The Insidious Infinite Finite
Evil is the counterpoint of Life. Philosophers have defined it as the "absence of Good."
To me it is the Cruel... I see it as very small by contrast to the infinitely surrounding life-force. Small, yet fatally potent, trapped inside of us humans— trapped inside of us alone.
It's a flash, an involuntary reflex (not necessarily acted on). One which creeps out of hiding like a morbid arachnid from the deepest recesses of our primordial mind. The impulse to harm or wrong, ourselves or another. I'm sure you've seen it, felt it, clocked it, checked it, swept it beneath the tufts of your hair. There it remains: vile, corrupting. That thing that cannot be retracted, because unlike the evening news fed by talking heads, our own imaginings cannot be redacted. The self— sabotaged by ideas vile and terminal—
cannot but wonder with fear whether such escaped thoughts have scampered across our very facial features, and left a shadow! no, a trail, or worse a McBethian stain! These are thoughts not fully expressed, nor even genuinely felt, they're just latently there... surfacing, and perceived almost as if already committed (hate, spite, envy, intolerance, etc.). The more sensitive the individual, the more vivid the nightmare. A sinful familial treachery, contrasting the best and the worst, of our humanity.
The Negative lurks in the back of the mind, waiting as if for our delicate scales to tip. Will we slip off the edge... into what we viscerally feel is wrong, insane, unjustifiable? We offer help to an outstretched hand, but then at times spontaneously our internal mental spool runs an image of horror and animosity... as if to spit at that hand, or slash it off... ideas completely foreign, unwelcomed, uninvited... causing us to recoil from our own wretched selves... curb our inexplicable anger, impatience, greed... that seed of Evil.
Having not acted on these impulses, we want to defend that we are Good in the balance.... Yet all that we can really offer is our belief that it is so. And Belief, even in our own minds, is a poor ally; it always saves room for Doubt. Hence we feel, by in large, ill at ease. We call into question whether we are really "free," or merely "complete" in fullness of our potential—for Good or for Evil—which notabley, is the first definition of "perfect." (Not ideal; merely whole.) Someone once asked me, "do you think you could ever do something really horrific? Like murder, torture, etc.?!" And desperately wanting to shout No! instead I heard myself reply: "One never knows when one will snap..."