Note: Keep in mind this is the perspective of an introspective observer, not to be interpreted as absolute fact.

Are humans born good or bad?

Your answer to this would most likely be based on your experience with the species up to this point. If you’re oblivious and sheltered, you might say we’re good. If you’re battle-hardened and a repeat victim of betrayal, you would most certainly say bad. But look beyond your experience… in what way are humans inclined to act? How do we even go about answering that? If you look past the blunt nose of recorded human civilization into the vast expanse of existence, I find that the answer becomes a little bit easier to understand.

Consider the array of cycles, processes, life, death, and the like all around us. We refer to it as nature. For as long as Earth has existed, there has been this quintessential system dictating the way things operate. It’s a self-correcting, evolving, ever-changing, sustainable, and utterly beautiful system. When left alone, it operates flawlessly. Mountains are sculpted, oceans are filled, rivers carve canyons, volcanoes create continents. Within this, we have an element of life. All living things are subject to this system of nature; no one thing is above it. Creatures must obey the rules of natural selection and survival of the fittest. They must endure natural phenomena such as storms, droughts, earthquakes, and floods. Humans are no exception to this.

A very long time ago, we only lived by our primal instincts: reproduction and survival. What was needed to achieve this? A certain amount of strength, intelligence, and luck. That’s all that mattered in the life of any creature on earth at one point; survive at all costs, and create the healthiest offspring.

Then, somewhere in the middle, humans began to think. We went beyond what was required to survive, and thought, what do I desire? Civilizations arose out of a need to work together to survive, but desires for power and wealth transformed them into hierarchical societies of rulers and peasants. We perceived others as “worthy” or “unworthy” as deemed by some societal standard. This society of desires became so overwhelming that the idea of survival completely changed. Aided by advancements in technology, people no longer needed strength and intelligence to survive, but only the ability to please other’s desires to make a profit.

Granted, this ability often does require some manner of strength or intelligence, but that of a different kind. Now, with this hierarchy of people and the corruption of power, people in power made rules to dictate the lives of the “unworthy”. This was the case of pharaohs, kings, prophets, bishops, emperors… a religion or a society, it doesn’t matter. The desires of the powerful dictated the lives of the rest. It was then that “good” and “bad” were defined. Those who didn’t like the “good” and “bad” of their society were either killed, or fled to form their own society. And that’s what you have today: a flurry of different cultures all with a different perspective of right and wrong.

So what the hell is “right” or “wrong”, “good” or “bad”? If you go all the way back to nature as I did in this thought process, you would determine that there is no such thing. There is only nature, a beautiful system that cares not for our rules. It has its own rule: be self-sustaining. This means that everything and anything is subject to nature’s cycle of life and death, creation and destruction. The fact that we view ourselves as above this is utterly disgusting. We don’t get to live above the rule of nature and create our own rules. We don’t get to pollute the earth and expect to live in eternal comfort. We don’t get to squander the world’s resources and expect to live this way forever. We don’t get to grossly overpopulate the earth and evade death without consequences. All of this disobeys nature’s one rule, so it will fail. We can prolong facing the consequences all we want, but in the long run it won’t matter. Nature won’t punish us for it either; it will simply continue it’s pattern of self-sustenance whether we’re here or not.

So like I said, since there really is no good or bad, go ahead and continue living the way you are. It’s okay. Just understand that in the end, nature is always right.