Angry Bird

There was a young woodpecker perched on a rail just outside the kitchen window and one of its parents came flying down to it with a beak full of food and tried to feed it and it was protesting loudly and trying to dodge out of the way- just like a bolshy teen.

"Get away, mum. I'm grown up now. God, but this is embarrassing. You've ruined my whole life. I hate you!"

Then it flew away.

Plotinus On Evil

Plotinus- who I'm taking in small doses- says matter is evil- and I've been thinking about it (and Stanislav Grof has been assisting me.)

The way I gloss it is this: if you're a spirit you don't encounter resistance; you can fly about, pass through walls; you don't age, you don't get ill, you can't hurt or be hurt; none of the things we call "evil" exist for you. But if you descend into matter you meet resistance on every side, your body is vulnerable and needs feeding, resouces are limited and you're having to compete to get them. Another way of putting it is that evil arises out of difficulty.

No difficulty, no evil. But no adventure either, no cut and thrust, no extreme emotions, no excitement. Life on earth comes with evil- so-called- built in. Without evil life would be like the perpetually sunny, white picket fence existence Jim Carey endures in The Truman Show- and who wants that?