What Are You?

There is the good and the bad, the angels and the devils. There are the rights and the wrongs, the saints and the sinners. Who are you? Who do you want to be? These questions and the answers that go along with them might surprise us. Perhaps the answers to these questions have their own little home, deep within our subconscious, or they may change over time with the onset of incident and experience.

Whatever label, “good” or “bad” that you define yourself by, at the end of the day it is truly difficult to answer any question without a frame of reference. When first asked: “Would you kill?” it is a general human reflex to respond with an utterly horrified “NO!” But really, would you? What if the stakes were so high, and a death was inevitable, and it came down to you and the gunman? What if it came down to the gunman and your mother, your girlfriend, or your child? Would it be a questions then? With your finger on the trigger or your hand grasped tightly around a knife, could you and would you do it? Are you a Lion or a Lamb?

To many, to kill is the worst that one can do. However, some could argue that the difference between the truth and a lie could be just as destructive and detrimental as deliberate death. Would you lie? We prize ourselves as humans to be whole, and honest people, but the truth about truth is that it is tainted. So you call yourself and honest person, but what if the truth was a matter of life or death? What if telling a lie could potentially save its recipient from heartache, pain, or loss? Would you lie to protect or to stop something damaging from happening? Are you an Angel or a Serpent?

Ask yourself this: What in this world, is the absolute and utterly horrifying, most terrible thing a human can do? And then, ask yourself, under an equally horribly terrible situation, would you do it?

Questions like this test our character. They open our eyes to the thoughts we hold in our minds, and help us to evaluate the morality of humanity. It is interesting to know who we are, or who we think we might be. It can be frightening, surprising, or reassuring, but the the thing is that you’ll never really know. So, until a situation arises where you are forced to choose between one or the other, I ask you to sit and ponder… What are you?

Image by Tennille Jordan