A flash of insight whispered the word into my ears. I started focusing on that word: Good. Yes. Good is the word to be brought under the analytical lenses of the logical mind. What is so special about this word? We use it mindlessly (I mean without thinking) as often as we use the word useless. We use it more often than the word arrogance and shameless. It is just the expression of a different kind of feeling. All of us associate it with pleasantness. We tend to use a word called ‘not’ in front of it to associate it with unpleasantness in spite of the fact that an exactly opposite word exists in the dictionary. Still, I felt, little more focus on this word should be order of the day. Initial focus revealed a set of usual constructs which are part of our day to day life. Those constructs are : good books, good people, good food and good medicine. I stopped at that point. I knew more focus will reveal a large number of things after the word good and analysis would become more complex. It is time to analyze the limited list. It is an undisputable fact that all the four are desperately wanted and chased by every Tom, Dick and Harry under appropriate context for the particular thing for e.g. good medicine when you are sick. The question is how desperately? Analytical lenses of my mind fully opened up. First thing revealed by the analysis was pretty intuitive and not easy to perceive. Everyone is chasing good part of all phrases. Not the full phrase! Everyone wants it because someone else says it is good. No one knows for sure what they are really chasing. Then I thought what is common to all the listed phrases. Immediate answer is the obvious word ‘good’. It is common to all four things. Somehow it was not at all convincing. Here is what further analysis revealed. It should blow your mind. Good books are not liked in the beginning of the reading exercise. Most of the time, first few pages turn out to be boring. It can be boring to the extent of driving you away from the book itself. Generally, when you cross the hurdle of first few pages of a good book; you are setting yourself up for a life changing experience. At times you may even have to repeat the reading of the book a number of times before getting the real message the book stands for. A good book always delivers new meanings, every time it is read. In all probability, the advice coming from Good people is not to your liking. Their advice or the word may even hurt you. Actually, they speak from the higher perspective of your good in their mind. If you listen to them, I guarantee you that your life will be simpler. Look back at your life, count the number of times you have disliked true advice. I am willing to bet on my life to say that the count you produce is a measure of your success in life. Larger the number, larger would be your failure. Really healthy good food tastes bland and will not be liked. It is peculiar that identification of good food is associated with the taste. Everyone will say that sugar tastes good and hence sugar is a good food. Research, clearly indicates otherwise. On the contrary bitter gourd qualifies to be called as a good food whereas very few like the taste of it. Medical research indicates the fact by mentioning the food value in terms of calories and other nutrients. Better test for good food would be to look at the calorific value and arrive at your own list. Check that list. I am willing to bet most of the items landing on your list will not form an appealing set of eatables for your tongue. You will become and remain healthy, if you force yourself to eat them, despite the taste. You will not like the taste of good medicine. Most of the medicines taste bitter. Just because of this you resort to several wasteful camouflaging techniques to suppress the bitterness. By chance, if you arrive at a conclusion, you are not going to like it. That is the reason number one why I am allowing you to do just that!
The word "Good" can equate to "benign" or "desirable/pleasurable" but need not mean both at the same time. There is no great truth in what is basically a play on the meaning of a word. In most cases people intend the latter meaning when using the word and do not imply that the "good" thing is actually beneficial.
