The Natural Goodness of Humankind
(Wade's notes on this book written by George Parrish)
"The Natural Goodness of Humankind" said there are three
ways we can look at the quality of our lives. We can plot each of these ways of
looking at ourselves on a graph. The three graphs involved are: 1) a goodness
graph;
2) a social karma graph; and 3) a happiness
graph.
The general idea is that the x-axis will be time
and the
y-axis will show degree of fulfillment. Most people would have a graph that slowly
increases after birth; then speeds up the growth during the rest of life until near
death where the rate of increase will slow back down. Since all percentages of fulfillment
are positive numbers the graph will always continue to rise thru time. When the
integral in calculus is added at each moment, the graph rises closer to a limit,
but never reaches it. Since all percentages of fulfillment are positive numbers,
these graphs will always rise even when fulfillment is very small. If one wanted
to analyze negative events, one would look at the average integral and note the
time periods when it dips under 50% (if we assume under 50% fulfillment is a negative
situation.
The first way of looking at life involves comparing the
actual to the ideal at each moment. In this goodness dimension,
we compare what
we actually do to what we ideally do. If we do exactly what we ideally want, we
plot that moment as a positive 100 percent; If we are in the middle, we plot it
as 50 percent; And if we do the opposite of the ideal, we plot it as a 0 percent.
The second way of looking at life involves social
karma.
This is not strictly determined by there being a balance between what we give and
receive. Sometimes we are supposed to receive more than what we give and other times
we should give more than what we receive. This graph is just created by plotting
how the relationship ranks at that moment in relation to what it would ideally be.
The third way of looking at life is simply by happiness.
If we are totally happy, we mark that moment with positive 100 percent; and if we
are totally sad, we mark the moment with a 0 percent.