Preference

It is well known that as people, we prefer to have good things and to experience good events, and that we avoid those that are bad. What is not as widely realized is that these tendencies are not merely attributes of what is good and what is bad; they are their definitions. It is not the goodness or the badness of things that determines what we like and dislike - it is our preference towards the phenomena within the world that define the good and the bad within it, and which colors our experience with a rich spectrum, from rosy gardens of delight to the toxic trenches of misery.

It might be argued by some that this is not so, and that there are good and bad things which apply to all people, regardless of who they are and what they prefer. There is, after all, a general agreement that stealing, killing, and lying are bad actions, that sadness, fear, and pain are bad, and that happiness and pleasure are good. It is good when resources are sufficient and abundant, and it is bad when they are scarce, is it not? Isn't it good to be beautiful and intelligent, and bad to be ugly and dumb? How does personal preference play a part in these obvious, basic concepts? How can these commonalities exist between billions of people, each with their own unique preferences, if not due to the intrinsic goodness and badness of the forms, qualities, and actions themselves?

A key to this puzzle lies in the fact, often overlooked, that we share vastly much more in common than that in which we differ. Were it not for the relatively minute attributes that differ between us, which people so often emphasize so sharply, our bodies, our equipments, are virtually identical. Our bodies' shapes, their abilities to move, perceive, process, and express, their reactions to the same types of inputs, are unchanged from individual to individual. They react in similar fashions to qualities of pain and pleasure, to sadness, anger and joy, and they use the same chemicals and motions to express the same qualities and reactions. The success of our very language indicates how much in common we all share, for we have managed to incorporate abstract, intangible meaning into common sounds and symbols. In the grand space of possibilities, this accomplishment should indicate how virtually indistinguishable we must seem, from a perspective outside of the human drama. It is this ancient shared foundation that induces so much of the common good and bad that humans are familiar with.

And yet we are not identical, and in fact the amount and depth of the attributes that we express and make each of us unique seem limitless as well, and they only grow as our concepts become more complex and our discernment is refined evermore.

From both these sides; from our vast reservoir of common ancestry, forged together through eons of interplay, experimentation, and survival; and from the myriads of attributes, qualities, and choices in the spectra of countless and growing dimensions of differentiation that we humans explore and create, led on by a powerful inquiring mind, along with the exquisite thread of experience, fabricated with colors and shapes no one has ever seen, and woven upon terrains never before ventured; from these two sides of our composition, our preferences arise.

And seeing many of these preferences common and obvious, as well as the common good and bad they induce upon the world, many conclude that goodness and badness are traits inherent to the forms, and attempt to find in the forms what is "the good" and what is "the bad". In the objects, in the actions, in the habits. Then when they find in other people another set of values - when that person sees as bad what one finds good, or viceversa, a logical impasse is reached. "If I know that this object is good, and that person thinks this object is bad, then I know (s)he must be mistaken, because this thing is either good, or it is bad". This conclusion occurs in an instant, unawarely in all but rare cases. And just as unconsciously, it triggers a reaction to fix this disparity, to help the other realize that his point of view is mistaken, often resulting in arguing, friction, conflict, and violence, since the other person likely reaches a similar conclusion, and a reactionary feedback loop is created.

But their unaware reasonings are based on that specious former postulate: "Goodness and badness are part of the forms". Were we to realize this postulate is false, that our own unique preferences are what filter and tinge the world around us with the good and bad that feels so true, that they do not belong to the form and matter but to ourselves, very many would realize the futility of persuasion in many situations, and perhaps that energy now lost to argument and conflict could be repurposed to exploring the values that can be garnered from these individual differences, and in turn use these values towards further growth and unity.