The Good, the Bad, and the Neutral

The nature of the universe is change. However, human culture has taught us some peculiar responses to this endless flowing of change by getting us into the habit of categorizing experiences.

We start sticking each perception of each experience into one of three pigeon holes: the good, the bad, and the neutral. Make note that each box has our very own reaction or mental responses toward each category. Anytime we experience something we perceive as ‘good’, we tend to experience the moment fully. We embrace it, we hold onto it, and sometimes we try to keep it from ever ending. Of course, when this moment of ‘good’ starts to fade, we think of ways in how we can achieve that state or moment of goodness.

Onto the other end of the spectrum, there lies another box which we can label as ‘bad’. This is where one perceives something as ‘bad’, and we try to avoid or push it away. We either deny it, reject it, or come up with ways to get rid of it. We fight against our own experience and run away from this experience.

Last but not least, what we cannot place in the ‘good’ or the ‘bad’, it will fall into the ‘neutral’ box. We can call these experiential things as uninteresting, tepid, or ‘neutral’. Yet, we pack another set of experiences in this box so we can ignore it and return to where all the action is happening which is in the realm of ‘good’ - the realm of endless desire and aversion.

This ‘neutral’ category of experiences commonly gets robbed of its fair share of attention. To ignore the contents you throw into this box, we can hop on this perpetual treadmill race to nowhere, endlessly pounding for pleasure, endlessly fleeing from pain, potentially ignoring 90% of our life experiences.

Then we wonder why life tastes so flat. Our minds are full of opinions and criticisms because we have built walls all around ourselves and are trapped in the prison of our own likes and dislikes.

In the final analysis, this system does not work.

We must embrace every moment and throw it into this one box we can all call ‘life’.