A Tall Drink of Noodles.

It finally came to me yesterday evening, right before I went to sleep. This might seem a bit obvious or basic, but sometimes you’ll see something subconsciously and not know in your waking life. You know…a bad person is not born bad. He/She are cultivated and then harvested like crops from a field. Hitler wasn’t born a monster. He became a monster based upon his upbringing and the environment he found himself in. Not saying that all bad people progress to the level of “badness” as Hitler did, but he serves as a hyperbolic symbol of my point.

We are all products of our environment and vice versa, our environment is a product of us.

I came to the realization that a bad person is bad because either another bad person had negatively influenced him/her, thus potentially destroying their ability to be or see good altogether. Or it’s quite possible that a good person did or said something bad to them by accident or were completely unaware of the damage (on different possible levels) they were inflicting upon them. Example: Lex Luther, the comic arch-nemesis of Superman was not always a bad, bald guy, that plots to destroy society and Superman. Luther used to be very good person with noble dreams of healing people as a doctor until a terrible accident happened and Luther was hurt and disfigured, to which he will eternally blame Superman for.

What does Lex Luther and this post have in common. Good question…

This is my point…

A good person can become bad for a myriad of subtle and not so subtle reasons. Not all bad people are truly bad…just as not all good people are truly good. When a good person is pushed and pushed (physically, spiritually, emotionally or psychologically) further away from being good, it is inevitable that this good person is doomed to become bad. The hope of ever becoming or at least seeing the good in anything becomes more and more remote with each episode of pushing.

I now understand why a good person could become bad.

Is it right for a good person to do bad things on purpose? Of course not. Do the actions justify the means? No, but there is a purpose and a goal to why a normally good person would do a bad thing on purpose and become bad. Can it be understood and rationalized? Yes, although the perspective that the good-turned-bad person is coming from is their own and thus skewed from society’s’ vantage point. If no one understands or listens to a good person’s perspective it’s quite possible that they will either become apathetically introverted or worse, methodically bad. Stories, motives and actions always change, but history shows us that humans are not infallible or immune to becoming bad.

Now I know how a good person can go bad.

I see that the overall principles of the self do not change in a bad person, they grow stronger. The hurt and emboldened self become one entity that rationalizes every negative action with a positive one. The negative impulses that would normally be held back or hidden become the normal and unhidden.

Fascinating…to understand the mindset of a good person gone bad.

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