In my Awesomeness Has No Cost post I talked about how it is possible to perceive everything in this world as awesome. In response to this I had a brief discussion with Jennifer in the comments of her thinking experiment post in regards to awesomeness being present in evil.

I want to take this opportunity to elaborate further on this topic as it is something that is easy to misunderstand and draw incorrect conclusions from. For the purpose of this post I will have evil refer to the notion of incorrect or wrong action.

Here is what we need to understand:

• Everything is awesome at the core
• Thoughts and Emotions wrap awesomeness
• Action is spawned through compulsion

Everything is Awesome at the Core

Underneath the labels, the preconceived notions and the ideas everything and everyone is awesome.

This is the pure natural state of things. It can only really be appreciated and understood however when you yourself reach within and find your own natural state.

Discovering this was the topic of my last awesomeness post which is worthwhile reading. If you cannot discover your own awesomeness it will be impossible to see the awesomeness of someone doing something evil.

Thoughts and Emotions wrap Awesomeness

Our natural state is one of awesomeness. Throughout our day thoughts and emotions come up and these obscure our view of awesomeness causing us to lose our grasp on it.

The awesomeness does not however disappear. It is always present.

Consider awesomeness as a lightly glowing ball.

Whenever a thought or emotion captures us it is like putting the ball into a plastic bag.

As thought after thought piles on the ball becomes further obscured until it is so well hidden that all that can be perceived is a crinkly mass of plastic.

Thoughts and emotions are not awesomeness. They are additions like magnets on a fridge. It is important to be able to distinguish between them and realise that they are separate entities.

Only when you strip away the layers of thoughts and emotions can you see awesomeness.

Action is Spawned through Compulsion

If you watch yourself carefully you will see that a lot of your own actions are driven by the thoughts and emotions inside of you. We are often compelled to do certain things.

The classic example is when insulted we get irritated and say mean things back. Another example is that when we see yummy food we feel like eating even if we are not really hungry.

Many of our little actions during the day are created through this sort of cause and effect compulsion, from thoughts and emotions. It is an interesting experiment to watch yourself and verify this.

It is important for me to add that not all action is driven in this way from thoughts and emotions and nor does it have to be. But many actions do come to be through this.

The Action may not be Awesome but the Person Still Is

What I am getting at here is that no matter how evil a persons actions are they are still a human being. At the core there is something that is the same in everyone and that is perfect.

When someone has their headphones in and bumps through you without a sign of remorse their awesomeness is simply not evident due to them being captivated by thoughts and emotions.

I have not talked to any criminal offenders but I would expect that everything they did was for a reason (thought) or because they lost control (through emotions), the same goes for all of us on a smaller scale.

Every single one of us is equally capable of great evil and acts unbecoming of being human but regardless we are still human inside.

With the understanding of how thoughts and emotions effect our actions then we can look past the external elements of a person and appreciate what is on the inside.

We are absolutely responsible for our actions, thoughts and emotions. But everyone is awesome behind these and that is something we should all remember.