Tonight I'm going to discuss a rather serious topic, albeit one that's been tread down before: the topic of why bad things happen to good people. Not only that, but why some people seem to be born with a predilection to do bad things...or are assumed to be that way, at any rate.
If you're wondering what brought this on, I read a blog post recently titled Schrodinger's Rapist, which basically deals with the threat of sexual assault women have to deal with every day. Beyond that I will not summarize further; please read the link so you can have a grasp of what I'm talking about.
Read the article? Good. Now I will proceed.
It's dealing with facts like that, that make me question the motives of God; the article does bring up a valid point, that even if men like myself don't ever picture ourselves sexually assaulting any woman, due to the very nature of the Y chromosome we carry we are still capable of doing it, whether we like that fact or not. The mere fact that because of my gender that I'm instantly associated with the ones of my gender who do carry out such evil (and there are sadly too many of them) is at times more than I can bear.
It's not just mere association that brings me down - it's the physiological differences between men and women, right down to how their brains function, that really drives it all home for me. Because of such documented differences, it really drives home the point that even if I can't associate myself with the evil members of my gender, it's because of the fact that the Y chromosome is what it is that makes it possible for me to commit such acts of cruelty. Believe me, I wish I could think like a woman all the time. I wish I could be a woman sometimes...if only to get rid of this stigma.
This brings me to the motives of God: why would God put me in a male body? If God didn't want me to commit such evil, why put me in a body that's capable of it? If God is supposedly omniscient, then God surely would've known of my tendencies to so easily deprecate myself for being who I am...so why put me in a body that would facilitate such feelings? Since I can be so easily ashamed of being male, due to the evil other males do, why put me in a male body?
After reading the article in question, I express such feelings over Twitter, and one of the people I followed said I should relax, and that I don't need to take it all on. It was that statement that at least brought me some peace on the matter; indeed, the questions I asked before are not ones that I need to answer myself, or have answered right now. The universe is what it is, and God designed it that way...as much as I want to question its design, I realize that it's not my place to do so, since it's not within my power to change the fundamental nature of the human male. (I suppose if I was a geneticist with mad scientist-like plans of world-shaking, I could do something about it, but I'm not, so...) It's God's responsibility for how the universe is, not mine.
I'm not saying one should be complacent in light of such evil as the threats women face every day. It's important to fight evil, of course. This brings us to what I've learned about the fundamental nature of happiness: one is not happy in the absence of suffering. One can only be truly happy by overcoming suffering. So in my case, I suppose what I can do is to not only be different from the males who do commit evil acts against women (which I already am different from them, as far as I'm concerned), but try to fight against it whenever and however I can. As I am not a superhero I can't fly around the city beating up every rapist that exists, but I can speak out against it and try to stop it if I do see it.
I suppose that's why the universe is what it is...because if it were perfect already, there would be no incentive for dynamism, for change, for movement. And what good is a universe in a perpetual steady-state? Maybe the reason I'm a male who feels the way I do is because if I do manage to encounter my soulmate out there, that my shame would go away and the rewards would be that much sweeter.
Besides, I feel God and the universe are starting to become kinder to me anyway...my Ganesha mantra-chanting and meditation seem to be paying off in unforeseen ways. I feel Ganesha has started to bless me. More on that in another post, though.
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