Page 103 of In This Iron Ground
“You are?”
“Not. I’m just not.”
“Okay. Let’s take another step back. In your opinion, because this differs from one person’s perspective to another’s, what makes a good person? What characteristics, behaviours, et cetera would they have?”
“I don’t know…” Damien paused. “The way they treat others, I guess.”
“Okay. What types of behaviours would qualify as making that person good?”
“I don’t know. Like…when they do something, are they thinking of how that’s going to impact someone else? Is it going to help someone—like, I don’t know, make them happy or give them something—or is it going to hurt them? I mean. I guess you can’t know for sure the impact of something until it happens, but that’s, like, mistakes. Being good is…your intention and, like. The effort you put into behaving in a way that does good instead of harm, even if it’s not the easiest thing.”
“So how good or bad someone is should be judged primarily on how they treat others, in your definition of the concepts,” Mandy clarified.
“Yeah. Like, treating people with like a threshold of respect. People can earn more or less respect, I guess, through their actions, but you should treat others well no matter your, like, position or money or race or whatever as a rule.”
“Okay. That makes a lot of sense to me. Now, how do you fit into this definition of good and bad? Because it’s all well and good for me to tell you, or even a loved one to tell you, that you are good, but whatIjudge to be good may be different from whatyoujudge to be good. How do you fit into your own view of morality?”
The silence fell heavier this time. It was true that other people—Mia, for one—had told Damien he was a good person. But it had never felt real.
“I don’t know,” he said finally. It was like trying to push together two puzzle pieces that didn’t fit.
“Do you enjoy treating people badly?”
“No. No.”
“When you encounter someone, are most of your intentions to help them, or harm them?”
“I mean…help them, I guess. I mean, I don’t want to harm them.”
“Give me an example. Take your time thinking about it. Just one example of something you do that shows you are thinking about causing good, or helping someone. One act of kindness.”
Damien thought. “I…don’t know. Um. I guess, sometimes, when I’m in a public bathroom and someone else is going to pee I turn on the tap so they won’t, like, feel self-conscious of the noise, you know?”
“That’s a very good example. Can you conclude that, in that instance, you were a good person?”
“I…” Damien’s throat simply closed up. It refused to make that leap, his brain disconnecting from his lungs so that there was not enough breath to speak.
The silence stretched. Mandy smiled kindly.
“It sounds to me like you have a very sturdy perspective on morality, Damien. On good and bad. However, sometimes, you canknowsomething is true in the most logical sense of the word, but you don’tfeelit’s true. It can feel like we’re running on two different tracks—logic and emotion—and those can lead us to different places. And, most of the time, the emotion track can have a lot more influence on where we end up than the logical one. We can have logical beliefs, and then we can have emotional beliefs, and these can differ.
“What that means is that we may hold emotional beliefs that we try to tackle purely with a logical argument, resulting in a lot of spent energy for little change. So, for example, you may know, deep down, or when you look at the situation analytically, that you are not bad, because you don’t harm others. But youfeelbad. Does that sound at all familiar, or like it would fit how you feel and think about this topic?”
“Yeah,” Damien said truthfully. “It’s like…I can’t give you areasonfor why I feel this way about myself. I just…do.”
“Maybe, Damien, the voice that is telling you that you’re bad isn’t yours.”
Damien’s eyes flicked towards her before looking away again. He could feel his muscles tense.
“The truth is, Damien, that we all internalize ideas and beliefs from outside sources. Society, culture, other people. When those outside stimuli are very consistent, it’s normal for our body to adapt to them as if it were the heat of the desert and the humidity of the jungle. In a way, it’s your body trying to survive. But a lot of the time, those stimuli can be completely incorrect, and you can adapt to an environment that isn’t real—or that ends.”
“That makes sense,” Damien said quietly after a moment.
“Has the idea that you’re bad ever been sold to you? Through words, or actions, or the environment you were put in?” Mandy asked.
Damien’s mind blanked. They had talked around the McKenzies enough for Mandy to guess the nature of what had happened, but no specifics had ever been voiced.
The silence stretched on and on. Damien couldn’t speak. It was like having a scary creature behind him. He couldn’t bear to turn and look.
