad' is that something's not working out, and because of that, there's imbalance and disharmony in the person's life. Something's not being done right. That's why it's bad. The reception is bad, the signal is bad.

Bad things happen when people are doing something that is not right. When people reject community members and shame them and call them bad people, something bad comes out of that. Like bad culture. We get protests and rebellions. We get conflict and unrest. Bad conditions that get in the way of people having a good quality of life. But the problem really is that things aren't being done right.

'You're a bad person.' versus 'You're doing it wrong.'

'You should be ashamed.' versus 'This is the right way of doing it. This is how we get things working again. This is how we don't have problems.'

The wording could make a lot of difference. The difference is between 'no interest in making things work' and 'being interested in functionality'.

When you don't take interest in the good, people with the bad or in the bad situations, they won't take interest also. And this is the reason why I don't wanna contribute to rigidity in teaching 'cause that's where people become counterproductive like they're sabotaging their own missions. If you are interested in the good, in things working out, you have to make sure that you're not creating more problems or more space for bad. That's alignment between the goal or the mission and the values or the vision. If you like inclusion, don't be creating or contributing to exclusion. If you like rehabilitation, you have to be open to working or collaborating with the people you see are doing things the wrong way. I know these are obvious, and they are supposedly, but we state the obvious not to be sarcastic but because it may be a blind spot and people don't actually see it. People just automatically presume that others can see how the mission and the values don't match, but it may be that they need an observer to tell them: Actually, you're contributing to this, not that. And this is how.