Let's imagine a block of clay, wet, ready to be molded. We are that block at the moment of our birth. And, if the mineral composition of clay is the parallel to our genetics, the hands of those who will mold it are the parallel to the environment and our experiences.
The block is there, it's up to the hands to work on it and perfect it, give it shape and structure. Clay, before being a piece, was just clay. The person, at birth, is just a container ready to absorb information and knowledge.
We are clean, we are blank sheets. There are basic instincts that are in us from the beginning, but evil is not something that is born with us. I believe that every human being is basically good (in the sense of being pure); and, when it demonstrates the opposite, there is an explanation for this fact.
Committing evil comes from motives, from hard life stories, from bad examples, from cruelty, sometimes from lack of choice and some percentage of genetic inheritance. It is up to us not to recriminate and judge at the first minute. We should rather try to adapt and shape our vision so that we can try to understand why someone is like that.
“We are the result of a genetic percentage and environment. We are a heritage, our genetics in conjunction with our experiences.”
Empathy becomes essential. We must feel the other, see the world through his eyes and then introduce him to the world he does not see.
Point of view is just a point of view.
When the person is welcomed, he can also welcome and see what he looks at, but now from another perspective: the perspective of his interlocutor.
So she will be flexible, and we learn from the life story of this other being. Sometimes evil comes just for lack of opportunity, for lack of help. Sometimes we don't waste enough time to listen and, who knows, direct the other in a different perspective, show them options and alternative paths that, somehow, their anger doesn't allow them to see.
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We, as human beings, are a universe of possibilities; and when faced with disappointment, loss, pain, abandonment, lack of understanding, we can let our darkest side shine through.
When too much space is given to hurt and disbelief, feelings like sadness, anger or malice have more ground to blossom. It is up to the other to be a gardener, separating the wheat from the chaff and giving the good seeds a chance to grow.
If our life experience, the environment in which we move and the people we interact with are a huge weight in the balance of our personality, we must not forget what we carry within us, our genetic heritage, our cellular memory, which carries traces and stories of our ancestors.
We move between determinism and choice, between what we carry in us and what we choose for ourselves. We are overdetermined beings. This subject has been debated by the scientific community with some frequency: trying to understand what genetic percentage is present in who we are, in what determines our personality and attitudes. In this battle between genetics and environment, no definitive conclusions have yet been reached, except that both represent us powerfully in all matters of our experience.
enter the other
When we enter the other's mind, we can at least imagine their references. Doing intellectual work to understand it and relocate it is a talent that few excel in today's society.
In other words, the key is to be humble. This humility will be our entry mechanism into this universe that does not belong to us, but that we want to unveil. We have to be humble enough to know how to listen, to give space to those who need to speak.
We must especially listen with willingness and interest so that sincere empathy is created and the other feels safe so that we can enter their space. We must listen with the awareness that the other has qualities and capabilities and value them.
In our lifetime, we don't have time to deepen knowledge in all areas, to know about everything that interests us, but this other can be a door of knowledge, when we are willing to listen, to absorb. Humility comes from a very rational conscience, and we must let it be implemented in us as a mechanism of knowledge and opportunity.
“Being humble is the key to entering the universe of the other. It is the way we have to unravel and help.”
