The gauntlet of existence

A few are heroes, a few are villains, and the rest fall somewhere in between. This is the distribution of good and evil amongst humanity, and reality modifies it. If nothing affected us, if no forces influenced our thoughts, words and deeds, the distribution would stay the same. But that isn’t life. Life makes a mess of intentions, forcing us to choose this path over that one, to go that way instead of this way.

Did you ever see those game shows which required the competitors to run the gauntlet? They had a path to follow, but there were obstacles put there to unbalance them, to knock them off their course and make them fall into water or mud or a net. This is how the distribution of good and evil is altered. We walk, and try to avoid the obstacles swinging across our path. Sometimes, we deftly step past them. Sometimes, we get hit, yet manage to maintain our balance and avoid the fall. Other times the impact is pure and undeniable, and so we tumble. Battered by circumstance, we fall into the respective mud pits of good or evil. 

Kind or cruel, generous or mean, courageous or cowardly; which we become is both a choice and a consequence of how exactly we’re hit by the obstacles of existence.