Some thoughts on Goodness

In the Traditional Chinese Medicine system, everything is predicated on Qi, including how we feel and behave toward other people.

Things like empathy, care, honor, and duty are not attitudes, but something more material: the pure Qi of the Universe as it makes its way in and out of us and is shared with someone else.

When we feel and behave poorly toward others, it is because our own Qi has become disordered in some way (how this happens is manifold - personal hardship, trauma, diet, illness, loss, worry, conditioning). On its journey through a disordered system, Goodness becomes something less than Good.

There is no such thing as "good Qi" or "bad Qi" per se... Qi can be in a state of order or disorder; moving in accordance with a beneficial natural order or not. The former we might call Goodness.

Qi is shared, including disordered Qi… When our caregivers and peers model for us something maleficent and it sticks (and Qi from one’s in-group is stickier than we like to admit), then maleficence is what we will put back out into the world.

Lastly, Goodness is sometimes destructive… When a predator tries to steal your child, you rage and tear. Until the threat is gone.

I suppose the point of these thoughts is to highlight the assumption that Chinese Medicine makes about where Goodness comes from, what it looks like, and the interconnectedness of things.

Goodness is a natural resource as vital to our well-being and survival as clean food, air, and water.

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[PS: No post on Monday. Our family will be enjoying two days off together in a row.]