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The Ten Commandments maintain an extraordinary hold on our imaginations even though many of them can sound – in
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the context of our own times – really rather peculiar, with injunctions not to
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covet a neighbour’s livestock or to make sure one doesn't carve images of god-like figures in the rocks.
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The Commandments were responses to the specific needs of a small nomadic
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community, wandering the Sinai peninsula with goats and sheep around
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1,200 BC. Our needs have, predictably, changed a bit since then.
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But a place for rules remains: because we're still
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horribly prone to violence, cruelty and self-righteousness and need regularly to be reminded of how to
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live peacefully and well with ourselves and our neighbours.
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What would it be like to try to update the commandments for our own times?
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Here is a go...
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The good person is at all times
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highly aware of their flaws and committed to becoming a better version of themselves.
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They are not insulted if people point out their need for evolution, even when they do this rather clumsily.
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A good person believes in ongoing need for moral and phsycological education..
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The good person knows that everyone is deeply damaged and a little mad, starting with (of course) themselves.
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They are unfrightened by their own strangeness and are committed to informing those around
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them of it in very good time, and apologising retrospectively when they have failed to do so.
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They understand that part of their duty is to have a ready answer to the legitimate question,
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‘And how are you crazy?’
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The good person is loyal in relationships not because they
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think their lover is perfect, but because they know that everyone is pretty imperfect
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and rather hard to live with at close range. They accept that the only people we can ever
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think of as normal or easy are people we don’t yet know very well.
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The good person knows that it is impossible to be wholly understood by anyone and accepts that things are going
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well if one is very lonely in around only half of the key areas of one’s life.
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The good person tries hard never to assume that other people should know what they are
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thinking of or want without them having told them very clearly and kindly. They try to resist sulking (behaviour that stems
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from an incensed belief that others should know why we are upset without us having told them)
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and are committed to teaching others about the contents of their minds.
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The good person looks at people who are behaving badly as if they might be small children;
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that is with patience, charity and an active search for mitigating circumstances. Though
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our societies stress the insult of being treated as younger than one is, the good person knows
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it is the greatest privilege for anyone to look beyond the apparently strong yet nasty
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adult to the worried, anxious and probably really rather nice child within.
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Confronted with a piece of stupidity or evil which they could never be guilty of, the good person doesn’t fall
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into self-righteousness. They swiftly remember all the many stupid and evil things they have
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at other points, over different things, been guilty of. They don’t lose sight of how
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much they overall stand in need of the charity and forgiveness of others.
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The good person is committed to searching for the funny side of people who might appear merely desperately
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irritating. They look at others like characters in a comedy rather than a tragedy. They know
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that the greatest achievement is to be able to move from seeing someone as an ‘idiot’
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to considering them as that most privileged of beings: a ‘loveable idiot.’
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The good person is a firm believer in restraint and in not immediately saying certain things
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that are on their minds. They hold that being fully oneself entails a level
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of melodrama and rage that one should spare any human one cares about.
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The good person knows that the best protection against impatience and paranoia is a little gently-worn pessimism.
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They budget for disappointment far ahead of time. They don’t cry constantly only because
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they have understood that the whole of existence is – in many ways – worthy of tears. Their
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constant awareness of the possibility of death and catastrophe makes them especially appreciative
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of small things that happen to go well. They relish flowers, balmy skies and so-called
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‘boring days’ when everyone manages to go to bed relatively content and at peace.
