Being a Better Person is a Farce.
Exploring the fallacies and futility behind being a better person for meaning and purpose.
There’s no such thing as becoming a “better person”—only a more knowledgeable version of yourself.
Self-knowledge is the key to success, in any aspect of your life. This is why the people of ancient Kemet emphasized the timeless proverb “Know thyself.” on many of their temple inscriptions.
To become a better person is a futile attempt at an unachievable objective. By default, this earthly realm is full of suffering, death, pain, and stress.
Good things happen to bad people, and bad things happen to good people all the time. This shows that the universal and spiritual forces of life are not respecters of persons. Even the concept of someone being a good person is only a matter of a perception agreed upon. How you make someone feel in one moment could not only change in the next, but the same feeling could be impossible in another towards you. Someone could not even think you being a good person is a possibility. Well, what is a good or bad person if it’s a matter of perspective? Who has the final say?
Some would say your life’s doings are inscribed on your soul and none go ignored by God. You will be judged on Judgment Day when God backs to get his people. Then you have Santa Claus who’s making his list, checking it twice, and he’s going to find out who’s naughty or nice. This same guy sees you when you’re sleeping, and when you’re awake so his omniscience of your character is also present. Then you have John Q, played by Denzel Washington, who in an attempt to save his son and get a heart transplant, takes hostages at a hospital to get his dying son higher on the donor list. Some would say he’s a good person. Others would deem him a criminal, while others would say he should have waited or even accepted his son’s condition as a part of life.
The Gnostics, however, had an interesting view of the world. One that gives a cut-and-dry approach to life and blunt conclusion on why the world is the way it is.
For gnostics, a person is saved not by having faith in Christ or by doing good works. Rather, a person is saved by knowing the truth—the truth about the world we live in, about who the true God is, and especially about who we ourselves are. In other words, this is largely self-knowledge: Knowledge of where we came from, how we got here, and how we can return to our heavenly home. According to most gnostics, this material world is not our home. We are trapped here, in these bodies of flesh, and we need to learn how to escape.1
The last part deserves further contemplation. These material bodies consist of death, murder, pain, regret, disappointments, stress, disease, and many other painful experiences. These are inescapable, inevitable, and unabating. No matter who you are, where you’re from, and what language you speak, in this human body you will always have imperfections, survival is a basic necessity, and you will experience pain throughout your life.
Is nature beautiful? To some, yes. To others, you cannot trust anyone in the world. So what’s the point of living? What is the point of being here? What is the motivation to live a long life?
This is where self-knowledge comes in. “Knowledge of where we came from, how we got here, and how we can return to our heavenly home.” Sounds interesting, especially since this knowledge is gained through our intuition, our gut, that part of us that is always right. If there is inherently a part of you that is always right, defies logic and reason, and increases your self-esteem when heeded, this must mean that relying heavily on logic, what makes “sense”, and the visible realm cause you to forget yourself. Dis-membering yourself.
Only a more re-membered you can find salvation and escape the suffering of this material body. Putting the pieces of you back together.
You were not born in sin, nor is there anything wrong with you. There are infinite causes and effects that could cause anything and everything to happen. In this material realm, there is no perfection. You cannot achieve perfection. By default, there is something you will find wrong about yourself, along with others outside of you. You will make mistakes. You will hurt other people. You will suffer pain, stress, and heartache. These are all activities done in and born out of ignorance. Ignorance runs this realm and ignorance is the ultimate enemy. Ignorance of yourself leads to ignorance of the universe.
This is the process of alchemy the ancients spoke of. Turning lead into gold. Coming from darkness into light. From ignorance into knowledge.
This process of knowledge usually involves returning to your childhood. We marvel at children because they are innocent, untainted, and unrestrained by the stressful constraints of this world. They represent freedom, authenticity, and pure wonder and adventure. It is through the process of “growing up” that the parts that once gave you freedom (imagination and intuition) are discarded for the material possessions and temporal containers of value we are programmed to hold dear.
Through it all, uncovering your innocence, that child that came from the spiritual realm…that is your salvation. By default, both ends must be in the same place. Coming into earth, there is no blank slate. You arrive with knowledge, carried by your soul, spirit, and your DNA. Although you have lived here, you are here once more to learn lessons. To undergo the illusion of not knowing to go through the process of coming into knowledge, wisdom, and understanding of yourself. Every part of yourself- your natural skills, talents, abilities and the utilization of them for the fulfillment of your purpose.
Self-knowledge is the goal for it is through knowing oneself that one can have the confidence to achieve anything. This attainment of salvation through the pursuit of self-knowledge is the adventure. Frodo Baggins leaving the Shire, taking on the task of destroying the ring. The ring representing all material temptations that are the default energies of this realm, whose goal is to trap one into earthly existence. To proliferate and maintain the ignorance of one’s divinity and spiritual origin beyond this earth. Most importantly, the realization of one’s higher rank than this realm.
So as aforementioned, there is no point in becoming a better person. This place is temporal and you are eternal. A better temporary and illusory version of you is futile.
As the old folks used to say, “I’m just passing through.”
Bart D. Ehrman, "Christianity Turned on Its Head: The Alternative Vision of the Gospel of Judas", in The Gospel of Judas (2006) ed. by R. Kasser, M. Meyer and G. Wurst, p. 84