Good and Evil

I was talking with a great friend from high school tonight. We'd both had a decent amount to drink, slo our conversation was rather rambling. We talked about the regular bullshit, i.e catching up on old frinds, relationships, etc., but then the conversation segwayed into more esoteric and frivilous topics, like stand-up comedy, music and...good and evil.

One of my all-time favorite bands (if not my current favorite), is Coheed and Cambria. Being that I tend to over-analyze everything I do and like and say (I attribute this to Dean having his degree in psychology), I am going to assume I like them for a few reasons.

1. My natural father's favorite band is Rush, the absolute pinnacle of prog rock, and I essentially cut my rock'n'roll teeth on Rush. and Coheed is prog rock as well- nerdy, well-executed, tightly woven rock music. I love anything well done, and Coheed, on a scale of 1-10, goes to an 11.

2. They mix pop sensebilities (think the Beatles), with some heavy fucking guitar riffs and, according to Dean, a radically unsung bass player. Oh, and the drums are super hard to play on Rock Band.

3. There is a story, in fact, a comic book (or graphic novel for you true nerds) that ties in with their albums. The story is extremly complicated and I don't fully grasp the finer points, but the overlying story arc is that of good and evil, which brings me to my ultimate point.

Good and Evil It's why people love the Bible and religion in general. It's why Star Wars, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings are so wildly sucessful. Everyone loves a self-sacraficing hero.

There are a few things in this world that most people can agree on. Love, be it romantic love or love for one's child. And, truth be told, a second escapes me, so I'll go straight to the third: wanting good to win over evil. Why do we love this so much? Is it because within every person we battle with our own good and evil? Is it because, out of guilt, we recognize evil in ourselves so much more than we recognize the good, yet, due to conditioning and human nature, we want our good to ultimatley win, and we view the good as a hero? Are we our own enemies, and we can't see the hero that lies within all of us?

Speaking for myself, I strive every day to be a good person. I let people in front of me in traffic, I hold the door on the elevator at work, I'm even getting a degree in human services to better humanity. What I wonder though, is do I do this out of good, or out of some sort of perverse self-preservation? Kind of like a karmic calculator: If I have X amount of bad thoughts, but do Y amount of good things, will it all even out in the end? Or are humans just all inherintly evil, and the thought of God and an eternity of hell or even just plain bad karma keep us on our best behavior?

I readily, and easily, self-destruct. I drink too much wine, smoke (only at night though-like this somehow makes it ok), eat too much, don't excersise nearly enough- yet I want to be good. I want to help people, but I also want the self-satisfaction that comes from knowing I helped someone.

Yet I can't seem to help myself. What the fuck?