Goodness is sexy

Murder and poetry do battle

Goodness is sexy.

I have made one or two bad choices when it came romantic relationships, but mostly it is goodness I have fallen for.

‘Goodness’ is a topic my brain fiddles with a lot, the way fingers fiddle with labels torn off beer bottles.

‘Meanness’, is the opposite of ‘goodness’ for me. Not ‘evil’.

Image by Sebastian Kusenberg

Ulrike Meinhof was a German journalist and a pacifist-turned-terrorist. Her story is compelling because of how the impulse towards goodness might flip into murder.

The impulse towards goodness can also get tangled up in itself when you’re faced with difficult choices, like the one Rosa Feigel is faced with in Nadia Davids’ exceptional play Hold Still.

Last week I came across a long-form article that wonders whether a lack of moral education might be one of the reasons America Got Mean. It was stimulating reading.

That, and conversations with a writer I am coaching whose work requires him to negotiate the fine line between hope and despair daily, reminded me of an essay I wrote about silence, poetry, terror – and how I try to stay out of mischief.