
How bad can it get?
In East of Eden, John Steinbeck shows he’s not naïve as to how bad the human heart can get. He opens the book saying a human can be a monster:
Monsters are variations from the accepted normal to a greater or a less degree. As a child may be born without an arm, so one may be born without kindness or the potential of conscience.
And then, using a variety of characters, he goes about proving his point. It’s fiction and yet anyone who reads it will tell you it’s not far fetched.
It’s the familiar tale of human crookedness and the misery that ricochets. It’s written in our stories. Has your story been cushy and pedestrian? Then just go and dig down underneath the surface of a generation or two of your family tree. Either you find a horrible mess or someone’s lying to you.
The evidence of our condition and the misery that results is astonishingly replete. It makes you wonder why we’re still so hopeful for our world. Someone on the news acts shocked that some atrocity was committed by a criminal. Yet why are we surprised? Shouldn’t we be more shocked that we persist in believing in the good of humanity?
Are you aware of the bad within your own heart? And what’s your persistent light amidst the darkness?
