Desire Good

GOOD

Truth is a journey.

When a person wants truth, then that person starts to seek it and hopes to find it in the end.

That is a journey, is it not?

Well, the truth for you to "desire good" is simply this ... to desire good is for you to move towards gathering ... something.

I'll explain.

"Good" is an arbitrary term. It is subjective. It is left to opinion of what good is. "Good" is often defined as something of favorable quality. But why is that? How did "good" come to represent something of favorable quality? What is the rationale for that thinking?

The thing about the term "good" is that cultures have reinvented the true meaning of "good" and have fashioned it to mean something that is was not originally intended to mean.

That ideology is not really all that surprising to you is it? I mean, the way people change the definitions of words in order for the definitions to fit their agendas or their narratives? That practice is old as dirt and is nothing new. So it shouldn't be a surprise because that is how cultures use language ... to fit their own agendas and their own narratives in order to gain the supreme authority on a matter.

In my native culture (USA), for instance, we are taught that the term "good" is a quality or a state of being, as in, "I am a good person" or "You are a good person" or "We are doing good" or "That feels good".

Have you ever heard of the saying, "Be calm, cool, and collected"? Well, that last word ... "collected" ... that is something of what "good" is supposed to mean in a kinda sorta way of hodge-podging the definition of it.

So if we were to put the term "collected" into those other phrases above, then they would look something like these, "I am a person who is collected" or "You are a person who is collected" or "We are people who are collected" or "I feel collected", except, the terms that should be used would really be something like "gathered", "united", "fitting", "pleasing", "suitable", or "brought together". It's just the ways that terminology plugs in really isn't the grammar we are accustomed to using in those expressions.

However, can you see where it makes sense that "good" should be understood as meaning those things, especially, since "evil" has the opposite meaning of good, which would be "un-gathered", "un-united", "un-fitting", "un-pleasing", "un-suitable", or "not brought together"?

The term "good" then, as mentioned at the start, is a process of gathering. It is the process of gathering "something". What? That is the question. What is it that a person is gathering, uniting, bringing together, fitting, and being pleased about?

Consider the question, "How are you doing?" Is not the common reply simply one word?

"Good"

That is the most common reply, and it basically means, "I am collected." But what is it that has brought the person to this quality of being? Do you see where the short-cut is?

"I am a good person." OK. Why is that so? What caused you to be "good"?

Enters in the reason for the collected state of being. This is where truth gets really "different".

This is what I mean ... that which is "good" for you, I may considered not good for me.

Woah! That is deep!

This means that "good" is now arbitrary and left up to the opinion of the person determining what is and what is not good.

So what a person is "gathering" or what a person finds as doing the effect of gathering might be "good" for one's self while that same journey taken by someone else may not be acceptable to that person for self.

This changes the quality then of what is good depending on opinion.

Technically, what person who is alive is not a "good" person since all people do things that please self?

I imagine we all are "good" people in that sense since we all "gather" things, right?

So let's check this out to a dictionary that has some historical background to it.

Please consider the origins of the term "good" as it is laid out in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) of 1888 below.

An example from history, places the term "good" in such a context also that is yet again arbitrary but to a decision held by a person outside of one's self. In the book of Mark in the New Testament, Jesus had a conversation with a person, and it went like this, "And when he was gone forth into the way, there came one running, and kneeled to him, and asked him, Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? And Jesus said unto him, Why do you call me good? there is none good but one, that is, God." Mark 10:17-18

The focus of Jesus here was on what we do as people isn't "good" because we don't know what "to gather", in that, we don't know what is pleasing, what is fitting, what is bringing together, nor what is uniting ... not within our own self-enlightenment, that is.

Jesus' remark in that conversation was that only God knows what is good or what needs to be united. That is why Jesus did not consider himself "good". It was because he was doing his Father's business of putting things together and not his own business. If you know a little bit about Jesus' ministry, then that makes sense. He said things like he came not to do own will but the will of him who had sent him. So, yes, the originally intended definition of "good" does fit just fine in that context.

That definition of "good" then puts people, even Jesus, himself, out of pocket as to what the right thing is to do ... without first finding out from God, himself, what he wants done. In that sense, Jesus didn't see himself as a "good" person as it was his Father's plan.


DESIRE

In another setting, just before Jesus was put to death, he sat with his disciples and spoke the follow, "And when the hour was come, he sat down, and the twelve apostles with him. And he said unto them, With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer:" Luke 22:14-15

Later, in the scriptures, another writer, to a group of people he called the "Colossians", wrote, "If you then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sits on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth." Colossians 3:1-2

That term "affection" is akin to "seeking", which involves "moving" but describes what type of intensity in movement.

When I think of both "desire" and "good", both are arbitrary terms to me. What is it that I moving towards? What is it that I am gathering once I get there? More importantly, is what I doing what I am supposed to be doing?

Without a historical dictionary, I would find it very difficult for me to write to you because, without it, I would have to hope that your understanding of the English language is comparable to mine. In general, ours are probably comparable, but also, in general, the words we have learned in order for us to survive in each our own culture probably do not share the same exact cultural reference.

Even though I was born, raised, and have spent my residential life in the USA, there are words that I use every day that I have to use in the way that this present culture uses them in order for me to convey meaning. When I realized that the way we use words today oddly is often not what the words meant when they first were created, I was shocked. Yes. For real. So many of the words we use every day are not true to their origins. Upon realizing that, I took my hobby of having fun to research English words from a hobby into a way of life. Now, I understand the English language in like a dual-language approach. I understand many words as they were originally intended or at least how they were originally created, AND I understand how my current culture uses, misuses, corrupts, and changes words to fit its narrative. It's honestly mind-boggling.

Take a journey with me OK?

Slow our mind down in a little historical fun.

Please look studiously at the origins of the terms "desire" and "good" and terms related to them below.

Each word or term (in the pictures below) ... the terms that are in bold are the terms being defined. After defined term is the pronounciation of the term. After that, the terms that look like alternative spellings of the defined term are exactly that. Those are historical spellings. The numbers in front of the historical spellings are the places later on in the definition where you will find those spellings used in historical written works. After the historical spellings and their locations in the definitions is the area (when offered) between the square brackets [ ]. The area between the brackets [ ] usually give you the collaborating terms from other languages as well as the foundational English terms that created the defined term. Sometimes, a commentary is offered to further clarify the way the defined term was researched, used, or whatever else was thought at the time to be of benefit to you.

In the definitions below, I have highlighted the English language terms to help you more readily find the English terminology. There is a lot of text there that is unfamiliar to a native English user, so as a note of caution ... the way the Oxford English Dictionary of 1888 laid out the information the text causes me some intellectual trouble in understanding because of the format by which the information is presented. For me, I to have to get my mind into the mode of the way the editors printed it and used their abbreviations and such. After I slow my mind down to take in the format, then I usually can flow with the format. It is easy to just skim over the formatting and miss the entire beauty of the work the editors did with their research.

Please review the origins of each of the definitions (in yellow). It is a strange way, even to me, to understand a defined term in the Oxford. If you will, please read the information a few times because you are looking at the origins of the terms (the true definition) instead of today's popular usages of the terms, which are often listed as numerical entries below the brackets [ ]. The true definitions usually are not in sentence form but in single words or in short phrases. Also, I highlighted areas of commentary in pink. The green highlights are references to other terms to which the terms are related.

The definitions below are from the Oxford English Dictionary of 1888.

DESIRE - Below is the word sense development for the term "desire". The terms of "desiderate", "consider", "sideral", and "sidereal" are in the origins of the term "desire". The "sense-history of "desiderate" is unknown, however, when you look at the other terms related to it, it is not difficult to piece together that "desire" is like the mental and emotional senses of longing to explore the mysteries of the constellations - places that were physically impossible to explore at the time the dictionary below was printed.

GOOD - Below is the word sense development for the term "good". The terms of "gather", "gadling", "together", "samen", "sam", and some derivatives of "same" are in the origins of the term "good".

So? What do you think? It's pretty interesting from where English terms come from, isn't it? Seeking out what the terms mean is like a mystery and an adventure! I think it is fun ... lots and lots of fun! It's trying to find truth! :)

Well, for now, I have to go. I am currently working on another website that will be a continuation of this study as well as of other studies. Please bookmark this website and check back every few weeks or so. Thank you! May God bless you with his presence in your life!