in the garden of good and evil..

“I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want.” (Romans 7:18)

the more you want what you can’t have, the more you desire it… think about the prohibition of alcohol in the 1920’s; rendering the sale and consumption of alcohol illegal… the desire for the consumption of alcohol was so great, people resorted to bootlegging alcohol leading to a whole network of an organized crime syndicate that controlled the blackmarket of the desired beverage…

psychology has a term for this and it’s called the “forbidden fruit effect” or the “romeo and juliet effect”… we’ve all heard the stories related to both of these topics… adam, eve, the serpent and the apple… romeo, juliet, a bitter family feud and crashing a party… each scenario or such similarities have given us such sayings like, “the forbidden is sure to be sweeter” or “the more forbidden the fruit, the sweeter the juice”…

here i sit in the early morning hours on palm sunday trying to figure out how to confess my thoughts during the next reconciliation day… i cannot even think of which commandment or commandments i am breaking it would fall under… i know it is sure to be a sin, surely mortal, definitely not a venial sin… surely one of the *mournful cello music playing off in the distance* “seven deadly sins”… those are the sins that are transgressions which are fatal to spiritual growth and progress (the really bad ones that can supposedly turn your soul black and earn you an eternity in hell, not even a pitstop in purgatory)…

lust of the flesh: lust, sloth, gluttony… lust of the eyes: greed… pride of life: pride, anger, envy... it is said that once you give into one of these seven sins, the other six are more that ready to seep into your soul… within our own mind, we know that there are those dark shadows within our heart that make those sins beckon to us like the sweetest honey or call to us like the sirens posed upon the rocks to passing sailors ultimately luring them to their deaths..

i came across an explanation for sins and vices… although somewhat similar, there is a base, intrinsic difference… sin is basically an omission, like a ‘white lie’ or a violation, sort of like a speeding ticket, but against your virtues… now a vice, those are the tricky guys… they are like building blocks to one’s character, like a trait such as kindness, humility, compassion… those are rooted at the soul of one’s being, it makes one who they are..

for eons, as told through legends and myths, there is a constant struggle between good and evil, between light and dark… where you have virtues, you have sins… when reading more about sins, the forbidden fruit and things your shouldn’t have or do… it is all a vicious cycle: forbidden fruit, sin, forbidden fruit, sin and round and round it goes, where it stops, nobody knows…

speaking of the spiritual aspect of the sin/forbidden fruit side of my struggle, the human nature side of it is about the basic want of wanting what you can’t have… strangely, it’s related to basic curiosity and surprisingly, reverse psychology… in the case of curiosity is the greek myth of pandora and the box zeus told her not to look in to… she wanted to look, but knew she wasn’t supposed to by order of the king of all the gods… the box was pandora’s forbidden fruit… a strong sense of anxiousness and an overwhelming sense of curiosity finally got the best of pandora and she opened it thus letting out of the box all the scourge upon the earth…

one part of my own character is to internally analyze everything within my own world and analyze that of which i feel i have control over outside of my world… every which way i analyze it, the outcome comes to nothing... this struggle, this war i am waging within my heart and soul is a daunting one, but i am accepting of it knowing it is silently fought for naught… it involves a person whose soul and spirit is vibrant and bright it is almost blinding, their voice is so passionate when they speak, even on the most mundane of topics, you feel as if you hang on their every word, their mannerisms are so kind and gentle, their laughter and humor utterly genuine…

one might even say to give in to taking a bite of your forbidden fruit is to be careful of what you wish for, you may not like it as in the case of pandora's box… “an indulgence or a pleasure that is illegal or is believed to be immoral. “ as defined in freedictionary.com is what forbidden fruit means… most of us attribute this to adam and eve and the serpent in the garden of eden… but in my internal battle, there is no adam, there is no eve and there is no garden of eden… the forbidden fruit and the wars of sins and vices over virtues will rage on silently until the day good triumphs over evil and prayer triumphs over self-analysis..