Living in a world where the narratives are constantly changing, can be tough. For two simple reasons:
A. It is not easy to undo the effect of your conditioning. B. Mostly, there are no immediate consequences of being ‘bad’.
You really want to be a good person, though, and that gives rise to dilemma.
With her latest piece Being Problematic, Rega Jha makes some very strong points about this.
She is trying to say that the line between a ‘good’ person and a ‘bad’ person is blurry.
The good people, as we know them, have done bad things too, and they deal with that guilt every day. This includes herself.
And she says, the stories she was told as a kid are of no use. Because they have set ideas about how ‘good’ girls are people are supposed to be.
One of them being, ‘a good person brings down the bad one’. Which she admits, she was very good at. But later realised it is difficult enough always trying to be nice, attaching shame just makes it worse.
You can listen to watch the entire video, here:
